rachel @ typed truths

The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers studies the rich like her own personal science experiment, and after years of observation she’s pretty sure they’re only good for one thing—spending money on useless stuff, like the porcelain dolls in her mother’s shop. So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, it only takes one glance for Caymen to figure out he’s oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and that he’s one of the first people who actually gets her, she’s smart enough to know his… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Teen pregnancy recounted
Disownment

Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss by Kasie West

Fame, Fate, & the First Kiss by Kasie West

Lacey Barnes has dreamed of being an actress for as long as she can remember. So when she gets the opportunity to star in a movie alongside one of Hollywood’s hottest actors, she doesn’t hesitate to accept the part. But Lacey quickly learns that life in the spotlight isn’t as picture perfect as she imagined. She’s having trouble bonding with her costars, her father has hired the definition of a choir boy, Donavan Lake, to tutor her, and somewhere along the way she’s lost her acting mojo. And just when it seems like things couldn’t get any worse, it looks like someone on set is deliberately trying to sabotage her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableist language
Mentions of dieting & disordered food thoughts
Bullying & online harassment mentioned

Maybe This Time by Kasie West

Maybe This Time by Kasie West

One year. Nine events. Nine chances to . . . fall in love? Weddings. Funerals. Barbecues. New Year’s Eve parties. Name the occasion, and Sophie Evans will be there. Well, she has to be there. Sophie works for the local florist, so she can be found at every big event in her small hometown, arranging bouquets and managing family dramas. Enter Andrew Hart. The son of the fancy new chef in town, Andrew is suddenly required to attend all the same events as Sophie. Entitled, arrogant, preppy Andrew. Sophie just wants… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Racism mentioned
Parental abandonment & emotional child abuse
Minor blood & injury depiction
Death of a family friend

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism mentioned
Parental abandonment
Parental emotional abuse
Minor blood depiction & physical injury
Death of a family friend

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.

Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan‘s peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.

Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what’s ahead

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Gun violence
Military violence & war themes

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Prince Aleksander, would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.

Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She’s a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn’s paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Death of parents
Gun violence
Military violence & war themes

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Tally’s Pretty. And everything’s changed. The new, Pretty Tally is totally happy right where she is. She doesn’t think she needs any kind of cure at all. When someone from her Ugly life shows up with a message, Tally has a hard time listening. Did she really promise to give all this up? Is she bound by a promise she made when she was a different person? If there is anything left of the old Tally, how will she fight her way out to keep her word and help her friends?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableist slurs (r slur)
Self-harm
Disordered eating

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can’t wait. In just a few weeks she’ll have the operation that will turn her from a repellent ugly into a stunning pretty. And as a pretty, she’ll be catapulted into a high-tech paradise where her only job is to have fun.

But Tally’s new friend Shay isn’t sure she wants to become a pretty. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world—and it isn’t very pretty. The authorities offer Tally a choice: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. Tally’s choice will change her world forever….

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Fatmisia & body shaming
Self harm
Recreational drug use
Hospitalisation
Needles

Spill Zone, Vol. 2: The Broken Vow by Scott Westerfeld and Alex Puvilland

Spill Zone, Vol. 2: The Broken Vow by Scott Westerfeld & Alex Puvilland

Three years ago an event destroyed the small city of Poughkeepsie, forever changing reality within its borders. Strange manifestations and lethal dangers now await anyone who enters the Spill Zone. Addison got close enough to the Spill Zone to touch it, literally. She survived the encounter, but came back changed.

It turns out she’s not alone. North Korea has its own Spill Zone, and a young man named Don Jae is the only one who made it out alive. Alive, but changed. Now Addison, Don Jae, and, curiously, a rag doll named Vespertine, share an unholy bond and uncanny powers.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Arranged marriage
Nonconsensual drugging
Death of a parent
Murder
Explosions
Gun violence
Nuclear accident
Animal death & dead bodies

Educated by Tara Westover

Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag”. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racial slurs (n slur)
Emotional & physical domestic abuse
Child neglect
Blood depiction
Car accident

The Nowhere Child by Christian White

The Nowhere Child by Christian White

Kimberly Leamy is a teacher in Melbourne. 26 years earlier, Sammy Went, a two-year old girl vanished from her home in Kentucky. An American accountant who contacts Kim is convinced she was that child, kidnapped just after her birthday. She cannot believe the woman who raised her crossed international lines to steal a toddler. In 1990, Jack & Molly Went’s daughter Sammy disappeared from the inside their home. Already estranged since the girl’s birth, the couple drifted apart. Jack did his best to protect his other children while Molly found solace in her faith. Now, Kim travels to America to reunite with a family she never knew she had & solve the mystery of her abduction.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Alcohol abuse
Death of a parent recounted
Murder
Gun violence
Torture
Disappearance of a child
Animal death
Animal attack (snake)