Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall

Rosaline Palmer has always lived by the rules—well, except for when she dropped out of college to raise her daughter, Amelie. Now, she’s teetering on the edge of financial disaster. But where there’s a whisk there’s a way . . . and Rosaline has just landed a spot on the nation’s most beloved baking show. Winning the prize money would give her daughter the life she deserves. However, more than collapsing trifles stand between Rosaline and sweet, sweet victory.  Suave Alain Pope knows all the right moves to sweep her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Biphobia & classism
  • Infidelity by ex-partner recounted (protagonist)
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Protagonist with anxiety
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Unplanned pregnancy recounted with mentions of consideration of an abortion
  • Physical assault (on-page)

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she’s at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past… She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight. She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen’s triumphant return.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Sex work mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction, including mentions of corpse mutilation, dead bodies, broken bones, beheading & branding
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture mentioned
  • Physical assault & fistfights mentioned
  • Poisoning mentioned
  • Hostage situation (being held at knifepoint)
  • Knife & bow and arrow violence
  • War themes & general fantasy violence (on-page)

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she’d never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen’s memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
  • Suicide, attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation

Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

It’s not that far from Evanston to Naperville, but Chicago suburbanites Will Grayson and Will Grayson might as well live on different planets. When fate delivers them both to the same surprising crossroads, the Will Graysons find their lives overlapping and hurtling in new and unexpected directions. With a push from friends new and old – including the massive, and massively fabulous, Tiny Cooper, offensive lineman and musical theater auteur extraordinaire – Will and Will begin building toward respective romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most awesome high school musical. (less)

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes
  • Homophobia & slurs
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Bullying

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) & intrusive thoughts
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Dissociation & derealization
  • Self-harm
  • Death of a parent
  • Car accident
  • Disappearance of a parent

The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer

Artemis’s mother is gravely ill. Unfortunately the cure, an endangered lemur, was made extinct eight years ago . . . by Artemis Fowl. Talk about awkward. What if he could travel back in time, outwit his former self and bring the lemur home? With the right demon warlock, it might be possible. But we all remember the young Artemis. He was, to put it mildly, a pretty terrible human being, so this won’t be easy.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Serious physical illness of a parent
  • Physical injury including broken bones
  • Death of a mother from radiation poisoning mentioned
  • Explosion & bombings
  • Kidnapping
  • Plane crash
  • Gun violence
  • Fire
  • Animal death (theme)
  • Animal cruelty & medical experimentation
  • Animal stampede

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar chronicles Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that Esther’s insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Graphic attempted rape (multiple)
  • Suicide & attempted suicide discussed
  • Self-harm
  • Depression
  • Death of a father
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I Was Here by Gayle Forman

When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, who broke Meg’s heart. And about an encrypted computer… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend from suicide (theme)

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman book cover

Will is the bearer of the knife. Now, accompanied by angels, his task is to deliver that powerful, dangerous weapon to Lord Asriel – by the command of his dying father. But how can he go looking for Lord Asriel when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him. The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Will must find Lyra, for together they are on their way to battle, an inevitable journey that will even take them to the world of the dead…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Kidnapping
  • War themes

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Physical child abuse & domestic abuse mentioned
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use mentioned
  • Teen pregnancy recounted
  • Death of a friend & child (on-page & recounted)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Gang violence
  • Incarceration recounted
  • Police brutality & violence, including the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black teen