This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

Every summer, Rose goes with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. It’s their getaway, their refuge. Rosie’s friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different. Rose’s mom and dad won’t stop fighting, and when Rose and Windy seek a distraction from the drama, they find themselves with a whole new set of problems. It’s a summer of secrets and sorrow and growing up, and it’s a good thing Rose and Windy have each other.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Attempted suicide
  • Miscarriage
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Gap Year in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor

Gap Year in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor

Gap Year in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor book cover

Let’s get this straight – ghosts are everywhere. I can see them. You can’t. And, see them or not, they’re dangerous. This is why my family has hunted ghosts for hundreds of years to protect people like you.

The Marin family are outcasts of the ghost hunting world. They run a two-man operation in inner city Melbourne. Anton has the Ghost-sight, but his father does not.

Rani Cross is supremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat, with enhanced speed and strength thanks to her magical initiation into the Company of the Righteous.

When it comes to ghost-hunting methodology, Anton and Rani don’t see eye to eye – Anton likes to ‘ease their passage’ to the next world, while Rani’s all about the slashing.

But Melbourne is under threat; with a massive spike in violent ghost manifestations, Anton and Rani must find a way to work together to keep supernatural forces at bay.

And what with all the blindingly terrifying brushes with death, Anton must decide if he really wants in on the whole ghost hunting biz anyway.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abandonment
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a child
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki

Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki

This is the curious instruction that comes with the Eye of Know, the possibly powerful crystal amulet that Montgomery Sole buys online for $5.99. It’s also the next topic of discussion at Mystery Club (members: Monty and her two best friends, Thomas and Naoki), dedicated to the exploration of the strange and unexplained.

When Monty wears the Eye of Know, strange things happen, all targeted at people she despises. Maybe it will help Monty take down her newest enemy, a preacher who has come to save her town from so-called sinners—sinners like Monty’s moms. Or will its mysterious powers mean the end of the friendships Monty cherishes most?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Sexual assault
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley book cover

In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg and something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather’s pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness.

When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine—essential for the treatment of malaria—from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who’s made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the Amazon where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked.

Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick’s grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist language
  • Racial slur
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a friend
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Skim by Mariko Tamaki

Skim by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

“Skim” is Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a not-slim, would-be Wiccan goth who goes to a private girls’ school. When Skim’s classmate Katie Matthews is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself, the entire school goes into mourning overdrive. As concerned guidance counselors provide lectures on the “cycle of grief,” and the popular clique starts a new club (Girls Celebrate Life!) to bolster school spirit, Skim sinks into an ever-deepening depression.

And falling in love only makes things worse…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Sexual harassment (groping)
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Suicide
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a boyfriend
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman book cover

It is twenty years since the events of La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One unfolded and saw the baby Lyra Belacqua begin her life-changing journey.

It is seven years since readers left Lyra and the love of her young life, Will Parry, on a park bench in Oxford’s Botanic Gardens at the end of the ground-breaking, bestselling His Dark Materials sequence.

Now, in The Secret Commonwealth, we meet Lyra Silvertongue. And she is no longer a child . . .

The second volume of Sir Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust sees Lyra, now twenty years old, and her daemon Pantalaimon, forced to navigate their relationship in a way they could never have imagined, and drawn into the complex and dangerous factions of a world that they had no idea existed.

Pulled along on his own journey too is Malcolm; once a boy with a boat and a mission to save a baby from the flood, now a man with a strong sense of duty and a desire to do what is right.

Theirs is a world at once familiar and extraordinary, and they must travel far beyond the edges of Oxford, across Europe and into Asia, in search for what is lost – a city haunted by daemons, a secret at the heart of a desert, and the mystery of the elusive Dust.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape, including attempted gang rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Adult-minor relationship, specifically teacher-student
  • Suicide
  • Murder
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

The day they got together was the best one of Freddy’s life, but nothing’s made sense since. Laura Dean is popular, funny, and SO CUTE … but she can be really thoughtless, even mean. Their on-again, off-again relationship has Freddy’s head spinning — and Freddy’s friends can’t understand why she keeps going back.

When Freddy consults the services of a local mystic, the mysterious Seek-Her, she isn’t thrilled with the advice she receives. But something’s got to give: Freddy’s heart is breaking in slow motion, and she may be about to lose her very best friend as well as her last shred of self-respect. Fortunately for Freddy, there are new friends, and the insight of advice columnist Anna Vice, to help her through being a teenager in love.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Statutory rape mentioned
  • Toxic relationship (theme)
  • Cheating (on- & off-page)
  • Adult-minor relationship discussed*
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Unwanted teen pregnancy
  • Abortion (off-page)
  • Hospital
  • Emesis
  • Bullying mentioned

*Note: Sexual relationship between a seventeen-year-old girl and a older married man.

Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman book cover

Will is the bearer of the knife. Now, accompanied by angels, his task is to deliver that powerful, dangerous weapon to Lord Asriel – by the command of his dying father. But how can he go looking for Lord Asriel when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him. The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Will must find Lyra, for together they are on their way to battle, an inevitable journey that will even take them to the world of the dead…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Kidnapping
  • War themes

Calling My Name by Liara Tamani

Calling My Name by Liara Tamani

This unforgettable novel tells a universal coming-of-age story about Taja Brown, a young African American girl growing up in Houston, Texas, and deftly and beautifully explores the universal struggles of growing up, battling family expectations, discovering a sense of self, and finding a unique voice and purpose.

Told in fifty-three short, episodic, moving, and iridescent chapters, Calling My Name follows Taja on her journey from middle school to high school.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Recreational drug use (smoking) mentioned
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

All the Things We Never Knew by Liara Tamani

All the Things We Never Knew by Liara Tamani

From the moment Carli and Rex first locked eyes on a Texas high school basketball court, they both knew it was destiny. But can you truly love someone else if you don’t love yourself? Acclaimed author Liara Tamani’s luminous second novel explores love, family, heartbreak, betrayal, and the power of healing, in gorgeous prose that will appeal to readers of Nicola Yoon and Jacqueline Woodson.

A glance was all it took. That kind of connection, the immediate and raw understanding of another person, just doesn’t come along very often. And as rising stars on their Texas high schools’ respective basketball teams, destined for bright futures in college and beyond, it seems like a match made in heaven. But Carli and Rex have secrets. As do their families.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Cheating
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com