Tag Archives: Bullying & Hazing

A Soul to Guide by Opal Reyne

All Raewyn ever wanted was to go home. After accidentally creating a portal to another realm, Raewyn finds herself trapped in a world she’s struggling to navigate. Desperate to find those with magic who can help her, she sets out on a dangerous journey to another town. Unfortunately, on her travels, she learns there are bigger and scarier monsters than the Demons she knows of – and one of them won’t let her get away. All Merikh ever wanted was to escape. For a hundred and eighty years, Merikh has been hunting for a way off Earth. He doesn’t care who he has to eat, kill, or maim to get what he wants. So, when his prey ends… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Bullying recounted

Dangerous by Shannon Hale

Maisie ‘Danger’ Brown needs excitement. When she wins a harmless-sounding competition to go to astronaut boot camp, that’s exactly what she gets . . . But she never imagined it would feature stumbling into a terrifying plot that kills her friends and might just kill her too. Now there’s no going back. Maisie has to live by her middle name if she wants to survive – and she’ll need to be equally courageous to untangle the romance in her life too. 

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableist language & slurs
  • Death of a friend
  • Torture
  • Drowning
  • Bullying

The Other Side of Perfect by Mariko Turk

Alina Keeler was destined to dance, but then a terrifying fall shatters her leg and her dreams of a professional ballet career along with it. After a summer healing (translation: eating vast amounts of Cool Ranch Doritos and bingeing ballet videos on YouTube), she is forced to trade her pre-professional dance classes for normal high school, where she reluctantly joins the school musical. However, rehearsals offer more than she expected — namely Jude, her annoyingly attractive cast-mate she just might be falling for…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Parental abandonment discussed
  • Nightmares & sleep difficulty
  • Chronic leg injury (theme)
  • Medical treatment, rehabilitation & surgery for a severely broken leg discussed
  • Bullying

Master Class by Christina Dalcher

Every child’s potential is regularly determined by a standardized measurement: their quotient (Q). Score high enough, and attend a top tier school with a golden future. Score too low, and it’s off to a federal boarding school with limited prospects afterwards. The purpose? An improved society where education costs drop, teachers focus on the more promising students, and parents are happy. Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state’s elite schools. When her nine-year-old daughter bombs a monthly test and her Q score drops to a disastrously low level, she is immedia… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Homomisia
  • Ableism
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Abortion
  • Eugenices
  • The Holocaust mentioned
  • Bullying

On the Same Page by Penelope Janu

By day Miles Franklin, named after the famous author, is a successful lawyer. By night, in secret, she writes historical romance novels under the pen name Emma Browning. When ‘Emma’s’ novels win one of Australia’s biggest literary awards, Miles’s perfectly ordered life begins to unthread at the bindings. Especially when Lars Kristensen, CEO of the publishing company contracted to publish the prize-winning books, insists on meeting the author. Besides mutual antipathy and sexual attraction, socially anxious Miles and supremely confident Lars have nothing in common. Nothing. But the more time they spend together, the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anxiety
  • Bullying recounted

Nightfall by Penelope Douglas

What happens when it’s five against one and nowhere to run? They call it Blackchurch. A secluded mansion in a remote, undisclosed location where the wealthy and powerful send their misbehaving sons to cool off away from prying eyes. Will Grayson has always been an animal, though. Reckless, wild, and someone who was never bound by a single rule other than to do exactly what he wanted. There was no way his grandfather was going risk him humiliating the family again. Not that the last time was entirely his fault. He might’ve enjoyed backing me into corners in high school when no one was looking, so they wouldn’t catch on… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical & verbal sibling abuse
  • Murder
  • Bullying

Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

Clay: Marymount girls are good girls. We’re chaste, we’re untouched, and even if we weren’t, no one would know, because we keep our mouths shut. Not that I have anything to share anyway. I never let guys go too far. I’m behaved. Beautiful, smart, talented, popular, my skirt’s always pressed, and I never have a hair out of place. I own the hallways, walking tall on Monday and dropping to my knees like the good Catholic girl I am on Sunday. That’s me. Always in control. Or so they think. The truth is that it’s easy for me to resist them, because what I truly want, they can never be. Something soft and smooth. Someone dangerous and wild…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalized homomisia
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Intimate partner violence mentioned
  • Revenge porn*
  • Staff-student relationship*
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother from suicide recounted
  • Death of a father from a heart attack recounted
  • Death of a brother from leukaemia
  • Bullying

*Context : The protagonist filmed a secondary character during a sexual experience and uploaded the video to the internet. A school employee has a ‘consensual ‘ sexual relationship with an underage student.

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn’t sure he wants to. After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & slurs
  • Outing
  • Sexual assault & attempted rape
  • Alcoholism
  • Grandparent with Alzheimer’s Disease
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Miscarriage
  • Nonconsensual medical procedures and experimentation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a boyfriend from suicide recounted
  • Bullying & cyberbullying

The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf

There used to be an empty chair at the back of my class, but now a new boy called Ahmet is sitting in it. He’s eight years old (just like me), but he’s very strange. He never talks and never smiles and doesn’t like sweets – not even lemon sherbets, which are my favorite! But the truth is, Ahmet really isn’t very strange at all. He’s a refugee who’s run away from a War. A real one. With bombs and fires and bullies that hurt people. And the more I find out about him, the more I want to be his friend. That’s where my best friends Josie, Michael and Tom come in. Because you see, together we’ve come up with a plan.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a sister mentioned
  • Death of a parent in a car accident mentioned
  • Bombing raid mentioned
  • Physical assault
  • Exile mentioned
  • Bullying
  • Death of a pet cat mentioned

ChupaCarter and the Haunted Piñata by George Lopez with Ryan Calejo and illustrated by Santy Gutiérrez

New kid Jorge is shocked to learn that his beastly friend Carter isn’t the only legendary creature in Boca falls. Every few years, the town is terrorized by a haunted . . . piñata ? Rumor has it that the petrifying party decoration floats around setting eerie fires to avenge a long-ago betrayal. Jorge can’t help but laugh, until a rash of green fires forces the townspeople to consider moving away, including the parents of his pals Ernie and Liza! With Carter at their side, the three friends are in a race against time to catch the real culprit before they’re separated forever . . . or the whole town is set aflame. Which will come first?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Minor blood depiction
  • Minor weapon violence (num chucks, dart gun)
  • Bullying mentioned