Non-Fiction – Page 2 – Trigger Warning Database

The Villain Edit by Alisha Aitken-Radburn

When former government staffer Alisha Aitken-Radburn was given a ‘villain edit’ on her first season of The Bachelor, she wasn’t entirely surprised-after all, there are only a handful of character tropes producers can manipulate into storylines. But the backlash on social media was unexpectedly intense, and Alisha found her sense of identity completely rocked by a single ‘You are a bad person’. Determined to shake the ‘villain’ label, she returned to reality TV screens, and this time, she got a different edit. She was met with praise and empathy, and her portrayal led to a third and final season, where she met the man she… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Infidelity
Alcohol abuse
Bullying & cyberbullying

Thunder Song: Essays by Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe

Drawing on a rich family archive as well as the anthropological work of her late great-grandmother, LaPointe explores themes ranging from indigenous identity and stereotypes to cultural displacement and environmental degradation to understand what our experiences teach us about the power of community, commitment, and conscientious honesty. Unapologetically punk, the essays segue between the miraculous and the mundane, the spiritual and the physical, as they examine the role of art and community in helping a new generation of indigenous people claim the strength of their heritage while defining their own path in the contemporary world.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Rape
Domestic violence
Parent with substance addiction & alcoholism
Abortion & miscarriage
COVID-19 pandemic discussed

Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang

Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang

It’s 1966, and twelve-year-old Ji-li Jiang has everything a girl could want: brains, friends, and a bright future in Communist China. But it’s also the year that China’s leader, Mao Ze-dong, launches the Cultural Revolution—and Ji-li’s world begins to fall apart. Over the next few years, people who were once her friends and neighbors turn on her and her family, forcing them to live in constant terror of arrest. When Ji-li’s father is finally imprisoned, she faces the most difficult dilemma of her life..

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Classism
Depression
Suicide & suicidal ideation
Torture
Home invasion
Bullying

Deaf Utopia by Nyle DiMarco

Deaf Utopia: A Memoir – and a Love Letter to a Way of Life by Nyle DiMarco with Robert Siebert

Before becoming the actor, producer, advocate, and model that people know today, Nyle DiMarco was half of a pair of Deaf twins born to a multi-generational Deaf family in Queens, New York. At the hospital one day after he was born, Nyle “failed” his first test—a hearing test—to the joy and excitement of his parents. In this moving and engrossing memoir, Nyle shares stories, both heartbreaking and humorous, of what it means to navigate a world built for hearing people. From growing up in a rough-and-tumble childhood in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Ableism & audism
Domestic abuse
Suicide

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism (r slur)
Fatphobia & body-shaming
Child physical, verbal and emotional abuse including gaslighting
Grooming and sexually predatory behaviour toward a minor discussed
Parent with Hoarding Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Eating disorder (bulimia)
Graphic disordered eating including food restriction, bingeing, purging and over-exercising (theme)
Alcohol consumption
Emesis
Death of a mother from terminal breast cancer

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet – from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley’s Comet to Penguins of Madagascar – on a five-star scale.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

COVID-19
Anxiety
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Fatmisia
Suicidal ideation
Attempted suicide
Death of a child

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

What does it mean to lose your roots—within your culture, within your family—and what happens when you find them? Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From early childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hopes of giving her a better life; that forever feeling slightly out of place was simply her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as she grew up—facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn’t see, finding her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Physical child abuse recounted
Pregnancy
Childbirth & premature delivery

A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross

A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry & Kali Nicole Gross

In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Slavery
Racism & racial slurs
Rape
Child sexual assault
Murder
War themes

The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson

The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson

Casey Wilson has a lot on her mind and she isn’t afraid to share. In this dazzling collection of essays, skillfully constructed and brimming with emotion, she shares her thoughts on the joys and vagaries of modern-day womanhood and motherhood, introduces the not-quite-typical family that made her who she is, and persuasively argues that lowbrow pop culture is the perfect lens through which to understand human nature. Whether she’s extolling the virtues of eating in bed, processing the humiliation over her father’s late in life perm, or exploring her pathological need to be liked, Casey is witty, candid, and full of poignant… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Depression & postpartum depression
Alcohol consumption & abuse
Febrile seizure, on-page
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a grandfather
Death of a mother from a heart attack