Anxiety Disorders – Trigger Warning Database

Sparrow by Sarah Moon

Sparrow has always had a difficult time making friends. She would always rather have stayed home on the weekends with her mother, an affluent IT Executive at a Brooklyn bank, reading, or watching the birds, than playing with other kids. And that’s made school a lonely experience for her. It’s made LIFE a lonely experience. But when the one teacher who really understood her — Mrs. Wexler, the school librarian, a woman who let her eat her lunch in the library office rather than hide in a bathroom stall, a woman who shared her passion for novels and knew just the ones she’d love… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Protagonist with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
Psychiatric hospitalisation for attempted suicide by fall discussed
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a teacher in a car accident discussed

Lock & West by Alexander C. Eberhart

Lock is awkward. He can’t make eye contact, counts when he’s nervous and has to remind himself several times a day how ‘normal’ teens behave. Homeschooled most of his life, he’s resigned himself to a friendless existence at his new Atlanta high school. Until he meets West. List Of Reasons Why My Life Is A Mess: How Much Time Do You Have? West has everything. Looks. Talent. Money. And secrets… so many secrets. Beneath the surface of West’s perfect existence is a pain he’s buried so deep a million therapists couldn’t unearth it and he’s determined to keep it that way. He’s an… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia
Attempted rape & sexual assault
Child abuse
Anxiety
Eating disorder & purging
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Attempted suicide

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train. Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater. Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won’t take her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Graphic racist & anti-Asian hate crimes
Parental abandonment & nglect
Health anxiety & intrusive thoughts
Alcohol consumption
Blood & gore dpeiction and body horror
COVID-19 pandemic
Murder
Police brutality mentioned
Gun violence
Car accient
Fire
Animal cruelty & dead bodies

Don’t Breathe a Word by Jordyn Taylor

Present Day: Eva has never felt like she belonged… not in her own family or with her friends in New York City, and certainly not at a fancy boarding school like Hardwick Preparatory Academy. So when she is invited to join the Fives, an elite secret society, she jumps at the opportunity to finally be a part of something. But what if the Fives are about more than just having the best parties and receiving special privileges from the school? What if they are also responsible for keeping some of Hardwick’s biggest secrets buried? 1962: There is only one reason why Connie would volu… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia
Claustrophobia and fear of nuclear warfare discussed
Bullying & hazing

Is This a Cry for Help? by Emily R. Austin

Darcy’s life turned out better than she could have ever imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife Joy runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake. But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia & transphobia
Image based sexual abuse (protagonist is threatened by a secondary character when she accidentally uploads an unintentionally intimate photo)
Emotional parental abuse
Infidelity recounted (the protagonist cheated on her boyfriend in the past; mentions of a secondary character’s husband cheating)
Anxiety, insomnia & panic disorder (protagonist) with mentions of dissociation and panic attacks
Parent with postpartum depression recounted
Psychiatric hospitalisation for acute stress reaction recounted (protagonist)
Disordered eating mentioned & recounted, including attempted purging & dieting
Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
Abortion recounted
Pregnancy & teen pregnancy mentioned (brief, secondary characters)
Death of an ex-boyfriend from a brain aneurysm discussed

The Open Era by Edward Schmit

Recently-turned-pro tennis player Austin Hardy has been out since high school and it’s never been a big deal. That is, until he becomes the first openly gay man to compete in a Grand Slam. Suddenly, being gay is a huge deal, with headlines to prove it. Unprepared for this new spotlight, Austin’s anxiety disorder hits a breaking point, and he trips and falls at practice. Right next to the very attractive, very talented, and probably straight Diego Cruz, ranked World #2. The two players start a friendship off the court. But between their flirty banter, mixed signals, and brewing rivalry,… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Anxiety & panic attacks (protagonist, on-page)

Nowhere Like Home by Sara Shepard

When Lenna gets a call from her old friend Rhiannon, she is startled; Rhiannon disappeared years ago without a trace. But Lenna is even more startled to learn that Rhiannon has a son and that she lives off the grid with a group of women in a community called Halcyon. Rhiannon invites Lenna, a new mother herself, to join them. Why suffer the sleepless nights by yourself? It takes a village, after all. Lenna decides to go and hopefully repair her relationship with Rhiannon, but as she drives into the desert and her cell service gets weaker, she becomes suspicious. Who are… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Sexual assault mentioned
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) & anxiety (protagonist)
Teen pregnancy & fertility treatments mentioned
Kidnapping & stalking
Cults

Hollow by Taylor Grothe

After a meltdown in her school cafeteria prompts an unwanted autism diagnosis, Cassie Davis moves back to her hometown in upstate New York, where her mom hopes the familiarity will allow Cassie to feel normal again. Cassie’s never truly felt normal anywhere, but she does crave the ease she used to have with her old friends. Problem is that her friends aren’t so eager to welcome her back into the fold. They extend an olive branch by inviting her on their backpacking trip to Hollow Ridge, in the upper reaches of the Adirondacks. But when a fight breaks out their first… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Anxiety & trichotillomania (protagonist)

Puck by Samantha Allen

Meet Puck: the nonbinary, thirty-year-old mastermind behind “Homewreckers”, a dating show that puts troubled couples through hell—with a little help from their exes. Used to being the one pulling the strings, it shocks Puck when their life undergoes a plot twist of its own and their college roommate Mia announces her engagement to her ex’s best friend, Damon. Having only recently broken up with longtime-boyfriend Zander, and never having had much in common with Damon (who lovesick Lena has always pined after), Mia’s news leaves her friend group reeling—and Puck’s mind whirling. When they arrive for a week… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Anxiety & Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

This Is All Your Fault by Aminah Mae Safi

Rinn Olivera is finally going to tell her longtime crush AJ that she’s in love with him. Daniella Korres writes poetry for her own account, but nobody knows it’s her. Imogen Azar is just trying to make it through the day. When Rinn, Daniella, and Imogen clock into work at Wild Nights Bookstore on the first day of summer, they’re expecting the hours to drift by the way they always do. Instead, they have to deal with the news that the bookstore is closing. Before the day is out, there’ll be shaved heads, a diva author, and a very large shipment of Air Jordans to contend with. And it will… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Attempted sexual assault
Anxiety & depression
Suicidal ideation