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

Her Land, Her Love by Evangeline Parsons Yazzie

Her Land, Her Love by Evangeline Parsons Yazzie

The first novel, in a sweeping epic of one determined Navajo family’s efforts to persevere during the Long Walk, blends history, romance, conflict, culture, and family in a finely crafted story that is a true work of passion.

The story begins in Black Mesa, Arizona in 1865 at the start of the Navajo Long Walk. The woman at the heart of the story is Ninaanibaa’ (The Woman Warrior who Came Home Once Again) and her husband, Hashke Yil Naabaah (The Warrior Who Fights with Anger). When two of their daughters are kidnapped, they set out on a journey in search of their missing children.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Sexual assault

Metal Chest by Chris Yee

Metal Chest by Chris Yee

A devastating war between man and machine has left the world in ruins. Silas, a timid household robot, is left to roam the streets alone. Lacking in courage and confidence, Silas struggles to survive on his own as he searches for a new home. When he encounters Deacon, a human scavenger, he recruits the stranger to escort him to Limbys Technologies, the global giant responsible for creating Silas and other robots. Along their journey, the two develop a close friendship that defies their physical differences. Is this unlikely bond enough to keep them alive in a world full of violence?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Public execution by hanging

The Rise of Kyoshi by FC Yee

The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee with Michael Dante DiMartino

F. C. Yee’s The Rise of Kyoshi delves into the story of Kyoshi, the Earth Kingdom–born Avatar. The longest-living Avatar in this beloved world’s history, Kyoshi established the brave and respected Kyoshi Warriors, but also founded the secretive Dai Li, which led to the corruption, decline, and fall of her own nation. The first of two novels based on Kyoshi, The Rise of Kyoshi maps her journey from a girl of humble origins to the merciless pursuer of justice who is still feared and admired centuries after she became the Avatar. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Child neglect
  • Starvation
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Torture

Séance Tea Party by Reimena Yee

Séance Tea Party by Reimena Yee

After watching her circle of friends seemingly fade away, Lora is determined to still have fun on her own, so when a tea party leads Lora to discovering Alexa, the ghost that haunts her house, they soon become best friends.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death themes
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child from illness recounted

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejide

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejide

Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying ill-fated passengers in a haunted car: a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River.

Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, ten-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash–reeling from having witnessed an act of molestation at his school, but still questioning what and who he saw–has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the “River Man,” who somehow appears each time he goes there… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Rape of a child
  • Nightmares
  • Death of a child
  • Murder

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

Seventeen by Hideo Yokoyama

Seventeen by Hideo Yokoyama

1985. Kazumasa Yuuki, a seasoned reporter at the North Kanto Times, runs a daily gauntlet of the power struggles and office politics that plague its newsroom. But when an air disaster of unprecedented scale occurs on the paper’s doorstep, its staff is united by an unimaginable horror and a once-in-a-lifetime scoop.

2003. Seventeen years later, Yuuki remembers the adrenaline-fueled, emotionally charged seven days that changed his and his colleagues’ lives. He does so while making good on a promise he made that fateful week—one that holds the key to its last solved mystery and represents Yuuki’s final, unconquered fear.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Plane crash

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