BIPOC Lit – Page 58 – Trigger Warning Database

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Darling is only ten years old, yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo’s belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen. Before the school closed before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.

But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Child abuse
Rape
Abortion
Physical assault

Animal death
Animal cruelty
War themes

Kneel by Candace Buford

Kneel by Candace Buford

For guys like Russell Boudreaux, football is the only way out of their small town. As the team’s varsity tight end, Rus has a singular goal: to get a scholarship and play on the national stage. But when his best friend is unfairly arrested and kicked off the team, Rus faces an impossible choice: speak up or live in fear.

Desperate for change, Rus kneels during the national anthem. In one instant, he falls from local…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism & racial profiling
Hate crime
Police brutality

One True Loves by Elise Bryant

One True Loves by Elise Bryant

Lenore Bennett has always been a force. A star artist and style icon at her high school, she’s a master in the subtle art of not giving a . . . well, you know what. But now that graduation is here, she’s a little less sure.

She’s heading to NYU in the fall with a scarlet U (for “undeclared”) written across her chest. Her parents always remind her that Black kids don’t have the luxury of figuring it out as they go—they have to be 110 percent… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Emesis

sourced from michelle

Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant

Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant

Sixteen-year-old Tessa Johnson has never felt like the protagonist in her own life. She’s rarely seen herself reflected in the pages of the romance novels she loves. The only place she’s a true leading lady is in her own writing—in the swoony love stories she shares only with Caroline, her best friend and #1 devoted reader.

When Tessa is accepted into the creative writing program of a prestigious art school, she’s excited to finally let her stories shine. But when she goes to her first… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Ableism & ableist language
Racism
Anxiety & panic attacks

sourced from adri, paige, rose, signed, iza, usom, and tib

A Psalm of Storms and Silence by Roseanne Brown

A Psalm of Storms and Silence by Roseanne A. Brown

Karina lost everything after a violent coup left her without her kingdom or her throne. Now the most wanted person in Sonande, her only hope of reclaiming what is rightfully hers lies in a divine power hidden in the long-lost city of her ancestors.

Meanwhile, the resurrection of Karina’s sister has spiralled the world into chaos, with disaster after disaster threatening the hard-won peace Malik has found as Farid’s apprentice. When they discover that Karina….. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Child physical abuse
Suicidal ideation
Torture

sourced from starr

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

The members of a university mystery club decide to visit an island that was the site of a grisly, unsolved multiple murder the year before. They’re looking forward to investigating the crime, putting their passion for solving mysteries to practical use, but before long there is a fresh murder, and soon the club members realise they are being picked off one by one. The remaining amateur sleuths will have to use all of their murder-mystery expertise to find the killer before they end up dead too.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Suicide
Grief depiction
Murder

sourced from chelsea kelly and eule luftscholss

The Tradition by Jaye Robin Brown

The Tradition by Jaye Robin Brown

Jericho Brown’s daring new book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown’s poetic concerns are both broad and intimate and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie? Brown makes mythical pastorals question the terrors to which we’ve become accustomed and celebrate how we survive. Poems of fatherhood, legacy, blackness, queerness, worship, and trauma are … Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Rape

Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown

Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown

Echo Brown is a wizard from the East Side, where apartments are small and parents suffer addictions to the white rocks. Yet there is magic . . . everywhere. New portals begin to open when Echo transfers to the rich school on the West Side, and an insightful teacher becomes a pivotal mentor. Each day, Echo travels between two worlds, leaving her brothers, her friends, and a piece of herself behind on the East Side. There are dangers to leaving behind the place that made you. Echo soon realizes… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Discrimination	Racism, sexism
Sexual Violence	Rape Paedophilia & child sexual assault
Abuse
Mental Health	Depressive episode Suicide & suicidal ideation
Alcohol & Drugs	Drug & alcohol abuse Overdose
Fertility
Medical
Death	Death of a parent
Violence	Murder Car accident
Natural Disasters
Animal

Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield

Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield

Tilla has spent her entire life trying to make her father love her. But every six months, he leaves their family and returns to his true home: the island of Jamaica. When Tilla’s mother tells her she’ll be spending the summer on the island, Tilla dreads the idea of seeing him again, but longs to discover what life in Jamaica has always held for him. In an unexpected turn of events, Tilla is forced to face the storm that unravels in her own life as she learns about the dark secrets that lie beyond the veil of paradise—all in the midst of an impending hurricane.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Sexism
Racism
Colourism
Slut shaming
Rape
Sexual assault
Domestic abuse

Striking Distance by Sarah Rees Brennan

Fence: Striking Distance written by Sarah Rees Brennan, created by C.S. Pacat & illustrated by Johanna the Mad

Sixteen-year-old Nicholas Cox is the illegitimate son of a retired fencing champion who dreams of getting the proper training he could never afford. After earning a place on the elite Kings Row fencing team, Nicholas must prove himself to his rival, Seiji Katayma, and navigate the clashes, friendships, and relationships between his teammates on the road to state championships—where Nicholas might finally have the chance to spar with his golden-boy half-brother… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Classism
Child abuse & neglect mentioned
Alcohol consumption mentioned
Bullying