Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Incest (theme)
  • Suicide
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
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Take Me Home Tonight by Morgan Matson

Take Me Home Tonight by Morgan Matson

Kat and Stevie—best friends, theater kids, polar opposites—have snuck away from the suburbs to spend a night in New York City. They have it all planned out. They’ll see a play, eat at the city’s hottest restaurant, and have the best. Night. Ever. What could go wrong?

They’re barely off the train before they’re dealing with destroyed phones, family drama, and unexpected Pomeranians. Over the next few hours, they’ll have to grapple with old flames, terrible theater, and unhelpful cab drivers. But there are also cute boys to kiss, parties to crash, dry cleaning to deliver (don’t ask), and the world’s best museum to explore.

Over the course of a wild night in the city that never sleeps, both Kat and Stevie will get a wake-up call about their friendship, their choices…and finally discover what they really want for their future.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Gun violence
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The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

The emperor’s reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire’s many islands.

Lin is the emperor’s daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.

Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright – and save her people.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Human trafficking
  • Physical parental abuse
  • Child sexual abuse mentioned
  • Amnesia (memory loss)
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Medical experimentation
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Death of a wife
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Imprisonment
  • Drowning
  • Earthquakes
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Child homelessness & poverty recounted
  • Rebellion themes & regicide
  • Animal attack
  • Animal injury & illness
  • Animal abuse
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The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly by Jamie Pacton

The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly by Jamie Pacton

Working as a wench ― i.e. waitress ― at a cheesy medieval-themed restaurant in the Chicago suburbs, Kit Sweetly dreams of being a knight like her brother. She has the moves, is capable on a horse, and desperately needs the raise that comes with knighthood, so she can help her mom pay the mortgage and hold a spot at her dream college.

Company policy allows only guys to be knights. So when Kit takes her brother’s place and reveals her identity at the end of the show, she rockets into internet fame and a whole lot of trouble with the management. But the Girl Knight won’t go down without a fight. As other wenches join her quest, a protest forms. In a joust before Castle executives, they’ll prove that gender restrictions should stay medieval―if they don’t get fired first.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Emotional abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug abuse
  • Poverty themes
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The House in the Cerulena Sea by T. J. Klune

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune

Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Internalised fatmisia and body-shaming
  • Homomisic language
  • Suicide mentioned
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Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton

Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton

58,642,129. That’s how many dollars seventeen-year-old Fortuna Jane Belleweather just won in the lotto jackpot. It’s also about how many reasons she has for not coming forward to claim her prize.

Problem #1: Jane is still a minor, and if anyone discovers she bought the ticket underage, she’ll either have to forfeit the ticket, or worse . . .

Problem #2: Let her hoarder mother cash it. The last thing Jane’s mom needs is millions of dollars to buy more junk. Then . . . Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Hoarding Disorder (parent)
  • Panic attacks
  • Death of a parent recounted
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Docile by KM Szpara

Docile by K.M. Szpara

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents’ debts and buy your children’s future.

Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him. Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects—and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery & sex slavery
  • Physical, emotional & psychological abuse
  • Graphic rape (on-page)
  • Attempted suicide (on-page)
  • PTSD & trauma
  • Depression
  • Nonconsensual psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Forced drug use
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First, Become Ashes by KM Szpara

First, Become Ashes by K.M. Szpara

Lark spent the first twenty-four years, nine months, and three days of his life training for a righteous quest: to rid the world of monsters. Alongside his partner Kane, he wore the cage and endured the scourge in order to develop his innate magic. He never thought that when Kane left, he’d next see him in the company of FBI agents and a SWAT team. He never dreamed that the leader of the Fellowship of the Anointed would be brought up on charges of abuse and assault.

He never expected the government would tell him that the monsters aren’t real–that there is no magic, and all the pain was for nothing.

Lark isn’t ready to give up. He is determined to fulfill his quest, to defeat the monsters he was promised. Along the way he will grapple with the past, confront love, and discover his long-buried truth.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Physical & emotional child abuse
  • Graphic rape, including consent violations & nonconsensual BDSM (multiple scenes)
  • Self-harm (self-inflicted burns)
  • Cults
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
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All This Time by Mikki Daughtry and Rachael Lippincott

All This Time by Mikki Daughtry & Rachael Lippincott

Kyle and Kimberly have been the perfect couple all through high school, but when Kimberly breaks up with him on the night of their graduation party, Kyle’s entire world upends—literally. Their car crashes and when he awakes, he has a brain injury. Kimberly is dead. And no one in his life could possibly understand.

Until Marley. Marley is suffering from her own loss, a loss she thinks was her fault. And when their paths cross, Kyle sees in her all the unspoken things he’s feeling.

As Kyle and Marley work to heal each other’s wounds, their feelings for each other grow stronger. But Kyle can’t shake the sense that he’s headed for another crashing moment that will blow up his life as soon as he’s started to put it back together.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • PTSD & trauma
  • Hospital
  • Physical injuries (brain injury)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a girlfriend
  • Car accident
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Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott

Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott with Mikki Daughtry & Tobias Iaconis

Stella Grant likes to be in control—even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions.

The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Terminal illness (cystic fibrosis)
  • Hospitalisation
  • Medical treatment & procedures
  • Death of a child
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