Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime. To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done. But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night. Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past…. Read more,

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Depression & Bipolar Disorder
  • Pregnancy loss
  • Murder

Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler

For twenty-six-year-old Adelaide Williams, an American living in dreamy London, meeting Rory Hughes was like a lightning bolt out of the blue: this charming Englishman was The One she wasn’t even looking for. Is it enough? Does he respond to texts? Honour his commitments? Make advance plans? Sometimes, rarely, and no, not at all. But when he shines his light on her, the world makes sense, and Adelaide is convinced that, in his heart, he’s fallen just as deeply as she has. Then, when Rory is rocked by an unexpected tragedy, Adelaide does everything in her power to hold him together—even if it means losing herself… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Depression
  • Anxiety & panic attack
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Miscarriage
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent in a car accident

Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge—aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner—is determined to make it through yet another sad summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s unhappy house and who is as lonely and awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us. The posters begin appear… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Divorce due to infidelity mentioned
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Gun violence (accidental)
  • Car accident

Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford

From “weird, scary, ingenious” ( The New York Times ) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, a brutally honest and hilariously frenetic memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of rigid belief systems—from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Suzuki violin training, to Richard Simmons, to 12-step programs.

Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicidal ideation
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder & intrusive thoughts
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Eating disorder (bulimia)
  • Death of a pet

While You Were Out by Meg Kissinger

Growing up in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago, Meg Kissinger’s family seemed to live a charmed life. With eight kids and two loving parents, the Kissingers radiated a warm, boisterous energy. Whether they were spending summer days on the shores of Lake Michigan, barreling down the ski slopes, or navigating the trials of their Catholic school, the Kissingers always knew how to live large and play hard.

But behind closed doors, a harsher reality was unfolding—a heavily medicated mother hospitalized… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Child neglect
  • Anxiety & depression
  • Parent with Bipolar Disorder
  • Death of a child from suicide

The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination.
As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.
But the end to it all looms closer every day… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Colonialism
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Parent with substance addiction
  • Gun violence
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Attempted murder

My Life in the Fish Tank by Barbara Dee

When twelve-year-old Zinnia Manning’s older brother Gabriel is diagnosed with a mental illness, the family’s world is turned upside down. Mom and Dad want Zinny, her sixteen-year-old sister, Scarlett, and her eight-year-old brother, Aiden, to keep Gabriel’s condition “private” — and to Zinny that sounds the same as “secret.” Which means she can’t talk about it to her two best friends, who don’t understand why Zinny keeps pushing them away, turning everything into a joke. It also means she can’t talk about it during Lunch Club, a group run by the school guidance counselor. How did… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sibling with Bipolar Disorder

We Are Young by Cat Clarke

We Are Young by Cat Clarke

On the same night, Evan’s mother marries local radio DJ ‘Breakfast Tim’, Evan’s brand-new step-brother Lewis is found unconscious and terribly injured, the only survivor of a horrific car crash. A media furore erupts, with the finger of blame pointed firmly at stoner, loner Lewis. Everyone else seems to think the crash was drug-related, but Evan isn’t buying it. With the help of her journalist father, Harry, she decides to find out what really happened that night. As Evan delves deeper into the lives of the three teenagers who died in the crash, she uncovers some disturbing truths and a secret that threatens to tear her family and the … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Depression
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Eating disorder mentioned
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Self-harm

The Memory of Light by Francisco Stork

The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

16-year-old Vicky Cruz wakes up in a hospital’s mental ward after a failed suicide attempt. Now she must find a path to recovery – and perhaps rescue some others along the way. When Vicky Cruz wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorders ward, she knows one thing: After her suicide attempt, she shouldn’t be alive. But then she meets Mona, the live wire; Gabriel, the saint; E.M., always angry; and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance she’s never… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Drug abuse
  • Depression
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Schizophrenia
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Kidnapping

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Julia has followed her mum and dad to live on a remote island for the summer – her dad, for work; her mother, on a determined mission to find the elusive Greenland shark. But when her mother’s obsession threatens to submerge them all, Julia finds herself on an adventure with dark depths and a lighthouse full of hope…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Parent with Bipolar Disorder including manic and depressive episodes
  • Attempted suicide of a parent by overdose, off-page
  • Bullying