Religious Lit – Trigger Warning Database

The Night War by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

It’s 1942. German Nazis occupy much of France. And twelve-year-old Miriam, who is Jewish, is not safe. With help and quick thinking, Miri is saved from the roundup that takes her entire Jewish neighborhood. She escapes Paris, landing in a small French village, where the spires of the famous Chateau de Chenonceau rise high into the sky, its bridge across the River Cher like a promise, a fairy tale. But Miri’s life is no fairy tale. Her parents are gone – maybe alive, maybe not. Taken in at the boarding school near the chateau, pretending to be Catholic to escape Nazi capture, Miri is called upon… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Period-typical antisemitism & Nazism (theme), including physical beatings and setting houses on fire as a hate crime
Infidelity mentioned
Blood depiction
Death of a husband discussed
Police brutality & violence (on-page)
World War II (theme) with mentions of concentration camps
St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre discussed

Hail Mariam by Huda Al-Marashi

Iraqi American Mariam Hassan transfers to a local Catholic school and before her first day her parents remind her that she might be the first Muslim her classmates have ever met. No big deal, right? Just represent an entire religion while making new friends, keeping up with schoolwork, and figuring out who she is. When Mariam’s younger sister, Salma, is diagnosed with a serious lung condition, her family faces endless doctor visits and sleepless nights. Mariam tries to lighten their burden and keep her own problems to herself—including the fact that she’s just… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Sibling hospitalised for cancer treatment
Minor blood depiction

Sadie on a Plate by Amanda Elliot

Sadie is a rising star in the trendy Seattle restaurant scene. Her dream is to create unique, modern, and mouthwatering takes on traditional Jewish recipes. But after a public breakup with her boss, a famous chef, she is sure her career is over–until she lands a coveted spot on the next season of her favorite TV show, Chef Supreme. On the plane to New York, Sadie has sizzling chemistry with her seatmate, Luke, but tells him that she won’t be able to contact him for the next six weeks. They prolong their night with a spontaneous, magical dinner before parting ways. Or so she th… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Sexism
Imaged-based sexual abuse (‘revenge porn’)

Bad Mormon by Heather Gay

Drinking and Tweeting meets Unorthodox in this vulnerable memoir about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star’s departure from the Mormon Church, and her unforeseen success in business, television, and single motherhood. Straight off the slopes and into the spotlight, Heather Gay is famous for speaking the gospel truth. Whether as a businesswoman, mother, or television personality, she is unafraid to blaze a new trail, even if it means losing family, friends, and her community. Born and bred to be devout… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Fatphobia & body-shaming
Misogyny & sexism with discussions of purity culture
Ableist child abuse
Divorce
Suicide of business partner’s sibling
Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
Pregnancy
Cosmetic surgery
Death of a father mentioned

The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood

It is 1995, and Anvar Faris is a restless, rebellious, and sharp-tongued boy doing his best to grow up in Karachi, Pakistan. As fundamentalists in the government become increasingly strident and the zealots next door start roaming the streets in gangs to help make Islam great again, his family decides, not quite unanimously, to start life over in California. The irony is not lost on Anvar that in America, his deeply devout mother and his model-Muslim brother are the ones who fit right in with the tightly knit and gossipy Desi community. Anvar wants more. At the same time, thousands… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Islamophobia
Rape
Domestic abuse
Animal death
Police violence (fatal shooting)

You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen

Sabriya has her whole summer planned out in color-coded glory, but those plans go out the window after a terrorist attack near her home. When the terrorist is assumed to be Muslim and Islamophobia grows, Sabriya turns to her online journal for comfort. You Truly Assumed was never meant to be anything more than an outlet, but the blog goes viral as fellow Muslim teens around the country flock to it and find solace and a sense of community. Soon two more teens, Zakat and Farah, join Bri to run You Truly Assumed and the three quickly form a strong friendship. But as… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Racism & Islamophobia
Hate crimes
Online harassment
Terrorism discussed (bombing)

Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Zara Hossain, has been leading a fairly typical life in Corpus Christi, Texas, since her family moved there for her father to work as a paediatrician. While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low, trying not to stir up any trouble and jeopardize their family’s dependent visa status while they await their green card approval, which has been in process for almost nine years. But one day her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, takes things too far, leaving a threatening note in her locker… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Racism & racial slurs
Islamophobia
Biphobia
Hospitalisation
Gun violence
Bullying & hate crime

A Jingle Bell Mingle by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone

Part-time adult film actress/one-time adult film director/makeup artist Sunny Palmer has accidentally sold her very first screenplay to the Hope Channel. That was six months ago. Fast forward to a looming deadline, an uninspired Sunny has returned to the source of her inspiration in Christmas Notch, Vermont, to immerse herself in the local Christmas miracle on which her fever dream of a movie pitch was based. Isaac Kelly, former boy band heartthrob and the saddest boy in the music biz, is the latest owner of the town’s historic mansion. After his years of heartbreak following his young wife’s death, Isaac’s record label is done waiting… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Depression
Death of a wife from pancreatic cancer recounted (protagonist)
Death of parents in a drunk hit-and-run accident recounted
Minor animal sickness mentioned (secondary character)

The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson

For years, frontier lawman turned big-city senator Waxillium Ladrian has hunted the shadowy organization the Set—with his late uncle and his sister among their leaders—since they started kidnapping people with the power of Allomancy in their bloodlines. When Detective Marasi Colms and her partner, Wayne, find stockpiled weapons bound for the Outer City of Bilming, this opens a new lead. Conflict between the capital, Elendel, and the Outer Cities only favors the Set, and their tendrils now reach to the Elendel Senate—whose corruption Wax and his wife, Steris, have sought to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Gun violence & explosions
Animal abuse mentioned (cat)

Let It Glow by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy

When Aviva Davis and Holly Martin meet at the holiday pageant try-outs for their local senior’s centre, they think they must be seeing double. While they both knew they were adopted, they had no idea they had a biological sibling, let alone an identical twin! The similarities are only skin deep, though, because while Aviva has a big personality and even bigger Broadway plans, Holly is more the quiet dreamer type who longs to become a famous author like her grandfather. One thing the girls do have in common is their curiosity about how the other celebrates the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Antisemitism & racism
Hospitalisation of an elderly character for a fall mentioned (secondary character)