Category Archives: Representation

The Fall of Whit Rivera by Crystal Maldonado

Could you plan the Fall Formal with your (hot) nemesis? Whit Rivera is about to find out. Frenemies Whit and Zay have been at odds for years (ever since he broke up with her in, like, the most embarrassing way imaginable), so when they’re forced to organize the fall formal together, it’s a literal disaster. Sparks fly as Whitney—type-A, passionate, a perfectionist, and a certified sweater-weather fanatic—butts heads with Zay, a dry, relaxed skater boy who takes everything in stride. But not all of those sparks are bad. Has their feud been a big misunderstanding all along?. Read

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Protagonist with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)

How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

Helen Zhang hasn’t seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the tragic accident that bound their lives together forever. Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She’s even scored a coveted spot in the writers’ room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer’s block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except… Grant has done everything in his power to move on from the past, including building a life across the country. And while the panic… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Trauma & panic attacks
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sibling from suicide

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon. Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raisi… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Slavery
  • Hate crime
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Police brutality
  • Genocide & colonialism discussed

Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung

In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother—abused by the family for failing to birth a boy—finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed. Without an Ang male to punish, the…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic misogyny (theme)
  • Spousal & parental abandonment
  • Physical & verbal domestic by parent-in-law
  • Torture

New from Here by Kelly Yang

When the coronavirus hits Hong Kong, ten-year-old Knox Wei-Evans’s mom makes the last-minute decision to move him and his siblings back to California, where they think they will be safe. Suddenly, Knox has two days to prepare for an international move—and for leaving his dad, who has to stay for work. At his new school in California, Knox struggles with being the new kid. His classmates think that because he’s from Asia, he must have brought over the virus. At home, Mom just got fired and is panicking over the loss of health insurance, and Dad doesn’t even know when he’ll see them again, since the flights have been…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • COVID-19

Soul of the Deep by Natasha Bowen

Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata–a mermaid–collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home. But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi goes against an ancient decree and does the unthinkable–she saves his life. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy the gods. To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But all is not as it seems. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail. Danger lurks at every… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery discussed
  • Alcohol consumption (wine)
  • Blood, gore and injury depiction including dead bodies
  • Mutilation & eye trauma mentioned
  • Grief and loss depiction
  • Death of a friend, on-page
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Massacres mentioned
  • Sword, knife and axe violence
  • Kidnapping and captivity
  • War themes and battles scenes , on-page
  • Animal death mentioned (elephant)

Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse

High in the remote mountains, the town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity. Divinity is the remains of the body of the rebel Abaddon, who fell to earth during Heaven’s War, and it powers the world’s most inventive and innovative technologies, ushering in a new age of progress. However, only the descendants of those that rebelled, called Fallen, possess the ability to see the rich lodes of the precious element. That makes them a necessary evil among the good and righteous people called the Elect, and Goetia a town segregated by ancestry and class… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Abortion
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Police brutality
  • Kidnapping & imprisonment
  • Poisoning
  • Animal death (bird)

The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin

Sarah Slade is starting over. As the new owner of the infamous Black Wood House—the scene of a grisly murder-suicide—she’s determined that the fixer-upper will help reach a new audience on her successful lifestyle blog, and distract her from her failing marriage. But as Sarah paints over the house’s horrifying past, she knows better than anyone that a new façade can’t conceal every secret. Then the builders start acting erratically and experiencing bizarre accidents—and Sarah knows there’s only so long she can continue to sleep in the bedroom with the bloodstained floor and suffer the mysterious footsteps she hears:… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide

Find Him Where You Left Him Dead by Kristen Simmons

Four years ago, five kids started a game. Not all of them survived. Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors―Owen, Madeline, Emerson, and Dax―have reunited for one strange and terrible they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead. Together they return to the place where their friendship ended with one find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished―an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions. As soon as they begin, they’re dragged out of their reality and into an eerie hellscape of Japanese underworlds:… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism discussed
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Fire

The Forest Demands Its Due by Kosoko Jackson

Regent Academy has a long and storied history in Winslow, Vermont, as does the forest that surrounds it. The school is known for molding teens into leaders, but its history is far more nefarious. Seventeen-year-old Douglas Jones wants nothing to do with Regent’s king-making; he’s just trying to survive. But then a student is murdered and, for some reason, by the next day no one remembers him having ever existed, except for Douglas and the groundskeeper’s son, Everett Everley. In his determination to uncover the truth, Douglas awakens a horror hidden within the forest, unearth… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Homomisia including f slur
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Death of a father
  • Arson