Kidlit – Page 81 – Trigger Warning Database

Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo

Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo

10 00 p.m.: Lucky is the biggest K-pop star on the scene, and she’s just performed her hit song “Heartbeat” in Hong Kong to thousands of adoring fans. She’s about to debut on The Tonight Show in America, hopefully a breakout performance for her career. But right now? She’s in her fancy hotel, trying to fall asleep but dying for a hamburger. 11 00 p.m.: Jack is sneaking into a fancy hotel, on assignment for his tabloid job that he keeps secret from his parents. On his way out of the hotel, he runs into a girl wearing slippers, a girl who is single-mindedly determined to find a hamburger. She looks kind of familiar. She’s very cute… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Disordered eating mentioned
Anxiety

Gilded by Marissa Meyer

Gilded by Marissa Meyer

Long ago cursed by the god of lies, a poor miller’s daughter has developed a talent for spinning stories that are fantastical and spellbinding and entirely untrue. Or so everyone believes. When one of Serilda’s outlandish tales draws the attention of the sinister Erlking and his undead hunters, she finds herself swept away into a grim world where ghouls and phantoms prowl the earth and hollow-eyed ravens track her every move. The king orders Serilda to complete the impossible task of spinning straw into gold or be killed for telling falsehoods. In her … Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Alcohol consumption mentioned
Attempted non-consensual abortion
Minor body horror
Death of a sister mentioned (secondary character)
Murder
Kidnapping & disppearance of children discussed
Disappearance & presumed death of a parent discussed
Animal cruelty (horse)

Icebreaker by AL Graziadei

Icebreaker by A.L. Graziadei

Seventeen-year-old Mickey James III is a college freshman, a brother to five sisters, and a hockey legacy. With a father and a grandfather who have gone down in NHL history, Mickey is almost guaranteed the league’s top draft spot. Seventeen-year-old Mickey James III is a college freshman, a brother to five sisters, and a hockey legacy. With a father and a grandfather who have gone down in NHL history, Mickey is almost guaranteed the league’s top draft spot. This is a story about falling in love, finding your team (on and off the ice), and choosing your own path.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Abandonment
Anxiety
Depression
Tricholillomania
Alcohol consumption
Drug use mentioned

American Betiya by Anuradha Rajurkar

American Betiya by Anuradha D. Rajurkar

Rani Kelkar has never lied to her parents until she meets Oliver. The same qualities that draw her in–his tattoos, his charisma, his passion for art–make him her mother’s worst nightmare. They begin dating in secret, but when Oliver’s troubled home life unravels, he starts to ask more of Rani than she knows how to give, desperately trying to fit into her world, no matter how high the cost. When a twist of fate leads Rani from Evanston, Illinois to Pune, India for a summer, she has a reckoning with herself–and what’s really brewing beneath the surface of her first love… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Misogyny
Child abandonment & neglect
Substance addiction
Alcohol consumption
Drug use
Unplanned pregnancy
Suicide & attempted suicide
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a friend
Death of a grandparent

Kissing in America by Margo Rabb

Kissing in America by Margo Rabb

In the two years since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found comfort in reading romance novels—118 of them, to be exact—to dull the pain of her loss that’s still so present. Her romantic fantasies become a reality when she meets Will, who seems to truly understand Eva’s grief. Unfortunately, after Eva falls head-over-heels for him, he picks up and moves to California without any warning. Not wanting to lose the only person who has been able to pull her out of sadness—and, perhaps, her shot at real love—Eva and her best friend, Annie, concoct a plan to travel… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Death of a father recounted

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe

Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A Black French Canadian, he knows from watching American sitcoms that those three things don’t bode well when you are moving to Austin, Texas. Plunked into a new high school and sweating a ridiculous amount from the oppressive Texas heat, Norris finds himself cataloguing everyone he meets: the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Loners, and even the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Making a ton of friends has never been a priority for him, and this way he can at least amuse himself until it’s time to go back to Canada, where he belongs… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Homomisic slur
Racism
Depression & depressive episode
Attempted suicide recounted
Alcohol consumption
Emesis
Police brutality discussed
Bullying

And We Rise by Erica Martin

And We Rise by Erica Martin

In stunning verse and vivid use of white space, Erica Martin’s debut poetry collection walks readers through the Civil Rights Movement—from the well-documented events that shaped the nation’s treatment of Black people, beginning with the “Separate but Equal” ruling—and introduces lesser-known figures and moments that were just as crucial to the Movement and our nation’s centuries-long fight for justice and equality.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Slavery mentioned
Racism & racial slurs
Lynching
Police brutality

A Tragic Kind of Wonderful by Eric Lindstrom

A Tragic Kind of Wonderful by Eric Lindstrom

For sixteen-year-old Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a new relationship with her instinct to keep everyone at arm’s length. And when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to come out and upend her shaky equilibrium. As the walls of Mel’s compartmentalized world crumble, she fears the worst–that her friends will abandon her if they learn the truth about what she’s been hiding. Can Mel bring herself to risk everything to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Bipolar Disorder

American as Paneer Pie by Supriya Kelkar

American as Paneer Pie by Supriya Kelkar

As the only Indian American kid in her small town, Lekha Divekar feels like she has two versions of herself: Home Lekha, who loves watching Bollywood movies and eating Indian food, and School Lekha, who pins her hair over her bindi birthmark and avoids confrontation at all costs, especially when someone teases her for being Indian. When a girl Lekha’s age moves in across the street, Lekha is excited to hear that her name is Avantika .nd she’s Desi, too! .. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Colourism
Hate crimes
Bullying

This Is My America by Kim Johnson

This Is My America by Kim Johnson

Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time—her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism & racial profiling
Ku Klux Klan & white supremacy
Death of a parent recounted
Murder
Gun violence
Police brutality & violence
Lynching mentioned
Incarceration of a parent