Nowhere Near You by Leah Thomas

Nowhere Near You by Leah Thomas

Ollie and Moritz might never meet, but their friendship knows no bounds. Their letters carry on as Ollie embarks on his first road trip away from the woods–no easy feat for a boy allergic to electricity–and Moritz decides which new school would best suit an eyeless boy who prefers to be alone.

Along the way they meet other teens like them, other products of strange science who lead seemingly normal lives in ways Ollie and Moritz never imagined possible: A boy who jokes about his atypical skeleton; an aspiring actress who hides a strange deformity; a track star whose abnormal heart propels her to victory. Suddenly the future feels wide open for two former hermits. But even as Ollie and Moritz dare to enjoy life, they can’t escape their past, which threatens to destroy any progress they’ve made. Can these boys ever find their place in a world that might never understand them?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted rape
  • Forced drug use
  • Terminal cancer
  • Death of a mother
  • Death of a friend
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Bus accident
  • Bullying mentioned

When Light Left Us by Leah Thomas

When Light Left Us by Leah Thomas

When the Vasquez siblings’ father left, it seemed nothing could remedy the absence in their lives . . . until a shimmering figure named Luz appeared in the canyon behind their house.

Luz filled the void. He shot hoops with seventeen-year-old Hank’s hands. He showed fourteen-year-old Ana cinematic beauty behind her eyelids. He spoke kindly to eight-year-old Milo. But then Luz left, too, and he took something from each of them. As a new school year begins, Ana, Hank, and Milo must carry on as if an alien presence never altered them. But how can they ever feel close to other people again when Luz changed everything about how they see the world and themselves?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Racism
  • Parental abandonment
  • Attempted suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Car accident
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Remind Me How This Ends by Gabrielle Tozer

Remind Me How This Ends by Gabrielle Tozer

It’s the summer after high school ends and everyone is moving on. Winning scholarships. Heading to uni. Travelling the world. Everyone except Milo Dark. Milo feels his life is stuck on pause. His girlfriend is 200km away, his mates have bailed for bigger things and he is convinced he’s missed the memo reminding him to plan the rest of his life. Then Layla Montgomery barrels back into his world after five years without so much as a text message.

As kids, Milo and Layla were family friends who shared everything – hiding out in her tree house, secrets made at midnight, and sunny afternoons at the river. But they haven’t spoken since her mum’s funeral. Layla’s fallen apart since that day. She pushed away her dad, dropped out of school and recently followed her on-again-off-again boyfriend back to town because she has nowhere else to go. Not that she’s letting on how tough things have been.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Car accident recounted
  • Animal death

One Tiny Lie by K.A. Tucker

One Tiny Lie by K.A. Tucker

Livie has always been the stable one of the two Cleary sisters, handling her parents’ tragic death and Kacey’s self-destructive phase with strength and maturity. But underneath that exterior is a little girl hanging onto the last words her father ever spoke to her. “Make me proud,” he had said. She promised she would…and she’s done her best over the past seven years with every choice, with every word, with every action.

Livie walks into Princeton with a solid plan, and she’s dead set on delivering on it: Rock her classes, set herself up for medical school, and meet a good, respectable guy that she’s going to someday marry. What isn’t part of her plan are Jell-O shots, a lovable, party animal roommate she can’t say ‘no’ to, and Ashton, the gorgeous captain … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father in a car accident recounted

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard book cover

EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE – ESPECIALLY HIGH SCHOOL JUNIORS SPENCER, ARIA, EMILY, AND HANNA

Spencer covets her sister’s boyfriend. Aria’s fantasizing about her English teacher. Emily’s crushing on the new girl at school. Hanna uses some ugly tricks to stay beautiful. But they’ve all kept an even bigger secret since their friend Alison vanished.

How do I know? Because I know everything about the bad girls they were, the naughty girls they are, and the dirty secrets they’ve kept. And guess what? I’m telling.

Goodreads The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Fatmisia and body shaming
  • Slut-shaming
  • Misogyny
  • Queermisia
  • Lesbomisic language
  • Racism
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Sexual harassment
  • Cheating
  • Parental neglect and emotional abuse
  • Eating disorders, specifically bulimia
  • Disordered thinking about food
  • Binging and purging, on-page
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Recreational drug use
  • Murder
  • Stalking
  • Blackmail
  • Car accident
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Killer by Sara Shepard

Killer by Sara Shepard

Killer by Sara Shepard book cover

In picture-perfect Rosewood, Pennsylvania, ash-blond highlights gleam in the winter sun and frozen lakes sparkle like Swarovski crystals. But pictures often lie— and so do Rosewood’s four prettiest girls.

Hanna, Aria, Spencer, and Emily have been lying ever since they became friends with beautiful Alison DiLaurentis. Ali made them do terrible things—things they had to keep secret for years. And even though Ali was killed at the end of seventh grade, their bad-girl ways didn’t die with her.

Hanna’s on a mission to corrupt Rosewood’s youth, starting with a very attractive sophomore. Aria’s snooping into her boyfriend’s past. Spencer’s stealing— from her family. And pure little Emily’s abstaining from abstinence.
The girls should be careful, though. They thought they were safe when Ali’s killer was arrested and A’s true identity was finally revealed. But now there’s a new A in town turning up the heat. And this time Rosewood is going to burn.

Goodreads The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Queermisia
  • Conversion camp mentioned
  • Fatmisia and body shaming
  • Slut shaming
  • Misogyny
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Emotional parental abuse
  • Parental neglect
  • Eating disorders
  • Bingeing and purging recounted
  • Disordered thoughts about food
  • Anxiety attack
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis recounted
  • Attempted murder
  • Stalking
  • Blackmail
  • Fire
  • Car accident recounted
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Flawless by Sara Shepard

Flawless by Sara Shepard

Flawless by Sara Shepard book cover

Spencer stole her sister’s boyfriend. Aria is brokenhearted over her English teacher. Emily likes her new friend Maya . . . as much more than a friend. And Hanna’s obsession with looking flawless is literally making her sick. But the most horrible secret of all is something so scandalous it could destroy their perfect little lives.

And someone named “A” is threatening to do just that.

At first they thought A was Alison, their friend who vanished three years ago . . . but then Alison turned up dead. So could A be Melissa, Spencer’s ultracompetitive sister? Or Maya, who wants Emily all to herself? What about Toby, the mysterious guy who left town right after Alison went missing?

One thing’s for certain: A’s got the dirt to bury them all alive, and with every crumpled note, wicked IM, and vindictive text message A sends, the girls get a little closer to losing it all.

Goodreads The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia and body shaming
  • Ableism
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Lesbomisic slurs
  • Queermisia
  • Outing mentioned
  • Adult-minor predatory behaviour
  • Incestuous sexual abuse
  • Sexual assault
  • Attempted rape
  • Bulimia, including bingeing and purging discussion
  • Panic attack
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Fire
  • Stalking
  • Blackmail
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Unnatural Causes by Richard Shepherd

Unnatural Causes by Richard Shepherd

Unnatural Causes by Richard Shepherd book cover

As the UK’s top forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd has spent a lifetime uncovering the secrets of the dead. When death is sudden or unexplained, it falls to Shepherd to establish the cause. Each post-mortem is a detective story in its own right – and Shepherd has performed over 23,000 of them. Through his skill, dedication and insight, Dr Shepherd solves the puzzle to answer our most pressing question: how did this person die?

From serial killer to natural disaster, ‘perfect murder’ to freak accident, Shepherd takes nothing for granted in pursuit of truth. And while he’s been involved in some of the most high-profile cases of recent times, it’s often the less well known encounters that prove the most perplexing, intriguing and even bizarre. In or out of the public eye, his evidence has put killers behind bars, freed the innocent and turned open-and-shut cases on their heads.

But a life in death, bearing witness to some of humanity’s darkest corners, exacts a price and Shepherd doesn’t flinch from counting the cost to him and his family.

Goodreads The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Graphic descriptions of autopsies
  • Graphic descriptions of dead bodies
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Knife violence and stabbing
  • Car accidents
  • Terrorist attacks
  • Deaths in custody
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman

Veda, a classical dance prodigy in India, lives and breathes dance—so when an accident leaves her a below-knee amputee, her dreams are shattered. For a girl who’s grown used to receiving applause for her dance prowess and flexibility, adjusting to a prosthetic leg is painful and humbling. But Veda refuses to let her disability rob her of her dreams, and she starts all over again, taking beginner classes with the youngest dancers. Then Veda meets Govinda, a young man who approaches dance as a spiritual pursuit. As their relationship deepens, Veda reconnects with the world around her, and begins to discover who she is and what dance truly means to her.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Amputation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a family member
  • Car accident
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Forbidden Orchid by Sharon Biggs Waller

The Forbidden Orchid by Sharon Biggs Waller

Staid, responsible Elodie Buchanan is the eldest of ten sisters living in a small English market town in 1861. The girls barely know their father, a plant hunter usually off adventuring through China. Then disaster strikes: Mr. Buchanan reneges on his contract to collect an extremely rare and valuable orchid. He will be thrown into debtors’ prison while his daughters are sent to the orphanage and the workhouse.

Elodie can’t stand by and see her family destroyed, so she persuades her father to return to China once more to try to hunt down the flower—only this time, Elodie goes with him. She has never before left her village, but what starts as fear turns to wonder as she adapts to seafaring life aboard the tea clipper The Osprey. But now, even if she can find the orchid, how can she ever go back to being the staid, responsible Elodie that everybody needs?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Racism
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com