Category Archives: Representation

Darkhearts by James L. Sutter

When David quit his band, he missed his shot at fame. For the past two years, he’s been trapped in an ordinary Seattle high school life, working summers for his dad’s construction business while his former best friends Chance and Eli became the hottest teen pop act in America. Then Eli dies. Suddenly David and Chance are thrown back into contact, forcing David to rediscover all the little things that once made the two of them so close, even as he continues to despise the singer’s posturing and attention-hogging. As old wounds break open, an unexpected kiss leads the boys to trade frenemy status for a confusing, tentative… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Death of a friend from alcohol poisoning (teenager)

The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers by Adam Sass

Micah Summers runs a popular Instagram full of drawings of his numerous imaginary boyfriends (ninety-nine so far)—though he’s never had a real boyfriend before. But when a meet-cute with Boy 100 goes wrong, Micah embarks on a Prince Charming-like quest throughout Chicago to find true love—for real this time. Will Boy 100 be the One? Micah is rich, dreamy, and charming. As the “Prince of Chicago,”—the son of local celebrity sports radio host known as the King of Chicago—he has everything going for him. Unfortunately, he’s also the prince of imaginary meet-cutes, since he’s too nervous to actually…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Toxic relationship
  • Cheating (emotional infidelity)

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors. When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister. As Faron’s desperation to find… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Panic attacks
  • War, genocide & colonisation

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

It’s 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie’s starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardised by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks and illicit intrigue.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Classism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Suicidal ideation & attempted suicide
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Animal death (dog)

The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth. A decade prior, Cecily has been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Colonisation
  • World War Two (theme)

Saving Sunshine by Saadia Faruqi and Shazleen Khan

It’s hard enough being a kid without being teased for a funny sounding name or wearing a hijab. It’s even harder when you’re constantly fighting your sibling—and Zara and Zeeshan really can’t stand each other. During a family trip to Florida, when the bickering, shoving, and insults reach new heights of chaos, their parents sentence them to the worst possible fate—each other’s company! But when the twins find an ailing turtle, it presents a rare opportunity for teamwork—if the two can put their differences aside at last.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Islamophobic bullying

Mascot by Charles Waters and Traci Sorell

In Rye, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, people work hard, kids go to school, and football is big on Friday nights. An eighth-grade English teacher creates an assignment for her class to debate whether Rye’s mascot should stay or change. Now six middle-schoolers–-all with different backgrounds and beliefs–-get involved in the contentious issue that already has the suburb turned upside down with everyone choosing sides and arguments getting ugly. 

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism (theme)
  • Emesis

A Sky of Paper Stars by Susie Yi

All Yuna wants is to belong. She wants to go to sleepovers, have a smart phone, and go to summer camp—just like her friends in middle school. Furious at her Umma for never packing her a “normal” American lunch, they get into yet another fight. Out of options and miserable, Yuna remembers a legend that her grandma, Halmoni, told her. If you fold 1,000 paper stars, you will be granted one wish. When she reaches 1,000 paper stars, Yuna wishes for her family to move back to Korea, where she can finally be normal. Seconds later: a knock at her door. It’s her sister with devastating news. Halmoni has died and… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandmother

Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao

Pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child, Lady Jing is half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole. As the King’s ward, she has spent the past ninety years running errands, dodging the taunts of the spiteful hulijing courtiers, and trying to control her explosive temper – with varying levels of success. So when Jing overhears the courtiers plotting to steal a priceless dragon pearl from the King, she seizes her chance to expose them, once and for all. With the help of a gentle mortal tasked with setting up the Central Bank of Hell, Jing embarks on a wild chase for intel, first through Hell and then mortal Shanghai… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Panic attacks
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Bullying

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. Those festering secrets are now out in the open and ready to tear the town apart. As Titus investigates…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • White supremacy & racism
  • Death of children in a school shooting