The Boy Who Steals Houses by C. G. Drews

The Boy Who Steals Houses by C. G. Drews

The Boy Who Steals Houses by C. G. Drews book cover

Can two broken boys find their perfect home?

Sam is only fifteen but he and his autistic older brother, Avery, have been abandoned by every relative he’s ever known. Now Sam’s trying to build a new life for them. He survives by breaking into empty houses when their owners are away, until one day he’s caught out when a family returns home. To his amazement this large, chaotic family takes him under their wing – each teenager assuming Sam is a friend of another sibling. Sam finds himself inextricably caught up in their life, and falling for the beautiful Moxie.

But Sam has a secret, and his past is about to catch up with him.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism and ableist language
  • Child abuse
  • Physical and verbal abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attacks
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Serious injury to a loved ones
  • Physical assault
  • Bullying
  • Homelessness
  • Incarceration of a parent
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A Thousand Perfect Notes by C. G. Drews

A Thousand Perfect Notes by C. G. Drews

A Thousand Perfect Notes by C. G. Drews book cover

Beck hates his life. He hates his violent mother. He hates his home. Most of all, he hates the piano that his mother forces him to play hour after hour, day after day. He will never play as she did before illness ended her career and left her bitter and broken. But Beck is too scared to stand up to his mother, and tell her his true passion, which is composing his own music – because the least suggestion of rebellion on his part ends in violence.

When Beck meets August, a girl full of life, energy and laughter, love begins to awaken within him and he glimpses a way to escape his painful existence. But dare he reach for it?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Physical child abuse, central theme
  • Emotional and verbal child abuse, central theme
  • Neglect
  • Domestic violence
  • Self-harm ideation
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Animal death mentioned
  • Bullying
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Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti’s stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself – but first she has to make it there, alive. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & colourism
  • Panic attack (on-page)
  • Nonconsensual body modifications
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Death of a friend
  • Mass murder
  • Animal death mentioned
  • War themes
  • Bullying
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One by One by Ruth Ware

One by One by Ruth Ware

Getting snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world, especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a cozy fire, and company to keep you warm. But what happens when that company is eight of your coworkers…and you can’t trust any of them?

When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Panic attack & flashback
  • Sexual assault recounted (described)
  • Suicide by overdose discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Minor blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Emesis mentioned
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Death of a friend & colleague (multiple, on-page)
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Asphyxia (suffocation)
  • Poisoning
  • Death from a fall (off-page)
  • Disappearance of a friend & colleague
  • Avalanche (on-page & recounted, theme)
  • Bullying recounted
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Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley book cover

As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. After Daunis witnesses a shocking murder that thrusts her into a criminal investigation, she agrees to go undercover. But the deceptions—and dea… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism, misogyny & fatphobia
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Sexual harassment
  • Rape of a minor & sexual assault (on-page)
  • Cheating recounted
  • Child abuse & neglect mentioned
  • Substance addiction discussed
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide by gunshot to the head (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use & abuse (theme) with mentions of overdose
  • Teen pregnancy recounted
  • Grandparent recovering from a stroke
  • Physical injuries, including nerve damage & chronic shoulder injury
  • Hospitalisation for internalised bleeding & liver damage with mentions of surgery
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an uncle & father
  • Murder of a friend & teenager by gun violence (on-page)
  • Car accident (on- & off-page)
  • Bullying

Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan

Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson & Ellen Hagan

Jasmine and Chelsea are sick of the way women are treated even at their progressive NYC high school, so they decide to start a Women’s Rights Club. They post everything online—poems, essays, videos of Chelsea performing her poetry, and Jasmine’s response to the racial macroaggressions she experiences—and soon they go viral. But with such positive support, the club is also targeted by online trolls. When things escalate, the principal shuts the club down. Jasmine and Chelsea will risk everything for their voices—and those of other young women—to be heard.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Sexism
  • Racism, including cultural appropriation & anti-Blackness
  • Sexual harassment
  • Grey-area cheating
  • Death of a parent to cancer
  • Hospital
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father & husband
  • Bullying
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Cracked Kingdom by Erin Watt

Cracked Kingdom by Erin Watt

Ever since Hartley Wright met Easton Royal, her life hasn’t been the same. There are enemies behind every corner and dangers beyond each door. When tragedy strikes and steals her memories, she can’t trust anyone, not even the blue-eyed boy who promises her that everything will be alright.

Because while Hartley’s memory is full of gaps, her instincts tell her Easton is dangerous. She doesn’t know if he’s the snake in the garden or her chance at salvation. The chaos he brings wherever he goes is too much to handle, the intense feelings he evokes are too confusing to unravel.

Easton wants her to remember. Hartley thinks it’s better to forget. He has to face the facts—in this world, you can’t escape the Royals.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Physical, emotional & verbal parental abuse
  • Incest (half-siblings)
  • Sexual harassment
  • Amnesia
  • Hospital
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Overdose mentioned
  • Bullying
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Paper Princess by Erin Watt

Paper Princess by Erin Watt

Ella Harper is a survivor—a pragmatic optimist. She’s spent her whole life moving from town to town with her flighty mother, struggling to make ends meet and believing that someday she’ll climb out of the gutter. After her mother’s death, Ella is truly alone. 

Until Callum Royal appears, plucking Ella out of poverty and tossing her into his posh mansion among his five sons who all hate her. Each Royal boy is more magnetic than the last, but none as captivating as Reed Royal, the boy who is determined to send her back to the slums she came from. Reed doesn’t want her. He says she doesn’t belong with the Royals. He might be right.

Wealth. Excess. Deception. It’s like nothing Ella has ever experienced, and if she’s going to survive her time in the Royal palace, she’ll need to learn to issue her own Royal decrees. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Physical abuse
  • Sexual harassment
  • Sexual assault & attempted rape
  • Dubious consent scenarios
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Addiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Bullying
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One Small Thing by Erin Watt

One Small Thing by Erin Watt

There’s nothing ordinary about Oakley. This bad-boy pop star’s got Grammy Awards, millions of fangirls and a reputation as a restless, too-charming troublemaker. But with his home life disintegrating, his music well suddenly running dry and the tabloids having a field day over his outrageous exploits, Oakley needs to show the world he’s settling down—and who better to help him than Vaughn, a part-time waitress trying to help her family get by? The very definition of ordinary

Posing as his girlfriend, Vaughn will overhaul Oakley’s image from troublemaker to serious artist. In return for enough money to put her brothers through college, she can endure outlandish Hollywood parties and carefully orchestrated Twitter exchanges. She’ll fool the paparazzi and the groupies. She might even start fooling herself a little. 

Because when ordinary rules no longer apply, there’s no telling what your heart will do…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Sexual assault
  • Emotional & physical abuse
  • Bullying
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Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West

Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West

Talking to other people isn’t Kate Bailey’s favourite activity. She’d much rather be out on the lake, soaking up the solitude and sunshine. So when her best friend, Alana, convinces Kate to join their high school’s podcast, Kate is not expecting to be chosen as the host. Now she’ll have to answer calls and give advice on the air? Impossible. But to Kate’s surprise, she turns out to be pretty good at the hosting gig. Then the podcast gets in a call from an anonymous guy, asking for advice about his unnamed crush. Kate is pretty sure that the caller is gorgeous Diego Martinez, and even surer that the girl in question is Alana. Kate is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Bullying