Category Archives: Contemporary

Beard in Mind by Penny Reid

Beau Winston is the nicest, most accommodating guy in the world. Usually. Handsome as the devil and twice as charismatic, Beau lives a charmed life as everyone’s favorite Winston Brother. But since his twin decided to leave town, and his other brother hired a stunning human-porcupine hybrid as a replacement mechanic for their auto shop, Beau Winston’s charmed life has gone to hell in a handbasket. Shelly Sullivan is not nice and is never accommodating. Ever. She mumbles to herself, but won’t respond when asked a question. She glares at everyone, especially babies. She… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence recounted
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
  • Depression
  • Self-harm (cutting)

The Art of Falling in Love by Haleigh Wenger

Seventeen-year-old Claire Haynes always spends summer vacation at her family’s beach house in Florida, sketching and dreaming of art school with her biggest fan-her Opa. But when Opa dies right before summer break, all Claire has left besides her memories is a sand-sculpting contest application with her name on it and the lingering question of why Opa filled it out in the first place. Claire has never even made a decent sandcastle, but she reluctantly turns in the entry forms, hoping the contest will help her navigate the grieving process by honoring one of Opa’s last wishes. When… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandfather
  • Homelessness

It Sounds Like This by Anna Meriano

Yasmín Treviño didn’t have much of a freshman year thanks to Hurricane Humphrey, but she’s ready to take sophomore year by storm. That means mastering the marching side of marching band—fast!—so she can outshine her BFF Sofia as top of the flute section, earn first chair, and impress both her future college admission boards and her comfortably unattainable drum major crush Gilberto Reyes. But Yasmín steps off on the wrong foot when she reports an anonymous gossip Instagram account harassing new band members and accidentally gets the entire… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering
  • Sexism
  • Toxic friendship
  • Cyberbullying & online harassment

Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova

On her first day at her new school, Penelope–Peppi–Torres reminds herself of these basics. But when she trips into a quiet boy in the hall, Jaime Thompson, she’s already broken the first rule, and the mean kids start calling her the “nerder girlfriend.” How does she handle this crisis? By shoving poor Jaime and running away! Falling back on rule two and surrounding herself with new friends in the art club, Peppi still can’t help feeling ashamed about the way she treated Jaime. Things are already awkward enough between… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Bullying

Miss Camper by Kat Fajardo

Sue is heading to Camp Willow with her friends for two whole weeks this summer! She’s looking forward to hiking, archery, and making some comics in the fresh air. She’s especially excited about LARPing (live-action roleplaying), and can’t wait for the freedom that comes with being away from home. But she won’t be far from her family’s watchful eye because her big sister, Carmen, is a camp counsellor and her little sister, Ester, will be a camper! All Sue wants is to spend quality time and make memories with her friends, but Ester won’t give her any space and Sue can’t… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandmother recounted

Miss Quinces by Kat Fajardo

Sue just wants to spend the summer reading and making comics at sleepaway camp with her friends, but instead she gets stuck going to Honduras to visit relatives with her parents and two sisters. They live way out in the country, which means no texting, no cable, and no Internet! The trip takes a turn for the worse when Sue’s mother announces that they’ll be having a surprise quinceañera for Sue, which is the last thing she wants. She can’t imagine wearing a big, floofy, colorful dress! What is Sue going to do? And how will she survive all this “quality” time with her rambunctious family?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Panic attack (on-page)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandmother
  • Mentions of an uncle becoming paralysed after a horse-riding accident

Meet Me in the Middle by Alex Light

Eden had her best friend Katie—she didn’t need anyone else. But then there was Truman. Katie’s older brother, the artist. The recluse. The boy with the innocent smile and the dangerous eyes. Eden had never really known Truman—not until the night of Katie’s accident. That was the night they’d finally let each other into their orbits—only to have the sky come crashing down on them. With Katie in the hospital and Truman fleeing from his grief without a word, Eden is left alone to grapple with her own pain. But when Truman returns to the city, can Eden let him back into her life knowing that their first kiss is what tore their world apart?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Secondary character in a coma after a hit-and-run, drunk-driving car accident

Sparrow by Sarah Moon

Sparrow has always had a difficult time making friends. She would always rather have stayed home on the weekends with her mother, an affluent IT Executive at a Brooklyn bank, reading, or watching the birds, than playing with other kids. And that’s made school a lonely experience for her. It’s made LIFE a lonely experience. But when the one teacher who really understood her — Mrs. Wexler, the school librarian, a woman who let her eat her lunch in the library office rather than hide in a bathroom stall, a woman who shared her passion for novels and knew just the ones she’d love… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Protagonist with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation for attempted suicide by fall discussed
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a teacher in a car accident discussed

The Couple Upstairs by Holly Wainwright

Five months after Mel told her husband to leave, a ghost moved in upstairs. A young man who reminds her, with eerie intensity, of a past lover, someone who changed Mel’s life and then vanished. When the man’s travelling girlfriend joins him, Mel’s obsession with the couple upstairs builds and the boundaries between the two homes begin to blur, with devastating consequences.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • COVID-19 pandemic (era)

Lock & West by Alexander C. Eberhart

Lock is awkward. He can’t make eye contact, counts when he’s nervous and has to remind himself several times a day how ‘normal’ teens behave. Homeschooled most of his life, he’s resigned himself to a friendless existence at his new Atlanta high school. Until he meets West. List Of Reasons Why My Life Is A Mess: How Much Time Do You Have? West has everything. Looks. Talent. Money. And secrets… so many secrets. Beneath the surface of West’s perfect existence is a pain he’s buried so deep a million therapists couldn’t unearth it and he’s determined to keep it that way. He’s an… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Attempted rape & sexual assault
  • Child abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Eating disorder & purging
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Attempted suicide