Cancer – Page 43 – Trigger Warning Database

Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir by Tyler Feder

Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir by Tyler Feder

Dancing at the Pity Party by Tyler Feder

Part poignant cancer memoir and part humorous reflection on a motherless life, this debut graphic novel is extraordinarily comforting and engaging.

From before her mother’s first oncology appointment through the stages of her cancer to the funeral, sitting shiva, and afterward, when she must try to make sense of her life as a motherless daughter, Tyler Feder tells her story in this graphic novel that is full of piercing–but also often funny–details. She shares the important post-death firsts, such as celebrating holidays without her mom, the utter despair of cleaning out her mom’s closet, ending old traditions and starting new ones, and the sting of having the “I’ve got to tell Mom about this” instinct and not being able to act on it. This memoir, bracingly candid and sweetly humorous, is for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Panic attacks
Medical trauma
Cancer
Death of a parent
Hospitals & hospitalisation
Grief depiction

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too. Translation: She’s going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better.

That’s where tattooed, motorcycle-riding Quan Diep comes in. Their first attempt at a one-night stand fails, as does their second, and their third, because being with Quan is more than sex: he accepts Anna on an unconditional level that she has just started to understand herself. However, when tragedy strikes Anna’s family, she takes on a role she is ill-suited for, until the burden of expectations threatens to destroy her. Anna and Quan have to fight for their chance at love, but to do that, they also have to fight for themselves.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Classism
Emotional abuse
Infidelity
Anxiety & panic attacks
Depression
Suicidal thoughts & ideation
Infertility
Cancer
Death of a parent/caregiver

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial slurs
Homomisia, including internalised homomisia & homomisic slurs
Rape recounted
Parental abuse
Domestic abuse mentioned
Substance addiction
Recreational drug use & abuse
Cancer
Death of a grandparent
Vietnam War discussed
Animal abuse
Bullying

Insomnia by Stephen King

Insomnia by Stephen King

The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. Trisha McFarland discovers this when she is nine years old. Lost in the woods.

Trisha has only veered a little way off the path. But in her panic to get back to her family, she takes a turning that leads into the tangled undergrowth, deeper into the woods.

At first it’s just the bugs, midges and mosquitoes. Then comes the hunger. For comfort she tunes her Walkman into broadcasts of the Red Sox baseball games and the performances of her hero Tom Gordon.

As darkness begins to fall and Trisha struggles for survival and a way out, she realizes that she is not alone. There’s something else in the woods – watching. Waiting…

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Domestic violence
Sleep maintenance insomnia (theme)
Cancer
Abortion
Fire
Animal abuse

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

In Derry, Maine, four young boys once stood together and did a brave thing. Something that changed them in ways they hardly understood.

A quarter of a century later, the boys are men who have gone their separate ways. Though they still get together once a year, to go hunting in the north woods of Maine. But this time is different. This time a man comes stumbling into their camp, lost, disoriented and muttering about lights in the sky.

Before long, these old friends will be plunged into the most remarkable events of their lives as they struggle with a terrible creature from another world. Their only chance of survival is locked in their shared past – and in the Dreamcatcher.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Terminal cancer (leukemia)
Contagion (theme)
Gun violence
Car accident
Fire
Loss of autonomy (possession)
Prison riot
Hunting
Bullying

Blaze by Richard Bachman

Blaze by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman

He’s got a plan but he hasn’t a clue…

Clayton Blaisdell’s capers are strictly small time until he meets George Rackley. With Blaze’s brawn and George’s brains, they pull off a hundred successful cons. Then George plans the one big score every small timer dreams of: kidnapping the infant heir to a family fortune. The trouble is that by the time the deal goes down, the brains of the operation has died. Or has he?

Now Blaze is running into the white hell of the Maine woods with a baby as hostage. The crime of the century just turned into a race against time…

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Death of a friend
Kidnapping of a child (theme)

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem’s Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work—in fact, his hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the evil that is growing within the borders of this small New England town.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape recounted
Delusions
Nightmares
Suicide & attempted suicide
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a pregnant wife from a brain aneurysm
Murder by gun violence in a drive-by shooting
Murder & attempted murder by drowning
Infanticide
Kidnapping of a child

Rescue Me by Sarra Manning

Rescue Me by Sarra Manning

Margot and Will cross paths at the local dog rescue centre where – after a series of misunderstandings and a lot of consternation – they agree to foster Blossom (a staffy with a giant head, soft, floppy ears and kohl-rimmed brown eyes) together: one week on, one week off.

Margot and Will don’t get off to the best of starts: he thinks Margot is demanding and needy and Just So Much. And she thinks Will is emotionally unavailable, slightly brittle and very mistrustful. They’re both right.

But the more they bicker, the worse Blossom behaves, and they realise they have to form some sort of truce in order to dog-parent (or “pawrent” as Margot calls it, to which Will rolls his eyes) her together. It’s almost as if Blossom has plans of her own…

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
Cancer
Death of a parent
Animal abuse

Appetites and Vices by Felicia Grossman

Appetites & Vices by Felicia Grossman

Banking heiress Ursula Nunes has lived her life on the fringes of Philadelphia’s upper class. Her Jewish heritage means she’s never quite been welcomed by society’s elite…and her quick temper has never helped, either.

A faux engagement to the scion of the mid-Atlantic’s most storied family might work to repair her rumpled reputation and gain her entrée to the life she thinks she wants…if she can ignore the way her “betrothed” makes her feel warm all over and stay focused on her goal.

Former libertine John Thaddeus “Jay” Truitt is hardly the man to teach innocent women about propriety. Luckily, high society has little to do with being proper and everything to do with identifying your foe’s temptation—an art form Jay mastered long ago. A broken engagement will give him the perfect excuse to run off to Europe and a life of indulgence.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Misogyny
Antisemitism
Slut shaming
Substance addiction
Alcohol consumption
Emesis mentioned
Death of a parent from cancer recounted
Death of a spouse & child from illness
Bullying recounted

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

It is 1974 and the summer of love is finally drawing to a close. Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the secondary school social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the ‘coolest girl in the world’, Tully Hart – the girl all the boys want to know – moves in across the street and wants to be her best friend. Tully and Kate by summer’s end they made a pact to be ‘best friends forever’.

For thirty years Tully and Kate buoy each other through life. Tully will follow her ambition to find fame and success. Kate knows that all she wants is to fall in love and have a family. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and a mother will change her. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart. But when tragedy strikes, can the bonds of friendship survive?

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Drug use
Miscarriage
Cancer