Tag Archives: Alcohol Consumption & Abuse

Max in the Land of Lies by Adam Gidwitz

Max was on a mission. Well, two missions. One mission his British spymasters knew about: infiltrating the Funkhaus, the center of Nazi radio and propaganda. The other, they did not: finding his parents. Max Bretzfeld was willing to do anything to return to Germany, even become a British spy. Training complete and forged papers in hand, the radio wunderkind’s mission has begun—gain access to the legendary Funkhaus, the base of operations for the Ministry of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment headed by Joseph Goebbels.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical Nazism, racial slurs & antisemitism
  • Slavery & colonialism discussed
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking mentioned
  • Murder & torture
  • Physical assault & hand-to-hand combat
  • World War Two (theme) including imprisonment & concentration camp
  • Bullying

The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew

Delaney Meyers-Petrov is tired of being seen as fragile just because she’s Deaf. So when she’s accepted into a prestigious program at Godbole University that trains students to slip between parallel worlds, she’s excited for the chance to prove herself. But her semester gets off to a rocky start as she faces professors who won’t accommodate her disability, and a pretentious upperclassman fascinated by Delaney’s unusual talents. Colton Price died when he was nine years old. Quite impossibly, he woke several weeks later at the feet of a green-eyed little girl. Now, twelve years later, Delaney Meyers-Petrov has stumbled back… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Parental abandonment & child neglect
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping & stalking
  • Drowning
  • Fire
  • Car accident mentioned

Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew

Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she’s just inherited — to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement — Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead. Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family’s property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can’t really live, either. Not while he’s bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There’s only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self-injury
  • Suicide by cutting throat
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Minor body horror
  • Torture recounted
  • Physical assault (fistfights) & stabbing
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Choking
  • Cult
  • Fire & arson
  • Animal death (chicken)

I Am Made of Death by Kelly Andrew

Following the death of his father, Thomas Walsh had to grow up quickly, taking on odd-jobs to keep food on the table and help pay his gravely ill mother’s medical bills. When he’s offered a highly paid position as an interpreter for an heiress who exclusively signs, Thomas — the hearing child of a Deaf adult — jumps at the opportunity. But the job is not without its challenges. Thomas is expected to accompany Vivienne wherever she goes, but from the start, she seems determined to shake him. To make matters worse, her parents keep her on an extremely short leash. She is not to go anywhere without express permission… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Body horror
  • Nonconsensual surgery
  • Murder & ritual human sacrifice
  • Kidnapping
  • Gun violence
  • Choking
  • Fistfights resulting in hospitalisation

The Other Lola by Ripley Jones

In the months after Cam and Blair broke their small hometown’s legendary missing-girl story and catapulted to accidental fame, they vowed never to do it again. No more mysteries, no more podcasts, and no more sticking their heads where they don’t belong. Until Mattie Brosillard, a freshman at their high school, shows up on their doorstep, begging Cam and Blair for help. Mattie’s sister Lola disappeared mysteriously five years ago. No trace of her was ever found. Now, she’s back–but Mattie is convinced the girl who returned is an impostor. Nobody believes Mattie’s wild story–not Mattie’s brother, not Mattie’s mother, and… Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Adult-minor relationship mentioned
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & panic attack
  • Child abuse
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Catfishing
  • Bullying

Don’t Tell Me How to Die by Marshall Karp

I had it all: a fantastic husband, two great kids, an exciting career. And then, at the age of forty-three, I found out I would be dead before my next birthday. My mother also died at forty-three. I was seventeen, and she warned me that women would flock to my suddenly single father like stray cats to an overturned milk truck. They did. And one absolutely evil woman practically destroyed his life, mine, and my sister’s. I am not letting that happen to my family. I have three months, and I plan to spend every waking minute searching for the perfect woman to take my place as Alex’s wife, and mother to Kevin and Katie… Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder mentioned

Claire, Darling by Callie Kazumi

Claire is excited to drop off a surprise workday lunch for her fiancé, Noah. It’s their anniversary, after all. But when the receptionist tells her that no one with Noah’s name works there, Claire thinks there must be a mistake. Noah isn’t picking up her calls. Her texts go unanswered. It turns out Noah has a different life . . . one with a beautiful girlfriend, a beautiful house. Claire was never really in the picture. Desperate to unpack all of Noah’s lies, Claire plunges into a nightmarish journey of obsession that submerges her deeper into the murky waters of her own past—a past dominated by a manipulative mother who shattered…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder
  • Stalking

Edgewood by Kristen Ciccarelli

No matter how far she runs, the forest of Edgewood always comes for Emeline Lark. The scent of damp earth curls into her nose when she sings and moss creeps across the stage. It’s as if the woods of her childhood, shrouded in folklore and tall tales, are trying to reclaim her. But Emeline has no patience for silly superstitions. When her grandfather disappears, leaving only a mysterious orb in his wake, the stories Emeline has always scoffed at suddenly seem less foolish. She enters the forest she has spent years trying to escape, only to have Hawthorne Fell, a handsome and brooding tithe collector, try to dissuade her from… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Sexual assault (implied, off-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grandparent with dementia
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (non-consensual removal of memory)

Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli

Rune Winters is on the run. Ever since the boy she loved, Gideon Sharpe, revealed who she was and delivered her into enemy hands, everyone wants her dead. If Rune hopes to survive, she must ally herself with the cruel and dangerous Cressida Roseblood, who’s planning to take back the Republic and reinstate a Reign of Witches—something Cressida needs Rune to accomplish. Apparently it wasn’t enough for Rune to deceive Gideon; she’s now betrayed him by allying herself with the witch who made his life a living hell. Gideon won’t allow the Republic to fall to the witches and be plunged back into the nightmare… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Blood & injury depiction including mentions of a secondary character getting their ear removed without consent (on-page)
  • Execution of a grandmother recounted
  • Murder of a brother from gun violence
  • Gun & cannon violence
  • Physical assault & strangulation
  • Kidnapping of an infant mentioned
  • Near-fatal whipping
  • Alcohol consumption (on-page)

Long Live the Pumpkin Queen by Shea Ernshaw

Sally Skellington is the official, newly-minted Pumpkin Queen after a whirlwind courtship with her true love, Jack, who Sally adores with every inch of her fabric seams — if only she could say the same for her new role as Queen of Halloween Town. Cast into the spotlight and tasked with all sorts of queenly duties, Sally can’t help but wonder if all she’s done is trade her captivity under Dr. Finkelstein for a different — albeit gilded — cage. But when Sally and Zero accidentally uncover a long-hidden doorway to an ancient realm called Dream Town in the forest Hinterlands, she’ll unknowing… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood depiction & mentions of blood-drinking
  • Comas*
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned

*Context : The antagonist puts characters into a permanent, coma-like sleep to steal their dreams.