Category Archives: BIPOC Lit

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao

Nancy Luo is shocked when her former best friend, Jamie Ruan, top-ranked junior at Sinclair Prep, goes missing, and then is found dead. Nancy is even more shocked when word starts to spread that she and her friends–Krystal, Akil, and Alexander–are the prime suspects, thanks to “The Proctor,” someone anonymously incriminating them via the school’s social media app.

They all used to be Jamie’s closest friends, and she knew each of their deepest, darkest secrets. Now, somehow The Proctor knows them, too. The four must uncover the true killer before The Proctor exposes more than they can bear and costs them more than they can afford, like Nancy’s full scholarship. Soon, Nancy suspects that her friends may be keeping secrets from her, too.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Parental neglect
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self harm
  • Panic attack
  • Recreational drug use
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Blackmail
  • Fire

The Shadowed Sun by NK Jemisin

The Shadowed Sun by N.K. Jemisin

Gujaareh, the city of dreams, suffers under the imperial rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. A city where the only law was peace now knows violence and oppression. A mysterious and deadly plague now haunts the citizens of Gujaareh, dooming the infected to die screaming in their sleep. Someone must show them the way.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Incestuous rape
  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse

How Long ’til Black Future Month? by NK Jemisin

How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin

In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow south must figure out how to save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Queermisia
  • Rape
  • Animal cruelty

The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin

The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin

In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and among the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers – the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe…and kill those judged corrupt.

But when a conspiracy blooms within Gujaareh’s great temple, the Gatherer Ehiru must question everything he knows. Someone, or something, is murdering innocent dreamers in the goddess’s name, and Ehiru must now protect the woman he was sent to kill – or watch the city be devoured by war and forbidden magic.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Attempted child sexual abuse
  • Genocide

The City We Became by NK Jemisin

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Five New Yorkers must come together in order to defend their city.

Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She’s got five.

But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Misogyny
  • Antisemitism
  • Sexual assault
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic violence discussed
  • Drug use mentioned
  • Alcoholism mentioned

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery & sex slavery
  • Misogyny
  • Slut shaming
  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Body horror
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a father in a hunting accident recounted
  • Murder of a mother by poisoning recounted
  • Torture
  • Immolation

The Stone Sky by NK Jemisin

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

This is the way the world ends… for the last time.

The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother’s mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Amputation
  • Body horror
  • Murder
  • Torture

The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

This is the way the world ends… for the last time.

The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy. It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last. The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a child
  • Murder

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.

But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England’s magical past and regained some of the powers of England’s magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism

Glutton for Pleasure by Alisha Rai

Glutton for Pleasure by Alisha Rai

They’re craving something sweet. She likes it spicy.
 
Devi Malik knows how to heat things up. She does it every night as head chef in her family’s Indian restaurant. Her love life, though, is stuck in the subzero freezer. Now, with a chance to fulfil a secret fantasy with her long-time crush and his brother, it’s time to put her desire on the front two burners.
 
For Marcus Callahan, a love-’em-and-leave-’em attitude isn’t only a necessary evil of their kink. It’s a protective device. Lately, though, his brother Jace has been making noises about craving something more… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child physical & sexual abuse
  • Slut-shaming
  • Internalised fatmisia
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent by car accident