BIPOC Lit – Page 51 – Trigger Warning Database

If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So

If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So

Elsie has a crush on Ada, the only person in the world who truly understands her. Unfortunately, they’ve never met in real life and Ada lives an ocean away. But Elsie has decided it’s now or never to tell Ada how she feels. That is until her long-lost best friend Joan walks back into her life.

In a summer of repairing broken connections and building surprising new ones, Elsie realises that she isn’t nearly as alone as she thought. But now she has a choice to make…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Queermisia
Toxic relationship recounted

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith

When Louise Wolfe’s first real boyfriend mocks and disrespects Native people in front of her, she breaks things off and dumps him over e-mail. It’s her senior year, anyway, and she’d rather spend her time with her family and friends and working on the school newspaper. The editors pair her up with Joey Kairouz, the ambitious new photojournalist, and in no time the paper’s staff find themselves with a major story to cover: the school musical director’s inclusive approach to casting The Wizard of Oz has been provoking backlash in their mostly white, middle-class Kansas town… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Slut-shaming discussed
Bullying discussed

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is mesmerized by his tale of Shams’s search for Rumi and the dervish’s role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams’s lessons, or rules, that offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Rape
Infidelity
Murder

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide ‘physical, intellectual and moral training’ which will equip its inmates to become ‘honourable and… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Paedophilia & child sexual abuse mentioned
Blood depiction
Murder
Torture
Physical assault
Whipping

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Slavery
Rape & threats of rape mentioned
Death of parents recounted
Murder & genocide
Graphic torture

New Kid by Jerry Craft

The New Kid by Jerry Craft

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.

As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism & racial profiling

Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery by Ally Carter

Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery by Ally Carter

April thought she had her happy ending. After all, she has her new house and new friends and new guardian. But she also has a very big new secret. The kids of Winterborne House are the only ones who know that Gabriel Winterborne—famous billionaire and terrible cook—is really a sword-wielding vigilante. What they don’t know is that he’s not the only one.

When a masked figure breaks in, looking for… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Parental abandonment, recounted & discussed (on-page)
Drugging
Blood depiction
Physical injuries including gunshot wounds, stab wounds, and a sprained ankle
Death of a mother & father recounted
Murder & attempted murder
Gun violence
Sword violence & stabbing
Fire, on-page & recounted
Boating accident recounted
Explosion
Home invasion
Kidnapping & attempted kidnapping
Disappearance & presumed death of a loved one
Experiences in orphanages, group homes, and foster care discussed including child abuse & neglect

Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor by Ally Carter

Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor by Ally Carter

When 11-year-old April joins a group of kids living at Winterborne Home she doesn’t expect to be there for very long. But she soon learns that this home isn’t like any of the others – especially when she unearths the secret of the missing-and-presumed-dead billionaire, Gabriel Winterborne, who is neither missing nor dead but is actually living in a basement lair, sharpening his swords and looking for vengeance… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Parental abandonment
Child abuse recounted
Serious physical injury
Death of a parent
Murder & attempted murder
Knife & sword violence
Gun violence
Home invasion
Bullying

The Ex Proposal by Nia Arthurs

The Ex Proposal by Nia Arthurs

Giselle Stone is best known for her smoothie truck and her love of K-pop, but one of those things is not acceptable to her mother. After she’s pushed to the edge of her patience—thanks, Mom—she concocts a lie that’s sure to get the parents off her back. A fake long-distance relationship with her ex. It’s a foolproof plan.

Until the other half of her lie suddenly shows up in Belize, looking ten times sexier than he did in high school. Getting West Phillips to join her ruse is the easy part… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Panic attacks
Death of a parent recounted
Catfishing

A School Frozen in Time, Volume 1 by Mizuki Tsujimura

A School Frozen in Time, Vol. 1 by Mizuki Tsujimura and illustrated by Naoshi Arakawa

On a snowy school day like any other, classmates and childhood friends Hiroshi and Mizuki arrive at school to find the campus eerily empty. Before long, they find themselves trapped inside with six other friends, and even stranger, all the clocks have stopped at a very specific moment — the exact time when a former classmate jumped off the school roof to their death three months earlier. It turns out that this departed friend is their way out of their current predicament and may even be among their group… but no one can remember who it was that took their life on that sad day. The students… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Depression
Suicide
Self harm mentioned
Blood depiction