Queer Lit – Page 112 – Trigger Warning Database

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

Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along. But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants a family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for. Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Emotional parental abuse & gaslighting
Involuntary pregnancy
Blood & gore depiction, body horror, dead body, and mentions of emesis
Death of an infant (off-page)
Gun violence (off-page)
Fire

Be Dazzled by Ryan La Sala

Raffy has a passion for bedazzling. Not just bedazzling, but sewing, stitching, draping, pattern making–for creation. He’s always chosen his art over everything–and everyone–else and is determined to make his mark at this year’s biggest cosplay competition. If he can wow there, it could lead to sponsorship, then art school, and finally earning real respect for his work. There’s only one small problem… Raffy’s ex-boyfriend, Luca, is his main competition. Raffy tried to make it work with Luca. They almost made the perfect team last year after serendipitously meeting in the rhinestone… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Biphobia, outing & coming out themes
Emotional child abuse
Protagonist with anxiety & anxiety attacks

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

All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo

When novelist Manuel Ortigosa learns that his husband, Álvaro, has been killed in a car crash, it comes as a devastating shock. It won’t be the last. He’s now arrived in Galicia. It’s where Álvaro died. It’s where the case has already been quickly closed as a tragic accident. It’s also where Álvaro hid his secrets. Álvaro’s trail leads Manuel deep into one of Spain’s most powerful and guarded families. Behind the walls of their forbidding estate, Manuel is nothing but an unwelcome and dangerous intruder. Then he finds two allies: a stubbornly suspicious police lieutent… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia, internalised homophobia & slurs
Paedophilia & rape of a child recounted (on-page)
Martial rape
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a husband in a car accident recounted

Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore

Summer, 1518. A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg: women dance in the streets, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves. Five centuries later, a pair of red shoes seal to Rosella Oliva’s feet, making her dance uncontrollably. They draw her toward a boy who knows the dancing fever’s history better than anyone: Emil, whose family was blamed for the fever five hundred years ago. But there’s more to what happened in 1518 than even Emil knows, and discovering the truth may decide whether Rosella survives the red shoes.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Period-typical queerphobia, transphobia & antiziganism, including the g slur
Antisemitism recounted
Persecution for witchcraft and witch trials
Nightmares
Blood depiction & minor body horror
Death of grandparents recounted
Attempted execution
Near-drowning incident (on-page)

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people… In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance – and Papi’s secrets – the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Coming out themes
Sexual harassment
Sexual assault of a minor recounted & attempted rape of a minor (on-page)
Sex-trafficking & coerced sex work of a minor discussed
Infidelity
Pregnancy discussed, and premature childbirth scene & resuscitation of a newborn
Emesis
Cancer mentioned (minor secondary character)
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother from dengue fever recounted
Death of a father & husband in a plane crash (of-page, theme)
Death of a sister mentioned
Stalking
Poverty themes

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