Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan & Rachel Cohn

I’ve left some clues for you. If you want them, turn the page. If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please. At the urge of her lucky-in-love brother, sixteen-year-old Lily has left a red notebook full of dares on her favourite bookshop shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept. Curious, snarky Dash isn’t one to back down from a challenge – and the Book of Dares is the perfect distraction he’s been… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Animal death recounted
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The Baby is Mine by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Baby is Mine by Oyinkan Braithwaite

When his girlfriend throws him out during the pandemic, Bambi has to go to his Uncle’s house in lock-down Lagos. He arrives during a blackout and is surprised to find his Aunty Bidemi sitting in a candlelit room with another woman. They both claim to be the mother of the baby boy, fast asleep in his crib. At night Bambi is kept awake by the baby’s cries, and during the days he is disturbed by a cockerel that stalks the garden. There is sand in the rice. A blood stain appears on the wall. Someone scores tribal markings into the baby’s cheeks. Who is lying and who is telling the truth?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Child neglect
  • Cheating
  • Alcohol consumption, on-page
  • Recreational drug use, on-page
  • COVID-19 (theme)
  • Emesis
  • Physical illness & tribal marking disfigurement of a baby
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an uncle & husband recounted
  • Animal slaughter, on-page
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Mark of the Wicked by Georgia Bowers

Mark of the Wicked by Georgia Bowers

Magic always leaves its mark. All her life, Matilda has been told one thing about her magic: You use only when necessary. But Matilda isn’t interested in being a good witch. She wants revenge and popularity, and to live her life free of consequences, free of the scars that dark magic leaves on her face as a reminder of her misdeeds.

When a spell goes awry and the new boy at school catches her in the act, Matilda thinks her secret might be out… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Scars
  • Murder
  • Animal death, including death of a pet
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Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett 

Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

Classic movie buff Bailey “Mink” Rydell has spent months crushing on a witty film geek she only knows online by “Alex.” Two coasts separate the teens until Bailey moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surfing town as her online crush.

Faced with doubts (what if he’s a creep in real life—or worse?), Bailey doesn’t tell Alex she’s moved to his hometown. Or that she’s landed a job at the local tourist-trap museum. Or that she’s being…Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental divorce
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Colon cancer
  • Attempted armed robbery
  • Animal attack resulting in an amputated arm (shark)
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Suicide Club by Rachel Heng 

Suicide Club by Rachel Heng

Lea Kirino is a “Lifer,” which means that a roll of the genetic dice has given her the potential to live forever—if she does everything right. And Lea is an overachiever. She’s a successful trader on the New York exchange—where instead of stocks, human organs are now bought and sold—she has a beautiful apartment, and a fiancé who rivals her in genetic perfection. And with the right balance of HealthTech™, rigorous juicing, and low-impact exercise, she might never die… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Self-harm
  • Assisted suicide
  • Death of a parent
  • Animal death
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In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Cannibalism
  • Starvation & dehydration
  • Whale hunting & butchering
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How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

Hiccup Haddock Horrendous III was a truly extraordinary Viking hero. The warrior chieftain and awesome sword fighter was known as ‘the Dragon Whisperer’, on account of his power over these terrifying beasts. But it wasn’t always like that, and this is the story of his rise to fame, in his own words.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Amputation & loss of limb
  • Animal attack
  • Animal death
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The Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells

Adrift in a dinghy, Edward Prendick, the single survivor from the good ship Lady Vain, is rescued by a vessel carrying a profoundly unusual cargo – a menagerie of savage animals. Tended to recovery by their keeper Montgomery, who gives him dark medicine that tastes of blood, Prendick soon finds himself stranded upon an uncharted island in the Pacific with his rescuer and the beasts. Here, he meets Montgomery’s master, the sinister Dr. Moreau – a brilliant scientist whose notorious experiments in vivisection have caused him to abandon the civilised world. It soon becomes clear he has been developing these experiments – with truly horrific results.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Medical experimentation
  • Body horror
  • Animal cruelty & torture
  • Animal death & dead bodies
  • Animal attack
  • Gun violence
  • Whipping
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The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff

The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff 

So began the ceremony that was to make young Phaedrus, ex-slave and gladiator, Horse Lord of the Dalriadain. Phaedrus had come a long way since the fight in the arena that gained him his freedom. He had left behind his old Roman life and identity and had entered another, more primitive, world—that of the British tribes in the far north. In this world of superstition and ancient ritual, of fierce loyalties and intertribal rivalry, Phaedrus found companionship and love, and something more—a purpose and a meaning to his life as he came fully to understand the significance of the Mark of the Horse… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Sexual assault (nonconsensual kiss)
  • Forced arranged marriage
  • Suicide, on-page
  • Unplanned pregnancy
  • Emesis
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Forced murder of a friend
  • Animal sacrifice (horse)
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The Cane by Maryrose Cuskelly

The Cane by Maryrose Cuskelly

Quala, a North Queensland sugar town, the 1970s.
Barbara McClymont walks the cane fields searching for Janet, her sixteen-year-old daughter, who has been missing for weeks. The police have no leads. The people of Quala are divided by dread and distrust. But the sugar crush is underway and the cane must be burned.

Meanwhile, children dream of a malevolent presence, a schoolteacher yearns to escape, and history… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Child sexual abuse mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping mentioned
  • Motorcycle accident
  • Fire
  • Animal death
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