The Boy Who Wouldn’t Die by David Nyoul Vincent

The Boy Who Wouldn’t Die by David Nyoul Vincent with Carol Nader

David Nyuol Vincent was a little boy when he fled southern Sudan with his father, as war raged in their country. He left behind his distraught mother and sisters, his village, and his childhood and he would never return.

For months David and his father walked across southern Sudan, barefoot, desperately searching for safety, food, and water. They survived the perilous Sahara Desert crossing into Ethiopia only to be separated and for David to be trained as a child soldier and then to survive the next 17 years of his life alone in refugee camps. Life in the camps was a relentless struggle against starvation, air bombings, and people determined to kill him and his people. 

In 2004 David was offered a Humanitarian Visa as one of the Lost Boys and was resettled to Australia. Traumatized by what he had seen and endured, he went about the slow and painful process of making a new life for himself – a life away from hunger, away from guns, away from death. A life where David is determined to improve the plight of his people both in Australia and back in the Sudan.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Trauma (theme)
  • Starvation & famine
  • Bombings
  • War themes, including refugee experiences
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99 Lies by Rachel Vincent

99 Lies by Rachel Vincent

Getting kidnapped over spring break was definitely memorable. But now that the surviving hostages are home, they want life to feel normal again: high school, dating, million-dollar galas.

But there’s no escaping the spotlight–or the truth about the ways they betrayed each other in the jungle. And this time, the real threat isn’t kidnappers–it’s what the “friends” might do to each other.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Kidnapping recounted
  • Trauma (theme)
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100 Hours by Rachel Vincent

100 Hours by Rachel Vincent

Maddie is beyond done with her cousin Genesis’s entitled and shallow entourage. Genesis is so over Miami’s predictable social scene with its velvet ropes, petty power plays, and backstabbing boyfriends. While Maddie craves family time for spring break, Genesis seeks novelty—like a last-minute getaway to an untouched beach in Colombia. And when Genesis wants something, it happens. But paradise has its price. Dragged from their tents under the cover of dark, Genesis, Maddie, and their friends are kidnapped and held for ransom deep inside the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Fatphobia & body-shaming
  • Statutory sexual assault
  • Abusive relationship
  • Substance addiction recovery
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction including emesis & needles
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent, brother & cousin
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping & hostage situation
  • Explosions
  • Psychological torture

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital.

When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicide (on-page)
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The Outrage by William Hussey

The Outrage by William Hussey

Welcome to England, where the Protectorate enforces the Public Good. Here, there are rules for everything – what to eat, what to wear, what to do, what to say, what to read, what to think, who to obey, who to hate, who to love. Your safety is assured, so long as you follow the rules.

Gabriel is a natural born rule-breaker. And his biggest crime of all? Being gay.

Gabriel knows his sexuality must be kept secret from all but his closest friends, not only to protect himself, but to protect his boyfriend. Because Eric isn’t just the boy who has stolen Gabriel’s heart. He’s the son of the chief inspector at Degenerate Investigations ­­­- the man who poses the single biggest threat to Gabriel’s life.

And the Protectorate are experts at exposing secrets.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Racism
  • Homomisia & homomisic language
  • Self-harm
  • Suicide mentioned
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Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, ambitious wizard, known only as the Dragon, to keep the wood’s powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman must be handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as being lost to the wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows – everyone knows – that the Dragon will take beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, her dearest friend in the world. There is no way to save her. But no one can predict how or why the Dragon chooses a girl and when he comes, it is not Kasia he will take with him…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Attempted rape (on-page, detailed)
  • Cheating recounted
  • Adult-minor relationship*
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Body horror
  • Minor physical injuries (burns)
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a mother & father mentioned
  • Murder
  • Knife violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire
  • War themes & military violence
  • Graphic animal death
  • Animal attack

*Note: The main romance is between a seventeen-year-old girl and an immortal 100-(plus)-year-old man.

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Tilly and the Map of Stories by Anna James

Tilly & the Map of Stories by Anna James

Strange things are happening. A man comes into Pages Co looking for a book… then suddenly can’t remember it. Tilly and her family feel like the world is changing – but can’t quite put their finger on why.

Meanwhile, the Underwoods are expanding their control over bookwandering – and they still have their sights set on Tilly. Leaving the safety of the bookshop, Tilly heads to America to find the legendary Archivists and save bookwandering…

… or at least, that’s the plan. Wandering in layers of story, Tilly and her friend Oskar come up against dangers they could never have expected, team up with an unexpectedly familiar face, and ultimately find themselves taking on the biggest threat to stories there has ever been – with only their courage and ingenuity to help them. As well as some of their dearest fictional friends…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire
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This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel

This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel

Victor and Konrad are the twin brothers Frankenstein. They are nearly inseparable. Growing up, their lives are filled with imaginary adventures… until the day their adventures turn all too real.

They stumble upon the Dark Library and discover secret books of alchemy and ancient remedies. Father forbids them from ever entering the room again, but when Konrad falls gravely ill, Victor is drawn back to the Dark Library where he uncovers an ancient formula for the Elixir of Life… Read more.

Determined to save Konrad, Victor, along with his beautiful cousin Elizabeth and friend Henry, scale the highest trees in Strumwald, dive into the deepest lakes, and even make an unthinkable sacrifice in their quest for the elixir’s ingredients. And as if their task was not complicated enough, a new realm of danger—that of illicit love—threatens to end the ordeal in tragedy.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Ableism, including the Disabled Villain trope
  • Sexual assault*
  • Incest*
  • Parental abandonment & child neglect mentioned
  • Serious illness of a child
  • Medical treatment & procedures, including consensual amputation
  • Needles
  • Emesis
  • Death of a brother
  • Animal death
  • Animal attack

* Explanation : There are two on-page sexual assault scenes, including one where the main character pretends to be his identical twin to trick his brother’s girlfriend into kissing him, and another where he forces a kiss on her. The romance subplot involves a love triangle between the two Frankenstein twins and their cousin.

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The Bone Keeper by Luca Veste

The Bone Keeper by Luca Veste

He’ll slice your flesh. Your bones he’ll keep. What if the figure that haunted your childhood nightmares was real?

Twenty years ago, four teenagers entered the woods, hoping to find to the supposed home of the Bone Keeper. Only three returned. Now, a woman is found wandering the streets, horrifically injured, claiming to have fled the Bone Keeper. Investigating officer DC Louise Henderson must convince skeptical colleagues that this evil urban myth might be flesh and blood. But when a body is unearthed, the case takes on a much darker tone…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Home invasion
  • Fire
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This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria

This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria

Orphaned and forced to serve her country’s ruling group of scribes, Karis wants nothing more than to find her brother, long ago shipped away. But family bonds don’t matter to the Scriptorium, whose sole focus is unlocking the magic of an ancient automaton army.

In her search for her brother, Karis does the seemingly impossible—she awakens a hidden automaton. Intelligent, with a conscience of his own, Alix has no idea why he was made… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Amnesia
  • Nightmares
  • Nonconsensual branding & scars
  • Medical experimentation
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Murder
  • Knife & sword violence
  • Explosion
  • Disappearance of a sibling
  • Kidnapping
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