The Protected by Claire Zorn

The Protected by Claire Zorn

Hannah’s world is in pieces and she doesn’t need the school counsellor to tell her she has deep-seated psychological issues. With a seriously depressed mum, an injured dad and a dead sister, who wouldn’t have problems?

Hannah should feel terrible but for the first time in ages, she feels a glimmer of hope and isn’t afraid anymore. Is it because the elusive Josh is taking an interest in her? Or does it run deeper than that?

In a family torn apart by grief and guilt, one girl’s struggle to come to terms with years of torment shows just how long old wounds can take to heal.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia & transmisia
  • Amnesia (parent)
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Car accident recounted
  • Bullying & cyberbullying
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The Project by Courtney Summers

The Project by Courtney Summers

The Project by Courtney Summers book cover

Lo Denham is used to being on her own. After her parents died, Lo’s sister, Bea, joined The Unity Project, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt. Thanks to its extensive charitable work and community outreach, The Unity Project has won the hearts and minds of most in the Upstate New York region, but Lo knows there’s more to the group than meets the eye. She’s spent the last six years of her life trying—and failing—to prove it.

When a man shows up at the magazine Lo works for claiming The Unity Project killed his son, Lo sees the perfect opportunity to expose the group and reunite with Bea once and for all. When her investigation puts her in the direct path of its leader, Lev Warren and as Lo delves deeper into The Project… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Abandonment
  • Disfigurmisia
  • Child abuse & neglect recounted
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Cheating
  • Trauma & panic attacks
  • Nightmares
  • Hallucinations mentioned
  • Suicide by train, on-page
  • Suicidal ideation mentioned
  • Pregnancy & pregnancy complications, on-page
  • Traumatic premature childbirth, on-page
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injuries including graphic burns, comas, broken bones and facial scars
  • Hospitalisation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father in a car accident, off-page
  • Death of a guardian mentioned
  • Death of a sister by drowning, off-page
  • Death of a mother in a fire mentioned
  • Death of a son discussed
  • Murder
  • Torture, on-page
  • Disappearance of a sibling
  • Car accident, on- & off-page
  • Blackmail mentioned
  • Cults (theme)
  • Homelessness mentioned
  • Mentions of stalking & harassment

Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas

Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas

Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas book cover

When children go missing, people want answers. When children go missing in the small coastal town of Astoria, people look to Wendy for answers.

It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road, and gets pulled into the mystery haunting the town.

Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don’t do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what’s waiting for her in the woods.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Anxiety
  • Trauma & flashbacks
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a children, on-page
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Disappearance of a child & family members
  • Car accident

Say Her Name by Juno Dawson

Say Her Name by Juno Dawson

Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Rowe is not the kind of person who believes in ghosts. A Halloween dare at her ridiculously spooky boarding school is no big deal, especially when her best friend Naya and cute local boy Caine agree to join in too. They are ordered to summon the legendary ghost of ‘Bloody Mary’: say her name five times in front of a candlelit mirror, and she shall appear… But, surprise surprise, nothing happens. Or does it?

Next morning, Bobbie finds a message on her bathroom mirror… five days… but what does it mean? And who left it there? Things get increasingly weird and more terrifying for Bobbie and Naya, until it becomes all too clear that Bloody Mary was indeed.. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Statutory rape
  • Pregnancy from rape
  • Student-teacher relationship
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder
  • Disappearance of a friend
  • Car accident
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The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom. The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear. But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free? 

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Parental abandonment & neglect
  • Child abuse
  • Physical, emotional & verbal intimate partner abuse (on-page)
  • Depression (side character)
  • Trauma-related amnesia
  • Attempted suicide recounted
  • Self-harm
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Hospital
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an infant & father recounted
  • Murder and attempted murder recounted
  • Car accident
  • Fire

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

If you choose to support this author or novel (financially or otherwise), please consider educating yourself about the Quileute tribe’s plight and support their mission.

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him—and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be—that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & anti-Native language
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Blood depiction & blood-drinking
  • Hospitalisation for illness & injuries (broken bones, blood loss)
  • Mentions of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Minor car accident
  • Attempted murder
  • Stalking & kidnapping

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Aromisic language and amatonormativity
  • Racism & anti-Native language
  • Misogyny
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Blood depiction & blood drinking
  • Physical injuries
  • Hospital
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Kidnapping

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.

However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie up some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia
  • Deadnaming & misgendering
  • Gender dysphoria
  • Coming out themes
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Disownment and child homelessness
  • Blood depiction & use of blood for magic and in rituals
  • Dead bodies
  • Serious injury of a loved one
  • Hospital (brief scene)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father & mother recounted
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Gun violence recounted
  • Police racial discrimination mentioned
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Smoking & alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Animal blood used for magic and in rituals
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All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo

All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo

When novelist Manuel Ortigosa learns that his husband, Álvaro, has been killed in a car crash, it comes as a devastating shock. It won’t be the last. He’s now arrived in Galicia. It’s where Álvaro died. It’s where the case has already been quickly closed as a tragic accident. It’s also where Álvaro hid his secrets.

Álvaro’s trail leads Manuel deep into one of Spain’s most powerful and guarded families. Behind the walls of their forbidding estate, Manuel is nothing but an unwelcome and dangerous intruder. Then he finds two allies: a stubbornly suspicious police lieutenant and Álvaro’s old friend–and private confessor–from seminary school. Together they’re collecting the pieces of Álvaro’s past, his double life, and his mysterious death.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband
  • Car accident recounted
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All the Ways Home

All the Ways Home by Elsie Chapman

Sometimes, home isn’t where you expect to find it.

After losing his mom in a fatal car crash, Kaede Hirano–now living with a grandfather who is more stranger than family–developed anger issues and spent his last year of middle school acting out.

Best-friendless and critically in danger repeating the seventh grade, Kaede is given a summer assignment: write an essay about what home means to him, which will be even tougher now that he’s on his way to Japan to reconnect with his estranged father and older half-brother. Still, if there’s a chance Kaede can finally build a new family from an old one, he’s willing to try. But building new relationships isn’t as easy as destroying his old ones, and one last desperate act will change the way Kaede sees everyone–including himself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother
  • Car accident recounted
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All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

All the Ugly & Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

As the daughter of a meth dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. Struggling to raise her little brother, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible “adult” around. She finds peace in the starry Midwestern night sky above the fields behind her house. One night everything changes when she witnesses one of her father’s thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold, wreck his motorcycle. What follows is a powerful and shocking story that asks tough questions, reminding us of all the ugly and wonderful things that life has to offer

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Adult-minor relationship*
  • Paedophilia & grooming
  • Statutory rape
  • Parental abuse
  • Substance addiction
  • Death of a grandmother
  • Motorcycle accident

*Note: The story centres a romanticised sexual relationship between a 13-year-old girl and a 24-year-old man.

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