Category Archives: Kidlit

The Big Lie by Julie Mayhew

The Big Lie by Julie Mayhew

Jessika Keller is a good girl: she obeys her father, does her best to impress Herr Fisher at the Bund Deutscher Mädel meetings and is set to be a world champion ice skater. Her neighbour Clementine is not so submissive. Outspoken and radical, Clem is delectably dangerous and rebellious. And the regime has noticed. Jess cannot keep both her perfect life and her dearest friend. But which can she live without?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Antisemitism
  • Queermisia
  • Torture
  • Fire

Snowsisters by Tom Wilinsky and Jen Sternick

Snowsisters by Tom Wilinsky & Jen Sternick

High school students—Soph, who attends private school in Manhattan, and Tess, a public school student who lives on a dairy farm in New Hampshire—are thrown together as roommates at a week-long writing conference. As they get to know each other and the other young women, both Soph and Tess discover unexpected truths and about friendship, their craft, and how to hold fast to their convictions while opening their hearts to love.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Misgendering
  • Child abuse
  • Bullying

The Fixer by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Fixer by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Sixteen-year-old Tess Kendrick has spent her entire life on her grandfather’s ranch. But when her estranged sister Ivy uproots her to D.C., Tess is thrown into a world that revolves around politics and power. She also starts at Hardwicke Academy, the D.C. school for the children of the rich and powerful, where she unwittingly becomes a fixer for the high school set, fixing teens’ problems the way her sister fixes their parents’ problems. And when a conspiracy surfaces that involves the family member of one of Tess’s classmates, love triangles and unbelievable family secrets come to light and life gets even more interesting—and complicated—for Tess.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Hostage situation

The Liars Beneath by Heather Van Fleet

The Liars Beneath by Heather Van Fleet

After a tragic accident ends her best friend’s life, 17-year-old Becca Thompson succumbs to grief the only way she knows how: by wallowing in it. She’s a fragment of the person she once was-far too broken to enjoy the summer before her senior year. But when Ben McCain, her best friend’s older brother, returns home, Becca must face her new reality head on. She isn’t interested in Ben’s games, especially since he abandoned his sister during the months leading up to her death. But when he begs for her help in uncovering the truth about what really happened the night of his sister’s death, Becca finds herself agreeing, hoping to clear up rumors swirling in the wake of her best friend’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism
  • Physical assault

Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore

Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore

Dylan and her adored French mother dream of one day sailing across the ocean to France. Paris, Dylan imagines, is a place where her black skin won’t stand out, a place she might feel she belongs. But when she loses her mother in a freak accident, Dylan finds herself on a very different journey: a road trip across outback Australia in the care of her mother’s grieving boyfriend, Pat. As they travel through remote towns further and further from the water Dylan longs for, she and Pat form an unlikely bond. One that will be broken when he leaves her with the family she has never… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Internalised racism & racial slurs
  • Domestic violence recounted
  • Hospitalisation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people’s minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing. It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Murder
  • Torture

The Door in the Alley by Adrienne Kress

The Door in the Alley by Adrienne Kress

This is one of those stories that start with a pig in a teeny hat. It’s not the one you’re thinking about. (This story is way better than that one. This pig-in-a-teeny-hat story starts when a very uninquisitive boy stumbles upon a very mysterious society. After that, there is danger and adventure; there are missing persons, hired thugs, a hidden box, a lost map, and famous explorers; and also a girl on a rescue mission.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent in a car crash
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Disappearance of a grandparent

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say by Leila Sales

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say by Leila Sales

Winter, a one-time National Spelling Bee Champ, has a bright future ahead of her. That all changes after she haphazardly writes an offensive tweet that she thought was a harmless joke. What unfolds is a barrage of Internet shaming and rejection from her community and closest friends. Winter seeks to redeem herself but first must come to terms with what she wrote and understand why there was so much backlash.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial profiling
  • Homomisia
  • Slut shaming
  • Outing
  • Suicide
  • Panic attacks
  • Attempted suicide
  • Animal death
  • Animal abuse & cruelty

Family of Liars by E Lockhart

Family of Liars by E. Lockhart

A windswept private island off the coast of Massachusetts. A hungry ocean, churning with secrets and sorrow. A fiery, addicted heiress. An irresistible, unpredictable boy. A summer of unforgivable betrayal and terrible mistakes. Welcome back to the Sinclair family. They were always liars.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Attempted rape
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Percriptond drug abuse
  • Surgery (jaw reconstruction)
  • Dead body
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister
  • Drowning recounted

Start Here by Trish Doller

Start Here by Trish Doller

Willa and Taylor were supposed to spend the summer after high school sailing from Ohio to Key West with their best friend, Finley. But Finley died before graduation, leaving them with a twenty-five-foot sailboat, a list of clues leading them to destinations along the way, and a friendship that’s hanging by a thread. Now, Willa and Taylor have two months and two thousand miles to discover how life works without Finley—and to decide if their own friendship is worth saving.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
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