Closer to Nowhere by Ellen Hopkins

Closer to Nowhere by Ellen Hopkins

For the most part, Hannah’s life is just how she wants it. She has two supportive parents, she’s popular at school, and she’s been killing it at gymnastics. But when her cousin Cal moves in with her family, everything changes. Cal tells half-truths and tall tales, pranks Hannah constantly, and seems to be the reason her parents are fighting more and more. Nothing is how it used to be. She knows that Cal went through a lot after his mom died and she is trying to be patient, but most days Hannah just wishes Cal never moved in.

For his part, Cal is trying his hardest to fit in, but not everyone is as appreciative of his unique sense of humor and storytelling gifts as he is. Humor and stories might be his defense mechanism, but if Cal doesn’t let his walls down soon, he might push away the very people who are trying their best to love him.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Alcoholism
  • Drug abuse
  • Cancer
  • Death of a parent
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Rumble by Ellen Hopkins

Rumble by Ellen Hopkins

Matthew Turner doesn’t have faith in anything.

Not in family—his is a shambles after his younger brother was bullied into suicide. Not in so-called friends who turn their backs when things get tough. Not in some all-powerful creator who lets too much bad stuff happen. And certainly not in some “It Gets Better” psychobabble.

No matter what his girlfriend Hayden says about faith and forgiveness, there’s no way Matt’s letting go of blame. He’s decided to “live large and go out with a huge bang,” and whatever happens happens. But when a horrific event plunges Matt into a dark, silent place, he hears a rumble … a rumble that wakes him up, calling everything he’s ever disbelieved into question.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
  • Recreational drug use
  • Suicide
  • Death of a brother
  • Explosion
  • Hanging
  • Bullying
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Smoke by Ellen Hopkins

Smoke by Ellen Hopkins

Pattyn Von Stratten’s father is dead, and Pattyn is on the run. After far too many years of abuse at the hands of her father, and after the tragic loss of her beloved Ethan and their unborn child, Pattyn is desperate for peace. Only her sister Jackie knows what happened that fatal night, but she is stuck at home with their mother, who clings to normalcy by allowing the truth to be covered up by their domineering community leaders. Her father might be finally gone, but without Pattyn, Jackie is desperately isolated.

Alone and in disguise, Pattyn starts a new life as a migrant worker on a California ranch. But is it even possible to rebuild a life when everything you’ve known has burned to ash and lies seem far safer than the truth?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Lesbomisia & lesbomisic slurs
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Hate crimes discussed
  • Victim blaming
  • Slut shaming
  • Rape & attempted rape
  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Pregnancy loss
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a father
  • Death of a boyfriend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions & bombings
  • Animal death
  • Bullying
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Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else that they’d rather be. For four high-school seniors, their goals of perfection are just as different as the paths they take to get there.

Cara’s parents’ unrealistic expectations have already sent her twin brother Conner spiraling toward suicide. For her, perfect means rejecting their ideals to take a chance on a new kind of love. Kendra covets the perfect face and body—no matter what surgeries and drugs she needs to get there. To score his perfect home run—on the field and off—Sean will sacrifice more than he can ever win back. And Andre realizes that to follow his heart and achieve his perfect performance, he’ll be living a life his ancestors would never understand.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Outing
  • Physical child abuse
  • Cheating
  • Teacher-student relationship mentioned
  • Date rape
  • Revenge pornography
  • Suicide
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Hospitalisation
  • Knife violence & stabbing
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Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching … for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don’t expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words “I love you” are said for all the wrong reasons.

Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story—a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, “Can I ever feel okay about myself?”

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Substance addiction
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Recreational drug abuse
  • Hospitalisation
  • Murder
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Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family—on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that’s where their differences begin.

For Kaeleigh, she’s the misplaced focus of Daddy’s love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites—and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex.

Secrets like the ones the twins are harboring are not meant to be kept—from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it’s obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is—who?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Graphic paedophilia & child sexual abuse (on-page)
  • Incest
  • Rape & sexual assault (on-page)
  • Forced modelling for child pornorgraphy recounted
  • Cheating
  • Physical child abuse
  • Self-harm
  • Depression
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Recreational drug use & abuse
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Car accident
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Burned by Ellen Hopkins

Burned by Ellen Hopkins

It all started with a dream. Nothing exceptional, just a typical fantasy about a boy, the kind of dream that most teen girls experience. But Pattyn Von Stratten is not like most teen girls. Raised in a religious—yet abusive—family, a simple dream may not be exactly a sin, but it could be the first step toward hell and eternal damnation.

This dream is a first step for Pattyn. But is it to hell or to a better life? For the first time Pattyn starts asking questions. Questions seemingly without answers—about God, a woman’s role, sex, love—mostly love. What is it? Where is it? Will she ever experience it? Is she deserving of it? … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Disownment*
  • Physical child abuse
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Suicide
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Miscarriage
  • Car accident
  • Animal death & hunting

*Note: The protagonist’s half-brother is disowned by their father after he comes out as gay.

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Faithful Place by Tana French

Faithful Place by Tana French

Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was a nineteen-year-old kid with a dream of escaping his familyʼs cramped flat on Faithful Place and running away to London with his girl, Rosie Daly. But on the night they were supposed to leave, Rosie didnʼt show. Frank took it for granted that sheʼd dumped him—probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again. Neither did Rosie. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosieʼs suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank, now a detective in the Dublin Undercover Squad, is going home whether he likes it or not.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol abuse
  • Murder
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Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Death of a friend
  • Car accident
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Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu

Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu

Before he was Batman, he was Bruce Wayne. A reckless boy willing to break the rules for a girl who may be his worst enemy.

One by one, the city’s elites are being executed as their mansions’ security systems turn against them. Meanwhile, Bruce is turning eighteen and about to inherit his family’s fortune, not to mention the keys to Wayne Enterprises and all the tech gadgetry. But after a run-in with the police, he’s forced to do community service at Arkham Asylum, the infamous prison that holds the city’s most brutal criminals.

In Arkham, Bruce meets Madeleine, a brilliant girl with ties to the Nightwalkers. What is she hiding? And why will she speak only to Bruce? Is he getting her to divulge her secrets, or is he feeding her the information she needs to bring Gotham City to its knees?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicide
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
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