Category Archives: Contemporary

Kulti by Mariana Zapata

Kulti by Mariana Zapata

When the man you worshipped as a kid becomes your coach, it’s supposed to be the greatest thing in the world. Keywords: supposed to. It didn’t take a week for 27-year-old Sal Casillas to wonder what she’d seen in the international soccer icon – why she’d ever had his posters on her wall or ever envisioned marrying him and having super-playing soccer babies. Sal had long ago gotten over the worst non-break-up in the history of imaginary relationships with a man who hadn’t known she’d existed. So she isn’t prepared for this version of Reiner Kulti who shows up to her team’s season: a quiet, reclusive shadow of the explosive, passionate man he’d once been.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism & slut-shaming
  • Infidelity mentioned

Falling into Place by Amy Zhang 

Falling into Place by Amy Zhang

On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road. Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? The nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn’t understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn’t understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child neglect
  • Depression
  • Eating disorders mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Death of a parent
  • Bullying

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

Inside little blue envelope 1 are $1,000 and instructions to buy a plane ticket. In envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat. The note in envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist. Because of envelope 4, Ginny and a playwright/thief/ bloke about town called Keith go to Scotland together, with somewhat disastrous though utterly romantic results. But will she ever see him again?

Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it’s all because of the 13 little blue envelopes.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist slur
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Death of an aunt recounted

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth-century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.” Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misgendering (accidental)
  • Panic disorder
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Disappearance and implied death of a wife and daughter (theme)
  • Kidnapping 

Born in Shame by Nora Roberts

Born in Shame by Nora Roberts

A talented graphic artist, Shannon Bodine’s life revolved around her job at a prestigious New York advertising agency. But her world was turned upside down when she learned the identity of her real father: Thomas Concannon. Respecting her late mother’s last wish, Shannon reluctantly travelled to County Clare. There, her loneliness and shame melted away in the embrace of the family she never knew existed. And amid the lush Irish landscape steeped in mysticism and legend, she discovered the possibility of a love that was meant to be… 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

Just when seventeen-year-old Matt thinks he can’t handle one more piece of terrible news, he meets a girl who’s dealt with a lot more—and who just might be able to clue him in on how to rise up when life keeps knocking him down—in this wry, gritty novel from the author of When I Was the Greatest. Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died—although she did, and it sucks. But he wears the suit for his gig at the local funeral home, which pays way better than the Cluck Bucket, and he needs the income since his dad can’t handle the bills (or anything, really) on his own. So while Dad’s snagging bottles of whiskey… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Drug use mentioned (smoking)
  • Death from cancer mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Intimate partner murder by gunshot (on-page)
  • Physical assault recounted (fistfight resulting in bloodied lip)
  • Death from gang violence mentioned
  • Homelessness

Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds

Ain’t Burned All the Bright written by Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Jason Griffin

Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW. And so for anyone who didn’t really know what it means to not be able to breathe, REALLY breathe, for generations, now you know. And those who already do, you’ll be nodding yep yep, that is exactly how it is

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • Police brutality mentioned including the death of George Floyd and Eric Garner

Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel written by Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Danica Novgoorodoff

After Will’s brother is shot in a gang crime, he knows the next steps. Don’t cry. Don’t snitch. Get revenge. So he gets in the lift with Shawn’s gun, determined to follow The Rules. Only when the lift door opens, Buck walks in, Will’s friend who died years ago. And Dani, who was shot years before that. As more people from his past arrive, Will has to ask himself if he really knows what he’s doing.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption & abuse mentioned (secondary character)
  • Smoking & mentions of drug use (secondary character, on-page)
  • Murder by gun violence (theme, on-page), including depictions of bloodied dead bodies with gunshot wounds
  • Death of a child, sibling, parent, friend & uncle

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injury, including ugnshot wounds
  • Dental medical procedure
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a sibling
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of an uncle
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

The Skin I’m In by Sharon Flake

The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake

Miss Saunders, who’s skin is blotched with a rare skin condition, serves as a mirror to Maleeka Madison’s struggle against the burden of low self-esteem that many black girls face when they’re darker skinned. Miss Saunder’s is tough and through this, Maleeka learns to stand up to tough-talking Charlese. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Attemped rape
  • Bullying

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

After Will’s brother is shot in a gang crime, he knows the next steps. Don’t cry. Don’t snitch. Get revenge. So he gets in the lift with Shawn’s gun, determined to follow The Rules. Only when the lift door opens, Buck walks in, Will’s friend who died years ago. And Dani, who was shot years before that. As more people from his past arrive, Will has to ask himself if he really knows what he’s doing.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption & abuse mentioned (secondary character)
  • Smoking & mentions of drug use (secondary character)
  • Blood & injury depiction, including gunshot wounds
  • Dental medical procedure
  • Murder by gun violence
  • Death of a child, sibling, parent, friend & uncle
  • Gun violence (theme)