Category Archives: Romance

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised. With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes & blackmailed forced outing
  • Homophobia & slurs
  • Bullying

Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed

Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed

Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed book cover

Jamie Goldberg is cool with volunteering for his local state senate candidate—as long as he’s behind the scenes. When it comes to speaking to strangers (or, let’s face it, speaking at all to almost anyone), Jamie’s a choke artist. There’s no way he’d ever knock on doors to ask people for their votes…until he meets Maya. Maya Rehman’s having the worst Ramadan ever. Her best friend is too busy to hang out, her summer trip is canceled, and now her parents are separating. Why her mother thinks the solution to her problems is political canvassing—with some awkward dude she… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Racism, islamophobia & antisemitism
  • Hate crimes (off-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis recounted
  • Death of a grandfather recounted
  • Cyberharassment

Context : A secondary character takes pictures of the protagonists almost kissing and posts them online without their consent. This is discussed in-depth.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Despite the tumour-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Terminal cancer (theme)
  • Loss of vision (secondary character)
  • Medical treatments & procedures including hospitalisation
  • Death of a boyfriend

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

If you choose to support this author or novel (financially or otherwise), please consider educating yourself about the Quileute tribe’s plight and support their mission.

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him—and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be—that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & anti-Native language
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Blood depiction & blood-drinking
  • Hospitalisation for illness & injuries (broken bones, blood loss)
  • Mentions of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Minor car accident
  • Attempted murder
  • Stalking & kidnapping

All of Us With Wings by Michelle Ruiz Keil

Seventeen-year-old Xochi is alone in San Francisco, running from her painful past: the mother who abandoned her, the man who betrayed her. Then one day, she meets Pallas, a precocious twelve-year-old who lives with her rock-star family in one of the city’s storybook Victorians. Xochi accepts a position as Pallas’s live-in governess and quickly finds her place in their household, which is relaxed and happy despite the band’s larger-than-life fame. But on the night of the Vernal Equinox, as a concert afterparty rages in the house below, Xochi and Pallas accidentally… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Sexism
  • Rape recounted & sexual assault
  • Child sex trafficking, implied
  • Adult-minor relationship*
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use

*Context: The main characters is a seventeen-year-old girl whose love interest is her twenty-eight-year-old male employer.

99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne

Darcy Barrett has undertaken a global survey of men. She’s travelled the world, and can categorically say that no one measures up to Tom Valeska, whose only flaw is that Darcy’s twin brother Jamie saw him first and claimed him forever as his best friend. Despite Darcy’s best efforts, Tom’s off limits and loyal to her brother, 99%. That’s the problem with finding her dream man at age eight and peaking in her photography career at age twenty—ever since, she’s had to learn to settle for good enough. When Darcy and Jamie inherit a tumble-down cottage from their grandmother, they’re left with strict instructions to bring it back to its former… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Alcohol abuse & alcoholism
  • Serious chronic heart condition (protagonist)
  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Death of a grandparent recounted

Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

American-born seventeen-year-old Maya Aziz is torn between worlds. There’s the proper one her parents expect for their good Indian daughter: attending a college close to their suburban Chicago home, and being paired off with an older Muslim boy her mom deems “suitable.” And then there is the world of her dreams: going to film school and living in New York City—and maybe (just maybe) pursuing a boy she’s known from afar since grade school, a boy who’s finally falling into her orbit at school. There’s also the real world, beyond Maya’s control. In the aftermath of a horrific crime perpetrated hundreds of miles… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & Islamophobia
  • Hate crime (physical assault)
  • Disownment
  • Suicide bombing mentioned
  • Hospitalisation for physical injuries due to physical assault
  • Bullying

Out on Good Behaviour

Out on Good Behaviour by Dahlia Adler

Frankie Bellisario knows she can get anyone she sets her sights on, but just because she can doesn’t mean she should—not when the person she’s eyeing is Samara Kazarian, the daughter of a southern Republican mayor. No matter how badly Frankie wants to test her powers of persuasion, even she recognizes some lines aren’t meant to be crossed. But when Frankie learns she’s been on Samara’s mind too, the idea of hooking up with her grows too strong to resist. Only Sam’s not looking for a hookup; she wants—needs—the real thing, and she’s afraid she’ll never find it as long… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes
  • Slut-shaming

Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

Liv Papandreas has a dream job as a sous chef at Nashville’s hottest restaurant. Too bad the celebrity chef owner is less than charming behind kitchen doors. After she catches him harassing a young hostess, she confronts him and gets fired. Liv vows revenge, but she’ll need assistance to take on the powerful chef. Unfortunately, that means turning to Braden Mack. When Liv’s blackballed from the restaurant scene, the charismatic nightclub entrepreneur offers to help expose her ex-boss, but she is suspicious of his motives. He’ll need to call in reinforcements: the Bromance Book Club.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Victim-blaming
  • Sexual & workplace harassment
  • Domestic abuse & gaslighting recounted
  • Murder mentioned
  • Stalking

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after. When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Queerphobia & mentions of disownment from queerphobic parents
  • Transphobia, internalised transphobia, misgendering & deadnaming
  • Biphobia & internalised biphobia
  • Coming out themes
  • Racism & racist microaggressions
  • Parental abandonment
  • Emotional parental & domestic abuse mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
  • Top surgery recounted & Hormone Replacement Therapy
  • Needles & injections (on-page)
  • Scars
  • Bullying
  • Cyberbullying, cyberharassment, catfishing & doxxing