BIPOC Lit – Page 32 – Trigger Warning Database

Ben and Beatriz by Katalina Gamarra

Ben and Beatriz by Katalina Gamarra

Beatriz Herrera is a fierce woman who will take you down with her quick wit and keen intellect. And after the results of the 2016 election worked hard to erase her identity as a queer biracial woman, she’d be right to. Especially if you come for her sweet BFF cousin, Hero. Beatriz would do anything for her, a loyalty that lands Beatriz precisely where she doesn’t want to be: spending a week at the ridiculous Cape Cod mansion of stupid-hot playboy Ben Montgomery. The same Ben Montgomery she definitely shouldn’t have hooked up with that one time. The things we do for… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Colourism
Sexual harassment
Child abuse recounted
Alcoholism
Substance addiction
Attempted suicide, off-page
Psychiatric hospitalisation

Tikka Chance on Me by Suleikha Snyder

Tikka Chance on Me by Suleikha Snyder

He’s the bad-boy biker. She’s the good girl working in her family’s Indian restaurant. On the surface, nothing about Trucker Carrigan and Pinky Grover’s instant, incendiary, attraction makes sense. But when they peel away the layers and the assumptions–and their clothes–everything falls into place. The need. The want. The light. The laughter. They have more in common than they ever could’ve guessed. Is it enough? They won’t know until they take a chance on each other–and on love.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Alcohol consumption
Drug use mentioned
Parent in breast cancer remission mentioned
Police raid
Gang violence

Confessions by Kanae Minato

Confessions by Kanae Minato

After calling off her engagement in wake of a tragic revelation, Yuko Moriguchi had nothing to live for except her only child, four-year-old Manami. Now, following an accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yuko has given up and tendered her resignation. But first she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that upends everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion a maniacal plot for revenge.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny
Parental neglect & abandonment
Transphobia mentioned & misgendering
Depression
HIV/AIDs (theme)*
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a father in a car accident mentioned
Death of a mother from illness mentioned
Murder of a daughter from drowning
Attempted murder of a child from electrocution
Murder of a teen girl from strangulation
Mass death of a family from poisoning discussed (mother, father & child)
Explosion, off-page
Animal death & cruelty mentioned

*Context: A teacher purposefully infects the two teenage boys who murdered her daughter with HIV/AIDs. The aftereffects of being infected are explored in depth. Mentions of HIV+ stigma and how the teacher’s ex-husband is dying of HIV/AIDs.

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

So begins Kaikeyi’s story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on tales about the might and benevolence of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the devout and the wise. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, listens as her own worth is reduced to how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear. Desperate… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny & sexism
Classism
Domestic abuse
Pregnancy & childbirth
Infertility
Murder
Fire
Animal death
War themes & battle scenes

Blood on the Tracks, Volume One by Shuzo Oshimi

Blood on the Tracks, Vol. 1 by Shuzo Oshimi

Seiichi’s mother loves him very much, and his days pass with placid regularity. School, friends, even the attention of his attractive classmate Fukiishi.
Until one terrible summer day, that all changes…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Paedophilia
Incest
Panic attack
Death of a child
Animal death
Bullying

Shino Can’t Say Her Name by Shuzo Oshimi

Shino Can’t Say Her Name by Shuzo Oshimi

High school can be a stressful time for many young people. The change means a new commute, new friends, new courses, and new teachers. For Shino Oshima the change could have meant an opportunity to blossom into adulthood. Unfortunately, things go wrong on her first day – she fails to even say her name during her homeroom introduction. From then on Shino is a part-mute part-stuttering mess. Ostracized and afraid she struggles to find her place in this new world… But thankfully for her, she finds her voice through music and some unexpected new frienemies.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Bullying

Shinji Takahashi and the Mark of the Coatl by Julie Kagawa

Shinji Takahashi and the Mark of the Coatl by Julie Kagawa

Shinji Takahashi is just an ordinary kid. An ordinary homeschooled smart-alecky orphan kid being raised by his aunt Yui. But when a magical guardian decides to use him as a conduit to awaken its power, Shinji’s life takes a turn for the extraordinary. Captured by the menacing Hightower Corporation, which is bent on using the guardian’s magic for its own nefarious purposes, Shinji must team up with a brilliant young tech whiz named Lucy and her robot mouse, Tinker, to escape the Corporation’s evil clutches. Together Shinji and Lucy turn to the venerable Society of Explorers and Adventurers and its ragtag cast of spelunk… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Grief & loss depiction
Death of parents recounted
Kidnapping

Soul of the Sword by Julie Kagawa

Soul of the Sword by Julie Kagawa

One thousand years ago, a wish was made to the Harbinger of Change and a sword of rage and lightning was forged. Kamigoroshi. The Godslayer. It had one task: to seal away the powerful demon Hakaimono. Now he has broken free. Kitsune shapeshifter Yumeko has one task: to take her piece of the ancient and powerful scroll to the Steel Feather temple in order to prevent the summoning of the Harbinger of Change, the great Kami Dragon who will grant one wish to whoever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers. But she has a new enemy now. The demon Hakaimono, who for centuries was trapped in a cursed sword, has escape… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Alcohol consumption
Smoking mentioned
Blood & gore depiction
Beheading
Murder
Sword violence
Death from exposure to the cold mentioned
Animal death
War themes

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s—Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the intern… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Internment camp
World War Two
Bullying

Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford

Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford

Twelve-year-old William Eng, a Chinese-American boy, has lived at Seattle’s Sacred Heart Orphanage ever since his mother’s listless body was carried away from their small apartment five years ago. On his birthday—or rather, the day the nuns designate as his birthday—William and the other orphans are taken to the historical Moore Theatre, where William glimpses an actress on the silver screen who goes by the name of Willow Frost. Struck by her features, William is convinced that the movie star is his mother, Liu Song. Determined to find Willow, and prove his… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism & racial slurs
Rape, on-page
Child abuse
Domestic abuse
Suicide, on-page
Attempted suicide recounted
Forced institutionalisation