Category Archives: Genres

Arrival by Ted Chiang

Arrival by Ted Chiang

From a soaring Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth with the heavens above, to a world where angelic visitations are a wondrous and terrifying part of everyday life; from a neural modification that eliminates the appeal of physical beauty, to an alien language that challenges our very perception of time and reality… Chiang’s rigorously imagined stories invite us to question our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Terminal illness
  • Death of a child

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven-and broke through to Heaven’s other side? What if we discovered that the fundamentals of mathematics were arbitrary and inconsistent? What if there were a science of naming things that calls life into being from inanimate matter? What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our perception of time? What if all the beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity were literally true, and the sight of sinners being swallowed into fiery pits were a routine event on city streets? These are the kinds of outrageous questions posed by the stories of Ted Chiang. Stories of your life . . . and others..

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Terminal illness
  • Death of a child

Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

It seemed an easy job . . . After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl doesn’t marry a prince?

But for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, travelling to the distant city of Genua, things are never that simple . . .

Servant girls have to marry the prince. That’s what life is all about. You can’t fight a Happy Ending.

At least – up until now . . .

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slut shaming

Wake by Lisa McMann 

Wake by Lisa McMann

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people’s dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie’s seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can’t tell anybody about what she does they’d never believe her, or worse, they’d think she’s a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn’t want and can’t control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else’s twisted psyche. She is a participant.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Outing
  • Bullying

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)

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

The summer after a wealthy young summer guest dies under suspicious circumstances, her best friend lives under a cloud of grief and suspicion. Littleport, Maine, has always felt like two separate towns: an ideal vacation enclave for the wealthy, whose summer homes line the coastline; and a simple harbour community for the year-round residents whose livelihoods rely on service to the visitors.

Typically, fierce friendships never develop between a local and a summer girl—but that’s just what happens with visitor Sadie Loman and Littleport resident Avery Greer. Each summer for almost a decade, the girls are inseparable—until Sadie is found dead. While the police rule the death a suicide, Avery can’t help but feel there are those in the community, including a local detective and Sadie’s brother, Parker, who blame her. Someone knows more than they’re saying, and Avery is intent on clearing her name, before the facts get twisted against her.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Murder
  • Car accident
  • House fire

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 Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi

The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi

There’s something strange behind the basement door… After a family tragedy, Emily, Navin and their mother move to an ancestral home to start a new life. On the family’s very first night in the mysterious house, Em and Navin’s mom is kidnapped by a tentacled creature. Now it’s up to Em and Navin to figure out how to set things right and save their mother’s life!

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Coma (secondary character)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Graphic death of a husband & father in a car accident, on-page

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