Literary Fiction – Page 21 – Trigger Warning Database

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbour Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate….

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Attempted rape
Substance addiction
Murder
Torture
War themes

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

When his master’s eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or “Titch,” is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist. He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, Titch abandons everything to save him… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Slavery
Racism & racial slurs
Body mutilation & disfigurement
Torture mentioned

Indelible by Adelia Saunders

Indelible by Adelia Saunders

Magdalena has an unsettling gift. She sees writing on the body of everyone she meets – names, dates, details both banal and profound – and her only relief from the onslaught of information is to take off her glasses and let the world recede. Mercifully, her own skin is blank. Magdalena has an unsettling gift. She sees writing on the body of everyone she meets – names, dates, details both banal and profound – and her only relief from the onslaught of information is to take off her glasses and let the world recede. Mercifully, her own… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Suicide & attempted suicide
Sexual harassment

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. The ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Told in the form of a letter to someone Violeta loves above all others, this is the story of a hundred-year life – of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny
Racism
Adult-minor relationship
Domestic abuse
Suicide
Murder
War themes

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.

Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Slavery
Human trafficking
Rape
Death of an infant
Murder
Torture
Lynching

The Education of Ivy Edwards by Hannah Tovey

The Education of Ivy Edwards by Hannah Tovey

Ivy Edwards is thirty-one years old, funny, shameless, and a bit of a romantic. She’s also currently trying not to cry in the office toilet. Partly because she’s just run out of money for fags. A bit because her mum continues to annoy her. Definitely not because she’s just been dumped by her fiancé. With her London life in shambles and her family miles away in the Welsh valleys, Ivy doesn’t actually feel like she belongs anywhere. At least, she has her friends – and a bottle of vodka. Embarking on a journey of singlehood, Ivy is about to discover that sometimes, having your life fall apart can be surprisingly fun.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use
Infertility & IVF

The Turnout by Megan Abbott

The Turnout by Megan Abbott

After the sudden death of their parents, the Durant sisters, Dara and Marie, inherit a ballet school and take over running it with Dara’s husband Charlie. The sisters’ connection is intense, forged by a glamorous but troubled family history. But after they hire Derek, a charismatic, possibly shady contractor to renovate the studio, Marie throws herself into an intense affair with him that threatens their tight bonds and brings forward family secrets until an act of violence overturns everything.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Rape of a child
Domestic violence
Suicide
Self-harm
Murder

Luster by Raven Leilani

Luster by Raven Leilani

Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, is sleeping with all the wrong men, and has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her, painting. No one seems to care that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Toxic relationship
Suicide discussed

The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers

The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers

Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who’s just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina—the tobacco capital of the South—where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full technicolour bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers, the palatial homes, and, most of all, her aunt’s glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful tobacco executives…Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Homomisia
Sexism
Parental abandonment
Death of a parent on deployment in World War Two
Infertility
Miscarriage

Fan Club by Erin Mayer

Fan Club by Erin Mayer

Day after day our narrator, a gloomy millennial, searches for meaning beyond her vacuous job at a women’s lifestyle website—entering text into a computer system while she watches their beauty editor unwrap box after box of perfectly packaged bits of happiness. Then, one night at a dive bar, she hears a message in the newest single by child-actor-turned-international-pop star Adriana Argento, and she is struck. Soon she loses herself to the online fandom, a community whose members feverishly track Adriana’s every move… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Sexual harassment
Recreational drug use
Abortion mentioned