Tag Archives: Bullying & Hazing

The Long Run by James Acker

Sebastian Villeda is over it. Over his rep. Over his bros. Over being “Bash the Flash,” fastest sprinter in South Jersey. His dad is gone, his mom is dead, and his stepfather is clueless. Bash has no idea what he wants out of life. Until he meets Sandro. Sandro Miceli is too nice for his own good. The middle child in an always-growing, always-screaming Italian family, Sandro walks around on a broken foot to not bother his busy parents. All he wants is to get out and never look back. When fate—in the form of a party that gets busted—brings these two very different boys together, neither of them could’ve predicted finding a love that … Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & slurs
  • Hate crime
  • Coming out & forced outing
  • Child abuse (on-page, secondary chracter)
  • Death of a parent from cancer
  • Physical assault with knife
  • Bullying

Chasing Pacquiao by Rod Pulido

Self preservation. That’s Bobby’s motto for surviving his notoriously violent high school unscathed. Being out and queer would put an unavoidable target on his back, especially in a Filipino community that frowns on homosexuality. It’s best to keep his head down, get good grades, and stay out of trouble. But when Bobby is unwillingly outed in a terrible way, he no longer has the luxury of being invisible. A vicious encounter has him scrambling for a new way to survive–by fighting back. Bobby is inspired by champion Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao to take up boxing and challenge his tormentor. Then Pacquiao publicly… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & slurs
  • Hate crime
  • Coming out & forced outing
  • Child abuse (on-page, secondary chracter)
  • Death of a parent from cancer
  • Physical assault with knife
  • Bullying

Dirrarn by Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler

We first met Mia in Black Cockatoo, as she navigated her way through culture, Country and familial ties. Dirrarn follows Mia as she finds herself at boarding school and the challenges of living thousands of kilometres away from home, family, and the big sky country she loves. Mia along with her best friend, Naya, negotiate new friends, new ways of thinking and new ways of being in a different world. As Mia wrestles with all that is unfamiliar, she soon must learn to stand in her truth when confronted with unending challenges.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Bullying

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue

After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school. But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & religious bigotry including mention of a homophobic hate crime (physical assault)
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Domestic violence mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation (on-page)
  • Suicide & attempted suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction including self-harm for magic & emesis
  • Kidnapping
  • Whipping mentioned
  • Bullying

Penance by Eliza Clark

It’s been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time. That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the ‘definitive account’ of the murder – and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & lesbophovia
  • Sexual assault of a child recounted (protagonist)
  • Necrophilia & hybristophilia discussed
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Death of a daughter from suicide mentioned
  • Death of a classmate from drowning mentioned
  • Murder by being burned alive (on-page)
  • School shooting mentioned
  • Bullying

Blended by Sharon M. Draper

“You’re so exotic!” “You look so unusual.” “But what are you really?” Eleven-year-old Isabella is used to these kinds of comments – her father is black, her mother is white – but that doesn’t mean she likes them. And now that her parents are divorced (and getting along WORSE than ever), Isabella feels more like a push-me-pull-me toy. One week she’s Isabella with her dad, his girlfriend Anastasia, and her son Darren living in a fancy house where they are one of the only black families in the neighbourhood. The next week she’s Izzy with her mom and her boyfriend John-Mark in a…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism and colourism discussed
  • Racial microaggressions (on-page)
  • Hate crime
  • Parental divorce (theme)
  • Panic attack & trauma (secondary character)
  • Lynching discussed
  • Police brutality & violence
  • Hospitalisation for a gunshot wound with minor blood & injury depiction
  • Minor bullying

Context : The protagonist’s best friend finds a noose in her school locker. It’s implied a white student put it there after their class learned about historical lynching. Later, she has a panic attack when a noose appears on the TV during a sleepover. The protagonist’s teenage step-brother is pulled over by the police and tackled to the ground by three officers. They suspect him of robbing a bank and question him. They force the protagonist, an 11-year-old Black girl, out of his car. A female officer shoots her when she reaches into her pocket to call their parents.

Acting Up by Adele Buck

The stage is set for the play of a lifetime: but it’s the romantic drama backstage that has everyone applauding. Paul and Cath are the perfect creative team. He’s an up-and-coming theatre director and she’s his unflappable, rock-steady stage manager. If Cath’s had to bury her unrequited affection for Paul for ten long years to keep things professional, it’s just the price she pays for a career she loves, working with her best friend by her side. Until he hires her old nemesis as the leading lady for a new play that’s their chance to make it big. Handling temperamental actors is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Familial estrangement
  • Bullying

The Coworker by Freida McFadden

Dawn Schiff is strange. At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m. So when Dawn doesn’t show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrell—beautiful, popular, top sales rep five years running—is surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything…. It turns out Dawn wasn’t just an awkward outsider—she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Bullying & discussions of a toxic work environment

Zodiac Starforce, Vol. 1: The Power of Astra by Kevin Panetta

They’re an elite group of teenage girls with magical powers who have sworn to protect our planet against dark creatures . . . as long as they can get out of class! Known as the Zodiac Starforce, these high-school girls aren’t just combating math tests. They’re also battling monsters–not your typical afterschool activity! But when an evil force from another dimension infects team leader Emma, she must work with her team of magically powered friends to save herself–and the world–from the evil Diana and her mean-girl minions!

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Injury & blood depiction
  • Death of a mother
  • Death of a friend
  • Kidnapping
  • Physical assault
  • Bullying

She Started It by Sian Gilbert

Annabel, Esther, Tanya, and Chloe are best friends—or were, as children. Despite drifting apart in adulthood, shared secrets have kept them bonded for better or worse, even as their childhood dreams haven’t quite turned out as they’d hoped. Then one day they receive a wholly unexpected—but not entirely unwelcome—invitation from another old friend. Poppy Greer has invited them all to her extravagant bachelorette party: a first-class plane ticket to three days of white sand, cocktails, and relaxation on a luxe private island in the Bahamas. None of them has spoken to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Substance addiction
  • Eating disorder
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self-harm
  • Bullying