Representation – Page 93 – Trigger Warning Database

Unearthed by Lilliam Rivera

Unearthed: A Jessica Cruz Story by Lilliam Rivera and illustrated by Steph C.

Jessica Cruz has done everything right. She’s a dedicated student, popular among her classmates, and has a loving family that has done everything they can to give her a better life in the United States. While Jessica is a part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, allowing her to go to school and live in the U.S., her parents are undocumented. Jessica usually worries for her parents, but her fears and anxiety escalate as a mayoral candidate with a strong anti-immigration stance runs for office… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Deportation

Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera

Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera

Eury comes to the Bronx as a girl haunted. Haunted by losing everything in Hurricane Maria–and by an evil spirit, Ato. She fully expects the tragedy that befell her and her family in Puerto Rico to catch up with her in New York. Yet, for a time, she can almost set this fear aside, because there’s this boy. Pheus is a golden-voiced, bachata-singing charmer, ready to spend the summer on the beach with his friends, serenading his on-again, off-again flame. That changes… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Sexual harassment
Anxiety & panic attacks
Animal death

We Light Up the Sky by Lilliam Rivera

We Light Up the Sky by Lilliam Rivera

Pedro, Luna, and Rafa may attend Fairfax High School together in Los Angeles, but they run in separate spheres. Pedro is often told that he’s “too much” and seeks refuge from his home life in a local drag bar. Luna is pretending to go along with the popular crowd but is still grieving the unexpected passing of her beloved cousin Tasha. Then there’s Rafa, the quiet new kid who is hiding the fact that his family is homeless. But Pedro, Luna, and Rafa find themselves thrown together when an extraterrestrial visitor lands in their city… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Recreational drug use & alcohol mentioned
Body horror
Police brutality & violence
Physical assault
Bullying
Animal attack

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men. Ames isn’t happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Transmisia
Deadnaming
Outing
Cheating
Graphic miscarriage
Abortion discussed

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright

Sang Ly lives at Cambodia’s largest city dump, earning a living for her family by sifting through the trash for recyclables and things that can be repaired and sold. On a good day, she can earn enough to buy food for her family. She needs enough good days to pay the Rent Collector, Sopeap—a grumpy old woman who is willing to evict any tenant who can’t pay their rent on time. When Sang Ly is unable to pay her rent, she fears her family will have to leave their shanty home—a place where her only possessions can be carried in two hands. But when Sopeap sees a discarded children’s book lying on Sang Ly’s cardboard bed, her mood… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Human trafficking mentioned
Physical injuries & illnesses mentioned
Death of a parent
Gang violence
Physical assault
Poverty (theme)

Ain’t Never Not Been Black by Javon Johnson

Ain’t Never Not Been Black by Javon Johnson

Engaging with themes of masculinity, racism, love, and joy, Johnson is at once critical and creative. His spoken word performance transfers effortlessly to the page, with poems that will encompass you. This is a book about blackness and survival, and how in American these are inseparable. In a world of individualism, who can you hold close? In a world of danger, what makes you feel safe? From a poem written in the form of a syllabus, to another about the time his grandmother literally saved his life, Johnson’s creative expression is constantly enacting the feminist mantra, “the personal is political.”

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism & racial slur
Cancer
Murder
Police brutality & violence
Gun violence

Vanished by EE Cooper

Vanished by E.E. Cooper

Kalah knows better than to fall for Beth Taylor . . . but that doesn’t stop her from falling hard and falling fast, heart first into a sea of complications. Then Beth vanishes. She skips town on her eighteenth birthday, leaving behind a flurry of rumours and a string of broken hearts. Not even Beth’s best friend, Britney, knows where she went. Beth didn’t even tell Kalah goodbye. One of the rumours links Beth to Britney’s boyfriend, and Kalah doesn’t want to believe the betrayal. But Brit clearly believes it—and before Kalah can sort out the truth, Britney is dead… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Ableism
Suicide

The Deck of Omens by Christine Lynn Herman

The Deck of Omens by Christine Lynn Herman

Though the Beast is seemingly subdued for now, a new threat looms in Four Paths: a corruption seeping from the Gray into the forest. And with the other Founders preoccupied by their tangled alliances and fraying relationships, only May Hawthorne seems to realize the danger. But saving the town she loves means seeking aid from the person her family despises most–her and Justin’s father. May’s father isn’t the only newcomer in town–Isaac Sullivan’s older brother has also returned, seeking forgiveness for the role he played in Isaac’s troubled past. But Isaac isn’t ready to let… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Coming out themes, on-page
Emotional & physical child abuse
Parental abandonment
Domestic violence recounted
Memory loss (memory manipulation magic)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Alcohol consumption & abuse
Graphic body horror
Physical injury & illness
Emesis
Scars
Death of a mother, off-page
Death of a brother & sister recounted
Murder & attempted murder
Attempted filicide recounted
Knife violence, including the attempted murder of a child by slitting his throat
Strangulation, on-page & recounted
Imprisonment mentioned

The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family by Sarah Kapit

The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family by Sarah Kapit

When twelve-year-old Lara Finkel starts her very own detective agency, FIASCCO (Finkel Investigation Agency Solving Consequential Crimes Only), she does not want her sister, Caroline, involved. She and Caroline don’t have to do everything together. But Caroline won’t give up, and when she brings Lara the firm’s first mystery, Lara relents, and the questions start piling up. But Lara and Caroline’s truce doesn’t last for long. Caroline normally uses her tablet to talk, but now she’s busily texting a new friend. Lara can’t figure out what the two of them are up to, but it can’t be… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Ableism
Bullying

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson

Lou has enough confusion in front of her this summer. She’ll be working in her family’s ice cream shack with her newly ex-boyfriend—whose kisses never made her feel desire, only discomfort—and her former best friend, King, who is back in their Canadian prairie town after disappearing three years ago without a word. But when she gets a letter from her biological father—a man she hoped would stay behind bars for the rest of his life—Lou immediately knows that she cannot meet him, no matter how much he insists. While King’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Amisia
Racism & racial slurs
Rape recounted, off-page
Cheating mentioned, off-page
Alcohol consumption
Smoking
Abortion mentioned
Teen pregnancy recounted
Blackmail
Stalking