Category Archives: Contemporary

On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves

On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves

When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family’s summer rental in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation; a working vacation on a tropical island trumps the library any day.

T.J. Callahan has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He’s almost seventeen and if having cancer wasn’t bad enough, now he has to spend his first summer in remission with his family—and a stack of overdue assignments—instead of his friends.

Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.’s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean… Read more.

.Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cancer
  • Death of parents

Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

Raina can’t wait to be a big sister. But once Amara is born, things aren’t quite how she expected them to be. Amara is cute, but she’s also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself. Their relationship doesn’t improve much over the years, but when a baby brother enters the picture and later, when something doesn’t seem right between their parents, they realize they must figure out how to get along. They are sisters, after all.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a pet (chameleon)

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld 

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

This version of the Bennet family and Mr. Darcy is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.

Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Transmisia
  • Fatmisia
  • Disordered eating

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Death of a spouse
  • Death of a child
  • Gun violence
  • Drowning
  • War themes
  • Animal death

Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover

Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover

After serving five years in prison for a tragic mistake, Kenna Rowan returns to the town where it all went wrong, hoping to reunite with her four-year-old daughter. But the bridges Kenna burned are proving impossible to rebuild. Everyone in her daughter’s life is determined to shut Kenna out, no matter how hard she works to prove herself.

The only person who hasn’t closed the door on her completely is Ledger Ward, a local bar owner and one of the few remaining links to Kenna’s daughter. But if anyone were to discover how Ledger is slowly becoming an important part of Kenna’s life, both would risk losing the trust of everyone important to them.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental neglect, off-page
  • Imprisonment recounted
  • Car accident recounted

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

His life was like a recurring nightmare: a train to nowhere. But an ordinary life has a way of taking an extraordinary turn. Add a girl whose ears are so exquisite that, when uncovered, they improve sex a thousand-fold, a runaway friend, a right-wing politico, an ovine-obsessed professor and a manic-depressive in a sheep outfit, implicate them in a hunt for a sheep, that may or may not be running the world, and the upshot is another singular masterpiece from Japan’s finest novelist.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide

Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire

Fiercely independent Camille “Cami” Camlin gladly moved on from her childhood before it was over. She has held down a job since before she could drive, and moved into her own apartment after her freshman year of college. Now tending bar at The Red Door, Cami doesn’t have time for much else besides work and classes, until a trip to see her boyfriend is cancelled, leaving her with a first weekend off in almost a year.

Trenton Maddox was the king of Eastern State University, dating co-eds before he even graduated high school. His friends wanted to be him, and women wanted to tame him, but after a tragic accident turned his world upside down, Trenton leaves campus to come to grips with the crushing guilt… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cheating
  • Domestic violence discussed
  • Death of a girlfriend in a car accident recounted

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs—and wants—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Abusive relationship
  • Alcohol consumption

Nineteen & Twenty-One by Yohan

Nineteen & Twenty-One, Vol. 1 by Yohan

A 19-year-old boy, Dong-hui, who still wants to stay as a kid.
A 21-year-old girl, Yuni, who became an adult still doesn’t feel like one. They met each other through street cats and share their precious things.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Death of a cat

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

Evie Thomas doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually.

As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance Studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X. X is everything that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate, daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything–including entering a ballroom dance competition with a girl he’s only just met… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cheating
  • Depression
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a father mentioned