Queer Lit – Page 111 – Trigger Warning Database

Arctic Heat by Annabeth Albert

Owen Han has a fresh lease on life—he’s kicked cancer’s ass and is roaring through his bucket list. The former investment banker hopes to find his next challenge in Alaska, volunteering alongside park rangers and fulfilling his childhood dreams of snowy winters and rustic life. Of course, those dreams did tend to feature big strapping mountain men in vivid detail… Ranger Quilleran Ramsey would like to be anywhere other than dealing with newbie volunteers. And really, the only thing he needs less than a green volunteer “partner” is the flirty attentions of a buff city boy who doesn’t look ready to last a week, let alone an… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism
Homophobia & aphobia
Verbal, psychological & emotional child abuse
Abusive relationship recounted
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Cancer
Hospitalisation & medical procedures
Avalanche

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends—not even her openly gay BFF, Simon. So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Racism
Biphobia & internalised biphobia
Fatphobia & body-shaming
Alcohol consumption

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised. With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Coming out themes & blackmailed forced outing
Homophobia & slurs
Bullying

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty’s life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don’t dare wander outside the school’s fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Parental abandonment
Suicide, suicidal ideation & self-harm (on-page)
Blood, gore& injury depiction, including graphic body horror, emesis, loss of limb, eye trauma, needles, and involuntary medical experimentation & medical treatment
Starvation
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a friend, child & father
Murder & attempted mass murder
Gun violence
Knife violence &stabbing
Hanging
Bombing mentioned
Kidnapping & captivity
Disappearance of a loved one
Chemical gassing
Animal death & hunting, including graphic animal dead bodies, and death by an animal attack

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn’t think they’d survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they’re right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz’s cunning and test the team’s fragile loyalties.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism, classism & persecution for witchcraft
Indentured servitude discussed
Forced underaged sex work & rape of a child recounted
Parental abandonment & disownment and child abuse
Gambling addiction & gambling (protagonist)
Drug dependency & withdrawal discussed (on-page)
Recreational drug use recounted & alcohol consumption
Pregnancy mentioned (secondary character)
Graphic blood & injury depiction, consensual body modification, mentions of plague, and protagonist with chronic illness & pain
Death of a boyfriend & friend (on-page)
Murder & attempted murder
Torture (on-page)
Gun violence, explosions & knife violence & stabbing
Kidnapping & captivity (on-page)
Imprisonment
Home invasion
Blackmail & death threats
Poverty themes & debt collection mentioned

The Adventure Zone, Vol. 1: Here There Be Gerblins by Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy & Carey Pietsch

EJoin Taako the elf wizard, Merle the dwarf cleric, and Magnus the human warrior for an adventure they are poorly equipped to handle AT BEST, guided (“guided”) by their snarky DM, in a graphic novel that, like the smash-hit podcast it’s based on, will tickle your funny bone, tug your heartstrings, and probably pants you if you give it half a chance.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Self-sacrifice & self-injury
Alcohol consumption
Blood & injury depiction
Death of a cousin & uncle
Murder & attempted murder
Fire & explosion
Kidnapping & hostage situation
Graphic animal dead bodies

Abroad by Liz Jacobs

Nick Melnikov doesn’t know where he belongs. He was just a kid when his Russian-Jewish family immigrated to Michigan. Now he’s in London for university, overwhelmed by unexpected memories. Socially anxious, intensely private, and closeted, Nick doesn’t expect to fall in so quickly with a tight-knit group of students from his college, and it’s both exhilarating and scary. Hanging out with them is a roller coaster of serious awkward and incredible longing, especially when the most intimidating of the group, Dex, looks his way. Dex Cartwell knows exactly who he… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Coming out themes
Transphobia & internalised homophobia
Anxiety & agoraphobia
Alcohol consumption

Out on Good Behaviour

Out on Good Behaviour by Dahlia Adler

Frankie Bellisario knows she can get anyone she sets her sights on, but just because she can doesn’t mean she should—not when the person she’s eyeing is Samara Kazarian, the daughter of a southern Republican mayor. No matter how badly Frankie wants to test her powers of persuasion, even she recognizes some lines aren’t meant to be crossed. But when Frankie learns she’s been on Samara’s mind too, the idea of hooking up with her grows too strong to resist. Only Sam’s not looking for a hookup; she wants—needs—the real thing, and she’s afraid she’ll never find it as long… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Coming out themes
Slut-shaming

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

I masquerade in makeup and feathers and I am applauded. A boy comes to terms with his identity as a mixed-race gay teen – then at university he finds his wings as a drag artist, The Black Flamingo. A bold story about the power of embracing your uniqueness. Sometimes, we need to take charge, to stand up wearing pink feathers – to show ourselves to the world in bold colour.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism & racial slurs
Sexism discussed
Homomisia, internalised homomisia & homomisic slurs
Lesbomisia & internalised lesbomisia discussed
Coming out themes
Dubious consent situation*
Parental abandonment
Physical parental abuse (single act)
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use
Emesis
Physical assault (minor fight scenes)
Bullying
Poverty themes

Context : The sixteen-year-old protagonist meets an adult man on a dating app and agrees to meet with him for sex. The man offers him drugs which cause the protagonist to lose consciousness and his memory of the event.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after. When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Queerphobia & mentions of disownment from queerphobic parents
Transphobia, internalised transphobia, misgendering & deadnaming
Biphobia & internalised biphobia
Coming out themes
Racism & racist microaggressions
Parental abandonment
Emotional parental & domestic abuse mentioned
Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
Top surgery recounted & Hormone Replacement Therapy
Needles & injections (on-page)
Scars
Bullying
Cyberbullying, cyberharassment, catfishing & doxxing