Tag Archives: Cancer

The Midnight Club by Christopher Pike

Rotterham Home was a hospice for young people—a place where teenagers with terminal illnesses went to die. Nobody who checked in ever checked out. It was a place of pain and sorrow, but also, remarkably, a place of humor and adventure. Every night at twelve, a group of young guys and girls at the hospice came together to tell stories. They called themselves the Midnight Club, and their stories could be true or false, inspiring or depressing, or somewhere in-between. One night, in the middle of a particularly scary story, the teenagers make a secret pact with each other, which says… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Alcohol & drug abuse
  • Overdose
  • Cancer, AIDs & terminal illness
  • Amputation
  • Paralysis
  • Emesis
  • Death of a child
  • Mass shooting & gun violence

Black Hearts by Karina Halle

For Vicente Bernal, truth is all he’s known. The son of an infamous drug lord, Vicente was born to help run the family business, which means he’s been raised on a throne of sordid pasts and dirty laundry, violence and pride. But when Vicente stumbles across someone he’s not supposed to know about – a woman from his father’s checkered past – he sets out to California to find her behind his father’s back. What Vicente doesn’t expect to find in San Francisco is Violet McQueen, the woman’s twenty-year-old daughter. Beautiful and edgy with vulnerability he can’t resist, Violet…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use (cigarettes)
  • Death of a grandfather from cancer
  • Death of an aunt from a car bomb recounted
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
  • Organised crime
  • Attempted kidnapping

Titan by Shantel Tessier

I know I have a black soul. Bloodshed and danger are what I live for. A King is supposed to rule his Kingdom using any means necessary to demand respect. I’m not a weak man. A King kneels to no one. I’ve only ever cared about one other person in my life, but the thing is, she never belonged to me. And before I could tell her how I felt, she left. Now she’s returned, needing someone to save her. Emilee York was always meant to be mine, and I’ll see to it that happens. I always get what I want, even if that means I have to take it. And she’s no different. She’ll be my queen, on…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Misogyny & slut-shaming
  • Sex work & sex work shaming
  • Rape by coercion*
  • Sexual harassment
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Infidelity*
  • Parental divorce recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Involuntary body modifications (forced branding)
  • Death of a mother from cancer (lymphoma), on-page
  • Death of a grandparent in a car accident
  • Faked death of a father from a heart attack
  • Murder
  • Torture including waterboarding and strangulation
  • Arson
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping*
  • Plane crash recounted

*Context : A secondary character kidnaps the female protagonist (FMC)’s mother and withdraws her medical care until she has sex with him. There are multiple mentions of secondary characters having affair or their infidelity.

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer

What’s the point of giving someone a beautiful death if you can’t give yourself a beautiful life?

From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical injury & illness including liver failure and death of secondary characters from heart attacks and cancer
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Death of a grandfather & guardian

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

Years ago, a reclusive mega-bestselling children’s author quit writing under mysterious circumstances. Suddenly he resurfaces with a brand-new book and a one-of-a-kind competition, offering a prize that will change the winner’s life in this absorbing and whimsical novel.

Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Child abuse and neglect recounted
  • Foster care experiences
  • Emotionally abusive relationship recounted
  • Munchausen by Proxy mentioned*
  • Alcoholism and substance addiction recovery (love interest)
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Unplanned pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
  • Sibling with terminal cancer
  • Death of a brother from complications during heart surgery recounted
  • Financial and housing insecurity

*Context: The protagonist learns her sister’s childhood chronic illness was the result of her parents’ attempts to keep her sick. Discussions of children in foster care due to abusive alcoholic parents and parents’ deaths from overdoses.

One of Us Is Back by Karen M. McManus

Ever since Simon died in detention, life hasn’t been easy for the Bayview Crew. First the Bayview Four had to prove they weren’t killers. Then a new generation had to outwit a vengeful copycat. Now, it’s beginning again.

At first the mysterious billboard seems like a bad joke: Time for a new game, Bayview. But when a member of the crew disappears, it’s clear this ‘game’ just got serious – and no one understands the rules… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cancer remission mentioned
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Attempted murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Stalking
  • Gun violence

Congratulations, the Best is Over! by R. Eric Thomas

After going viral “reading” the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas is ready to live his best life–or, if not, at least his best-ish life.

Now, in this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas finds himself doing things completely out of character, starting with moving back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore. They say you can’t go home again, but what if you and home have changed beyond recognition?.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression & anxiety
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of grandparents from a stroke
  • Death of a father-in-law from a heart attack

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

It was a game they played; the other worlds, the other lives. It was part of her mom’s grand delusions. It wasn’t real. Unless it was… 

Bridget Kittinger has always been paralyzed by choices. It has a lot to do with growing up in the long shadow of her mother, Jo, a troubled neuroscientist. Jo’s obsession with one mythical object, the “dreamworm”—which she believed enabled travel to other worlds—led to their estrangement… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Cancer

There’s No Way I’d Die First by Lisa Springer

Noelle Layne knows horror. Every trope, every warning sign, every survival tactic. She even leads a successful movie club dedicated to the genre. Thus, who better to throw the ultimate, most exclusive Halloween party on all of Long Island? And with the guest list including the coolest kids in her senior class, her popularity is bound to spike. Hopefully, enough to warrant an expansion into podcasting. Plus, the fact that attractive, singer-songwriter Archer Mitchell is coming is honestly the candy corn on top. Nothing is going to kill her party vibes… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emesis
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Poisoning
  • Stalking

Thicker than Water: A Memoir by Kerry Washington

While on a drive in Los Angeles, on a seemingly average afternoon, Kerry Washington received a text message that would send her on a life-changing journey of self-discovery. In an instant, her very identity was torn apart, with everything she thought she knew about herself thrown into question.

Washington gives readers an intimate view into both her public and private worlds—as a mother, daughter, wife, artist, advocate, and trailblazer. Chronicling her upbringing and life’s journey… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Terminal cancer