Category Archives: Young Adult

Split Second by Kasie West

Addie hardly recognizes her life since her parents divorced. Her boyfriend used her. Her best friend betrayed her. She can’t believe this is the future she chose. On top of that, her ability is acting up. She’s always been able to Search the future when presented with a choice. Now she can manipulate and slow down time, too… but not without a price. When Addie’s dad invites her to spend her winter break with him, she jumps at the chance to escape into the Norm world of Dallas, Texas. There she meets the handsome and achingly familiar Trevor. He’s a virtual… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parent with substance addiction
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault

Pivot Point by Kasie West

Addison Coleman’s life is one big “What if?” As a Searcher, whenever Addie is faced with a choice, she can look into the future and see both outcomes. It’s the ultimate insurance plan against disaster. Or so she thought. When Addie’s parents ambush her with the news of their divorce, she has to pick who she wants to live with—her father, who is leaving the paranormal compound to live among the “Norms,” or her mother, who is staying in the life Addie has always known. Addie loves her life just as it is, so her answer should be easy. One Search six weeks into the future proves it’s not. In one potential future, Addie is adjusting… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault of a minor (vision)
  • Parent with substance addiction
  • Murder & attempted murder (including a faked suicide)

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao

Sophie Chi is in her first year at Wellesley College (despite her parents’ wishes that she attend a “real” university, rather than a liberal arts school) and has long accepted her aromantic and asexual identities. Despite knowing she’ll never fall in love, she enjoys running an Instagram account that offers relationship advice to students at Wellesley. No one except her roommate knows that she’s behind the incredibly popular “Dear Wendy” account. When Joanna “Jo” Ephron―also a first-year student at Wellesley―created their “Sincerely Wanda” account, it was… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Acephobia & arophobia
  • Bullying

The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie

The Midnight Forest. The Fanged Creature. Two fortune-telling cards that spell an untimely death for 17-year-old Clara. Despite the ever-present warning from her fortune-teller grandmother, Clara embarks on a dangerous journey into the deadly Forest Grimm to procure a magical book – Sortes Fortunae , the Book of Fortunes – with the power to reverse the curse on her village and save her mother. Years ago, when the villagers whispered their deepest desires to the book, its pages revealed how to obtain them. All was well until someone used the book for an evil purpo… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical child abuse & parental abandonment
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Poisoning

The Prospects by K.T. Hoffman

Hope is familiar territory for Gene Ionescu. He has always loved baseball, a sport made for underdogs and optimists like him. He also loves his team, the minor league Beaverton Beavers, and, for the most part, he loves the career he’s built. As the first openly trans player in professional baseball, Gene has nearly everything he’s ever let himself dream of—that is, until Luis Estrada, Gene’s former teammate and current rival, gets traded to the Beavers, destroying the careful equilibrium of Gene’s life. Gene and Luis can’t manage a civil conversation off the field or a competent play on it, but in the close confines of dugout bench… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia mentioned
  • Anxiety

Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian

2019. Moud is an out gay teen living in Los Angeles with his distant father, Saeed. When Moud gets the news that his grandfather in Iran is dying, he accompanies his dad to Tehran, where the revelation of family secrets will force Moud into a new understanding of his history, his culture, and himself. 1978. Saeed is an engineering student with a promising future ahead of him in Tehran. But when his parents discover his involvement in the country’s burgeoning revolution, they send him to safety in America, a country Saeed despises. And even worse—he’s forced to live with the American grandmother he never knew existed… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Racism & colourism
  • Suicide (off-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a grandfather from cancer
  • Police brutality & abuse of force*

*Context: The military uses force and gun violence against unarmed protestors.

Mall Goth by Kate Leth

Liv Holme is not exactly thrilled to be moving to a new town with her mother. After all, high school can be brutal, even more so when you’re a fifteen-year-old, bisexual goth. But Liv is determined to be who she is, bullies or not. Still, being the new kid and the only out student brings her a lot of unwelcome attention, and Liv flounders in her search for community. The only person who makes time for her is one of teachers, but Liv isn’t sure how to feel about the way he behaves toward her. Thankfully, she’s found the perfect the mall. Under its fluorescent lights, Liv feels far away from her parents’ strained marriage and the peers who don’t.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Adult-minor relationship

Indigo Owl by Charlie Archbold

When Scarlet Bergen leaves her childhood home to be trained at the Arcadia Institute, harnessing her psychic Solitaire talents, it feels like the beginning of her future. But on the Institute steps, her father whispers a life-changing secret about the past. Her mother, a geneticist who disappeared when Scarlet was ten, had enemies. Scarlet vows to discover the truth about her mother – and is joined in her mission by fellow cadets with their own family secrets and special talents: tech-savvy Rumi, a tenacious truth-hunter, and Dylan, the aloof classmate who can literally read her mind. Together, they’ll uncover a planet-wide… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infertility

How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

The García sisters and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming USA., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home–and not at home–in America.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Paedophilia (one of the protagonist is lured to a car where an adult man exposes himself and masturbates in the front seat while talking to her)
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation for an eating disorder (anorexia)
  • Physical injury (broken arm)
  • Cuban Missile Crisis discussed
  • Animal hunting mentioned

Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee

Dylan Tang wants to win a Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake-making competition for teen chefs—in memory of his mom, and to bring much-needed publicity to his aunt’s struggling Chinese takeout in Brooklyn. Enter Theo Somers: charming, wealthy, with a smile that makes Dylan’s stomach do backflips. AKA a distraction. Their worlds are sun-and-moon apart, but Theo keeps showing up. He even convinces Dylan to be his fake date at a family wedding in the Hamptons. In Theo’s glittering world of pomp, privilege, and crazy rich drama, their romance is supposed to be… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Classism
  • Parental divorce
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Parent with alcoholism mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from cancer
  • Death of a parent in a car accident mentioned
  • Near-drowning incident