How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox

How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox

Biz knows how to float. She has her posse, her mum and the twins. She has Grace. And she has her dad, who tells her about the little kid she was, and who shouldn’t be here – because he died when she was seven – but is. So she doesn’t tell anyone her dark thoughts. She knows how to float, right there on the surface – normal okay regular fine. But when the tethers that hold Biz steady come undone – when her dad disappears along with all comfort – might it be easier, better, sweeter to float away?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Slut-shaming
  • Sexual assault
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Dissociation
  • Hallucinations
  • Panic attack, on-page
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Car accident recounted
  • Drowning
  • Bullying
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The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

Bears aren’t the only predators in these woods. Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest. Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare; and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape of a minor mentioned
  • Necrophilia mentioned
  • Physical injury, including gunshot wounds & broken bones
  • Graphic blood, gore & dead bodies
  • Amputation
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Animal attack (bear)

City of Orange by David Yoon

City of Orange by David Yoon

A man who can not remember his own name wakes up in an apocalyptic landscape, injured and alone. He has vague memories of life before, but he can’t see it clearly and can’t grasp how his current situation came to be. He must learn to survive by finding sources of water and foraging for food. Then he encounters a boy–and he realizes nothing is what he thought it was, neither the past nor the present. City of Orange is a novel that is both harrowing and heartfelt, charged with a speculative energy but grounded in intimate character study. It is a novel about coming to grips… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Amnesia & memory loss
  • Death of a wife & daughter in a car accident

Black by Fleur Ferris

Black by Fleur Ferris

Ebony Marshall is in her final year of high school. Five months, two weeks and four days . . . She can’t wait to leave the town where she’s known only as ‘Black’. Because of her name, of course. But for another reason, too. Everyone says Black Marshall is cursed. Three of her best friends have died in tragic accidents. After Oscar, the whispers started. Now she’s used to being on her own. It’s easier that way. But when her date for the formal ends up in intensive care, something in quiet little Dainsfield starts to stir. Old secrets are revealed and terrifying new dangers emerge… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide
  • Death of a friend recounted
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
  • Car accident
  • Kidnapping
  • Bullying

Confessions by Kanae Minato

Confessions by Kanae Minato

After calling off her engagement in wake of a tragic revelation, Yuko Moriguchi had nothing to live for except her only child, four-year-old Manami. Now, following an accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yuko has given up and tendered her resignation. But first she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that upends everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion a maniacal plot for revenge.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Parental neglect & abandonment
  • Transphobia mentioned & misgendering
  • Depression
  • HIV/AIDs (theme)*
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father in a car accident mentioned
  • Death of a mother from illness mentioned
  • Murder of a daughter from drowning
  • Attempted murder of a child from electrocution
  • Murder of a teen girl from strangulation
  • Mass death of a family from poisoning discussed (mother, father & child)
  • Explosion, off-page
  • Animal death & cruelty mentioned

*Context: A teacher purposefully infects the two teenage boys who murdered her daughter with HIV/AIDs. The aftereffects of being infected are explored in depth. Mentions of HIV+ stigma and how the teacher’s ex-husband is dying of HIV/AIDs.

Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

In this book, the impact of wildfire, a wayward priest, or a mysterious disappearance ricochet across communities, threading through stories. Here, ordinary actions such as ice skating or going to church reveal hidden truths. One choice threatens a lifelong friendship. Siblings save each other. Rescue and second chances are possible, and so is revenge. On the surface, it seems that nothing ever happens in these towns. But Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock shows that underneath that surface, teenagers’ lives blaze with fury, with secrets, and with love so strong it burns a path to the future.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & queerphobia
  • Sexual assault
  • Pedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Cheating
  • Alcoholism
  • Drug use
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Car accident
  • Wildfire

The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

Sutter Keely. He’s the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually. Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Adult-minor relationship*
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Recreational drug use mentioned
  • Physical injuries (broken arm)
  • Emesis
  • Car accident

* Context : Sexual relationship between a fourteen-year-old and a twenty-year-old.

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The Barrow Will Send What it May by Margaret Killjoy

The Barrow Will Send What it May by Margaret Killjoy

Now a nascent demon-hunting crew on the lam, Danielle and her friends arrive in a small town that contains a secret occult library run by anarchists and residents who claim to have come back from the dead. When Danielle and her crew investigate, they are put directly in the crosshairs of a necromancer’s wrath — whose actions threaten to trigger the apocalypse itself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Car accident
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The Dark Vault by Victoria Schwab

The Dark Vault by V.E. Schwab

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive. Mackenzie Bishop’s grandfather first brought her here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now her grandfather is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was: a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often-violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people… Read more,

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Self-harm
  • Drugging
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Murder
  • Car accident mentioned
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The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferré

The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferré

A gentle maiden aunt who has been victimized for years unexpectedly retaliates through her talent for making life-sized dolls filled with honey. “The Youngest Doll,” based on a family anecdote, is a stunning literary expression of Rosario Ferré’s feminist and social concerns. It is the premier story in a collection that was originally published in Spanish in 1976 as Papeles de Pandora and is now translated into English by the author. The daughter of a former governor of Puerto Rico, Ferré portrays women loosening the constraints that have bound them to a patriarchal culture. Anger takes creative rather than polemical form… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Slut shaming
  • Cheating
  • Car accident
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