rachel @ typed truths

Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

Meet Kate Malone – straight-A science and math geek, minister’s daughter, ace long-distance runner, new girlfriend (to Mitchell “Early Decision Harvard” Pangborn III), unwilling family caretaker, and emotional avoidance champion. Kate manages her life by organizing it as logically as the periodic table. She can handle it all – or so she thinks.

Then, things change as suddenly as a string of chemical reactions; first, the Malones’ neighbors get burned out of their own home and move in. Kate has to share her room with her nemesis, Teri Litch, and Teri’s little brother. The days are ticking down and she’s still waiting to hear from the only college she applied to: MIT. Kate feels that her life is spinning out of her control – and then, something happens that truly blows it all apart.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
Incest (father-daughter)
Child pregnancy
Pregnancy from rape
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a child
Death of a brother
Fire & loss of property
Electrocution
Bullying

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

For the past five years, Hayley Kincain and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

PTSD (theme)

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Graphic rape & attempted rape (theme)
Depression
Self-harm

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism, internalised ableism & ableist language
Racism & race riots (theme)
Anxiety & panic attacks
OCD & intrusive thoughts (protagonist)
Hospital
Blood & gore depiction
Emesis
Death of a mother discussed
Murder & attempted murder
Knife violence
Fire & being burned alive
Hostage situation
Displacement & homelessness

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera

Arthur is only in New York for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it’s that the universe can deliver a show stopping romance when you least expect it. Ben thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things. But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them? Maybe nothing. After all, they get separated. Maybe everything. After all, they get reunited… But what if it is?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia & coming out themes
Racism
Cheating recounted
Alcohol consumption
Hospitalisation for a panic attack (secondary character)

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she’s forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls, Celine quickly becomes enamored with the vibrant city from the music to the food to the soirées and—especially—to the danger. She soon becomes embroiled in the city’s glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group’s leader, the enigmatic Sébastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in the lair of La Cour des Lions, Celine battles her attraction to him and suspicions about Sébastien’s guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Misogyny
Sex worker slurs
Racism & racial slurs
Colourism
Segregation discussed
Attempted rape recounted (theme)
Nightmares & flashbacks
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use
Blood & gore depiction
Emesis
Death of a friend
Death of a sister recounted
Death of a mother & father recounted
Murder
Torture recounted
Gun violence

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott’s marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.

Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville’s top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it’ll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Parental abuse & neglect recounted
Miscarriage mentioned
Emesis
Alcohol consumption

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend’s marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan.

But when she wakes up, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It’s the same night—December 15—but 2025, five years in the future.

After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can’t shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn’t the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

False pregnancy
Terminal cancer
Death of a loved one

Every Single Lie by Rachel Vincent

Every Single Lie by Rachel Vincent

Nobody in Beckett’s life seems to be telling the whole story. Her boyfriend Jake keeps hiding texts and might be cheating on her. Her father lied about losing his job before his shocking death. And everyone in school seems to be whispering about her and her family behind her back.

But none of that compares to the day Beckett finds the body of a newborn baby in a gym bag-Jake’s gym bag -on the floor of her high school locker room. As word leaks out, rumors that Beckett’s the mother take off like wildfire in a town all too ready to believe the worst of her. And as the police investigation unfolds, she discovers that everyone has a secret to hide and the truth could alter everything she thought she knew.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating
PTSD & panic attacks
Substance addiction & alcoholism
Alcohol & drug abuse, including overdose
Child pregnancy, childbirth & stillbirth
Physical injuries
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a father to suicide by a drug & alcohol overdose recounted
Death of an infant*
Bullying & cyberbullying, including death threats

*Note: the book’s plot centres around the protagonist discovering the dead body of a newborn in her school’s gym.

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful. Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Racist microaggressions & antisemitism
Fatphobia and body-shaming (theme)
Anxiety & panic attacks
Alcohol consumption
Bullying