Absent by Katie Williams

Absent by Katie Williams

When seventeen-year-old Paige dies in a freak fall from the roof during Physics class, her spirit is bound to the grounds of her high school. At least she has company: her fellow ghosts Evan and Brooke, who also died there. But when Paige hears the rumour that her death wasn’t an accident–that she supposedly jumped on purpose–she can’t bear it. Then Paige discovers something amazing. She can possess living people when they think of her, and she can make them do almost anything. Maybe, just maybe, she can get to the most popular girl in school and stop the rumours once and for all.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Recreational drug use
  • Death by a fall (protagonist)
  • Murder
  • Bullying

Ironspark by C.M. McGuire

Ironspark by C.M. McGuire

For the past nine years, ever since a bunch of those evil Tinkerbells abducted her mother, cursed her father, and forced her family into hiding, Bryn has devoted herself to learning everything she can about killing the Fae. Now it’s time to put those lessons to use.

Then the Court Fae finally show up, and Bryn realizes she can’t handle this on her own. Thankfully, three friends offer to help: Gwen, a kindhearted water witch; Dom, a new foster kid pulled into her world; and Jasika, a schoolmate with her own grudge against the Fae… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Amisia (challenged)
  • Coming out themes
  • Parental abandonment
  • PTSD
  • Panic & anxiety attacks
  • Nightmares
  • Parent with (implied) schizophrenia & hallucinations
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Hospital
  • Comas
  • Scalpels mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Kidnapping
  • House fire, fire, and loss of property
  • Bullying
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All the Rage by Courtney Summers

All the Rage by Courtney Summers

The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything—friends, family, and her community.

Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous. But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out.. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape (theme)
  • Victim blaming
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Bullying
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The Lost Sisters by Holly Black

The Lost Sisters by Holly Black

Sometimes the difference between a love story and a horror story is where the ending comes . . .

While Jude fought for power in the Court of Elfhame against the cruel Prince Cardan, her sister Taryn began to fall in love with the trickster, Locke.

Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out that Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Coerced marriage discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Murder discussed
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Bullying
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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Rape
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Bullying
  • War themes*

*The book is set in France during World War 2.

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I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee

I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee

Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.

She’ll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she’ll do it better than anyone else… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Queermisia & queermisic parents mentioned*
  • Coming out themes recounted & on-page*
  • Fat-shaming & body shaming (theme)
  • Disordered food & weight thoughts discussed, including forced dieting
  • Verbal & emotional parental abuse
  • Hospitalisation of a child due to malnutrition mentioned
  • Bullying
  • Cyberbullying & cyberharassment

*Context: The love interest comes out as bisexual to the main character and she comes out as bisexual to him. She is closeted from her family for the whole book. Her love interest recounts how his family bribed his ex-boyfriend to break up with him. Side f/f couple talk about being disowned and kicked out of their homes when they came out to their families.

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Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

Gumiho: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

Eighteen-year-old Gu Miyoung has a secret. She’s a gumiho–a nine-tailed fox who survives by consuming the energy of men. But she’s also half-human and has a soft spot for people. So she won’t kill indiscriminately. With the help of a shaman, Miyoung only takes the lives of men who have committed terrible crimes. Devouring their life force is a morbid kind of justice… or so she tells herself.

But killing men no one would ever miss in bustling modern-day Seoul also helps Miyoung keep a low profile. She and her mother protect themselves by hiding in plain sight. That is until Miyoung crosses paths with a handsome boy her age as he’s being attacked by a goblin in the woods… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Ableist language
  • Physical, emotional & verbal parental abuse
  • Parental neglect & abandonment
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide & attempted suicide discussed
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Seizures, multiple on-page scenes
  • Coma
  • Hospital (setting)
  • Medical procedures, including blood tests & surgery mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother, on-page
  • Death of a grandmother, on-page
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Attempted infanticide recounted
  • Hostage situation
  • Drowning recounted
  • Loss of autonomy (theme)*
  • Bullying

*Note: The main character is a gumiho, and people are able to control her actions and force her to follow their instructions when they possess her fox bead.

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Little Creeping Things by Chelsea Ichaso

Little Creeping Things by Chelsea Ichaso

When she was a child, Cassidy Pratt accidentally started a fire that killed her neighbor. She’s pretty sure she didn’t mean to do it, and she’d give anything to forget that awful day. But her town’s bullies, particularly the cruel and beautiful Melody Davenport, have never let her live it down. In Melody’s eyes, Cassidy is a murderer and always will be.

Then Melody goes missing, and Cassidy thinks she may have information about what happened. She knows she should go to the cops, but she recently joked about how much she’d like to get rid of Melody… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alleged sexual harassment
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Death of a friend & neighbour recounted
  • Fire recounted
  • Bullying
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Here Lie the Secrets by Emma Young

Here Lie the Secrets by Emma Young

Mia’s best friend Holly died when they were thirteen. But years later, Holly still hasn’t left her.

Spending the summer in New York, Mia is hoping to escape the visions of Holly that haunt her life at home. There she meets Rav, a parapsychology student, who convinces her to take part in a study into why some people see ghosts. Soon she is caught up in the investigation of Halcyon House, which is reputed to be haunted by a poltergeist. As Mia confronts her fears, what she learns about the house and herself will change her life forever.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Child abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Visual hallucinations
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a friend recounted
  • Bullying mentioned
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All That Impossible Space by Anna Morgan

All That Impossible Space by Anna Morgan

15-year-old Lara Laylor feels like a supporting character in her own life. She’s Ashley’s best friend, she’s Hannah’s sister she’s never just Lara. When new history teacher Mr Grant gives her an unusual assignment: investigating the mystery of the Somerton Man. Found dead in on an Adelaide beach in 1948, a half-smoked cigarette still in his mouth and the labels cut out of his clothes, the Somerton Man has intrigued people for years. Was he a spy? A criminal? Year 10 has plenty of mysteries of its own: boys, drama queen friends, and enigmatic new students… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Grooming behaviour & discussions of a teacher-student relationship
  • Toxic friendship (theme)
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Asthma attacks (on-page)
  • Murder & dead bodies discussed
  • Drowning recounted
  • Bullying (rumour spreading)