The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson

The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson

It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother — a princess in exile from a faraway land — are the only persons in their household assigned names. As the boy’s regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians’ fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments — and his own chilling role in them.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racist slurs
  • Slavery
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Autopsy
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
  • Flogging
  • Animal death
  • Animal experimentation
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This Vast Land by Stephen E Ambrose

This Vast Land by Stephen E. Ambrose

In a story muscled with truth and imagination, Stephen E. Ambrose recounts the epoch-making 1803 expedition of Lewis and Clark through the words of a young man. Finding foes and friends among Native Americans, surviving sickness and hunger, choosing between a woman and the life he left behind, George Shannon grows up as the corps forges a way west. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, Ambrose creates the fictional diary of nineteen-year-old George Shannon, who was in fact the youngest member of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery. He conjures the journey west with stunning clarity, calling on the bravery of Daniel Boone, the pragmatic courage of Sacajawea, the overarching, relentless vision of Meriwether Lewis.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Murder
  • Scalping
  • War themes
  • Animal death
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Jackdaw Summer by David Almond

Jackdaw Summer by David Almond

Also known as Raven Summer.

Daisy, Esther, and Susan’s last year at university is getting a bumpy start, with everything strange after Ed’s declaration of love followed by grievous injury, Daisy with nowhere to live, and McGraw and Susan at odds over their new flat!

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating mentioned
  • Self harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Burn scars
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • House fire recounted
  • Animal death
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The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Skyler, Ellie, Scarlett and Amelia Grace are forced to spend In one of the most important and beloved Latin American works of the twentieth century, Isabel Allende weaves a luminous tapestry of three generations of the Trueba family, revealing both triumphs and tragedies. Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba, a beautiful, ambitious girl who will lead the family and their country into a revolutionary future.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Substance addiction
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Pregnancy from rape
  • Graphic abortion
  • Autopsy
  • Decapitation
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Car accident
  • Imprisonment
  • Earthquake
  • Death of a pet
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A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus

A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus

It is 1940 and Anna, 9, Edmund, 11, and William, 12, have just lost their grandmother. Unfortunately, she left no provision for their guardianship in her will. Her solicitor comes up with a preposterous plan: he will arrange for the children to join a group of schoolchildren who are being evacuated to a village in the country, where they will live with families for the duration of the war. He also hopes that whoever takes the children on might end up willing to adopt them and become their new family–providing, of course, that the children can agree on the choice.

Moving from one family to another, the children suffer the cruel trickery of foster brothers, the cold realities of outdoor toilets, and the hollowness of empty tummies… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse & neglect
  • War themes
  • Graphic animal death
  • Bullying
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Wheels Up by Annabeth Albert

Wheels Up by Annabeth Albert

Adrian Gottlieb is winning at life. He’s a successful video game designer with everything a man could ask for, including a warm comfy ride to Denver and a date for his sister’s wedding. But he finds himself in need of a total reboot when he’s left stranded at a snowy campground in Utah. Holiday plans? Epic fail.

That is until Noah Walters offers him shelter for the night and a reluctant cross-country ride. Nothing about the ultraconservative geoarchaeologist should attract Adrian, but once he discovers Noah’s hidden love for video games, the two connect on a new level. Soon, a quiet but undeniable chemistry sparks… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Bimisia mentioned
  • Coming out themes
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Family member with a chronic heart condition
  • Explosion
  • Death of a pet dog recounted
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What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson

What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson

Jack Morton has nothing left. Except his younger brother, Matty, who he’d do anything for. Even die for. Now with their mother gone, and their funds quickly dwindling, Jack needs to make a choice: lose his brother to foster care, or find the drug money that sent his father to prison. He chooses the money.

Ava Bardem lives in isolation, a life of silence. For seventeen years her father has controlled her fate. He has taught her to love no one. Trust no one. Now Victor Bardem is stalking the same money as Jack. When he picks up Jack’s trail, Ava must make her own wrenching choice: remain silent or help the brothers survive.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abuse
  • Suicide
  • Addiction
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Animal death
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The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Statutory rape mentioned
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Childbirth
  • Scalping & skinning, off-page
  • Dismemberment mentioned
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Death of a friend
  • Poisoning
  • Torture
  • Lynching
  • Animal death & abuse
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Pawcasso by Remy Lai

Pawcasso by Remy Lai

In the quiet streets of Prague all manner of otherworldly Pawcasso is a basket-toting dog who does his family’s grocery shopping on his own. When 11-year-old Jo is mistaken as his owner by a group of kids, she goes along with the lie in the hopes of making new friends. Soon the town becomes divided over whether Pawcasso should be allowed to roam free, and Jo worries that her lies will be exposed—and endanger Pawcasso and her new friendships.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a pet recounted
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Choker by Elizabeth Woods

Choker by Elizabeth Woods

Sixteen-year-old Cara Lange has been a loner ever since she moved away from her best and only friend, Zoe, years ago. She eats lunch with the other girls from the track team, but they’re not really her friends. Mostly she spends her time watching Ethan Gray from a distance, wishing he would finally notice her, and avoiding the popular girls who call her “Choker” after a humiliating incident in the cafeteria.

Then one day Cara comes home to find Zoe waiting for her. Zoe’s on the run from problems at home, and Cara agrees to help her hide. With her best friend back, Cara’s life changes overnight… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Child sexual abuse, implied
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder
  • Strangulation
  • Animal death, including the death of a dog, mouse & cast
  • Bullying
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