Category Archives: Disability Lit

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth-century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.” Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misgendering (accidental)
  • Panic disorder
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Disappearance and implied death of a wife and daughter (theme)
  • Kidnapping 

Hunger by Roxane Gay

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slut shaming
  • Fatmisia & body shaming (theme)
  • Graphic gang rape of a child recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Smoking discussed
  • Graphic medical procedures, including surgery
  • Bullying

Scandalous by LJ Shen

Scandalous by L.J. Shen

They call him The Mute for a reason. Hard, cold and calculated, he rarely speaks. When he does, it’s with disdain. When he does, my stomach flips and my world tilts on its axis. He is thirty-three. I am eighteen. He’s a single dad and my father’s business partner. I’m just a kid to him and his enemy’s daughter. He’s emotionally unavailable. And I am…feeling things I shouldn’t feel for him. Trent Rexroth is going to break my heart. The writing isn’t just on the wall, it’s inked on my soul. And yet, I can’t stay away. A scandal is the last thing my family needs. But a scandal is what we’re going to give them. And oh, what beautiful chaos it will be.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical parental abuse (on-page)
  • Parent with depression & a substance addiction
  • Drug use (on- & off-page)
  • Blackmail

Broken Knight by LJ Shen

Broken Knight by L.J. Shen

Not all love stories are written the same way. Ours had torn chapters, missing paragraphs, and a bittersweet ending. Luna Rexroth is everyone’s favourite wallflower. Underneath the meek, tomboy exterior everyone loves (yet pities) is a girl who knows exactly what, and who, she wants—namely, the boy from the treehouse who taught her how to curse in sign language. Who taught her how to laugh, to live. To love. Knight Cole is everyone’s favourite football hero. This daredevil hell-raiser could knock you up with his gaze alone, but he only has eyes for the girl across the street… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cheating
  • Child abandonment recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Pregnancy
  • Selective mutism
  • Death of a parent from cystic fibrosis (on-page)

Ruckus by LJ Shen

Ruckus by L.J. Shen

They say that life is a beautiful lie and death a painful truth. They’re right. No one has ever made me feel more alive than the guy who serves as a constant reminder that my clock is ticking. He is my forbidden, shiny apple. The striking fallacy to my blunt, raw, truth. He is also my sister’s ex-boyfriend. One thing you should know before you judge me; I saw him first. I craved him first. I loved him first. Eleven years later, he waltzes into my life, demanding a second chance. Dean Cole wants to be my bronze horseman. But my clock is ticking. See, I’m not like the rest. I have an illness. Sometimes I conquer it. Sometimes it conquers me. My white knight has finally arrived. Hopefully, he isn’t too late.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abandonment recounted
  • Panic attack
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug abuse
  • Infertility (on-page)
  • Cystic fibrosis (on-page)
  • Blackmail (on-page)

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships travelling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop. At the Five-Hop One-Stop, long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and get fuel, transit permits, and assorted supplies. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Chronic illness
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Genocide
  • Confinement

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena

It’s winter in the Catskills and Mitchell’s Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing–maybe even romantic–weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge wood-burning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery. So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity–and all contact with the outside world–the guests settle in and try to make the best of it… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Bury Your Gays trope
  • Gang rape recounted
  • Infidelity
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Death of a wife, fiancée & husband
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a son
  • Murder & attempted murder by strangulation and poisoning
  • Physical assault
  • Death from a fall
  • Death from exposure to the cold
  • Drowning
  • Military service recounted

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Bury Your Gays trope
  • Gang rape recounted
  • Cheating
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Death of a wife & husband
  • Death of a fiance
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a son
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Strangulation
  • Poisoning
  • Physical assault
  • Death from a fall
  • Death from exposure to the cold
  • Drowning
  • Military service recounted

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn’t help that Stella has Asperger’s and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice—with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can’t afford to turn down Stella’s offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism & internalised ableism
  • Internalised misogyny
  • Parental abandonment
  • Sex work
  • Sexual assault recounted
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Anxiety

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.

As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Ableism & internalised ableism
  • Parental abandonment
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a relative in a car accident

The Ash House by Angharad Walker

The Ash House by Angharad Walker

The Ash House by Angharad Walker

When Eleven-year-old Sol arrives at the Ash House, desperate for a cure for his complex pain syndrome, he finds a community of strange children long abandoned by their mysterious Headmaster.

The children at the Ash House want the new boy to love their home as much as they do. They give him a name like theirs. They show him the dorms and tell him about the wonderful oasis that the Headmaster has created for them. But the new boy already has a name. Doesn’t he? At least he did before he walked through those gates…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Medical experimentation
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injury & illness
  • Chronic pain
  • Kidnapping implied
  • Captivity implied
  • Animal attack