Home Body by Rupi Kaur

Home Body by Rupi Kaur

Home Body by Rupi Kaur book cover

Rupi Kaur constantly embraces growth, and in home body, she walks readers through a reflective and intimate journey visiting the past, the present, and the potential of the self. home body is a collection of raw, honest conversations with oneself – reminding readers to fill up on love, acceptance, community, family, and embrace change. Illustrated by the author, themes of nature and nurture, light and dark, rest here.

i dive into the well of my body
and end up in another world
everything i need
already exists in me
there’s no need
to look anywhere else
– home

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child sexual assault recounted
  • Rape recounted
  • Child abuse
  • Abusive relationship
  • Depression and depressive episodes
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The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur book cover

From Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry. A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.

Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Incest
  • Child sexual abuse
  • Abusive relationship
  • Depression
  • Abortion
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a an infant mentioned
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Problem Child by Victoria Helen Stone

Problem Child by Victoria Helen Stone

After a brutal childhood, Jane Doe has been permanently wired to look after herself and only herself. Now, looking next to normal, Jane has a lover and a job. But she hasn’t lost her edge. It sharpens when she hears from her estranged family. Jane’s deeply troubled sixteen-year-old niece, Kayla, has vanished, and no one seems to care. Neither does Jane. Until she sees a picture of Kayla and recognizes herself in the young girl’s eyes. It’s the empty stare of a sociopath. Jane knows what vengeful and desperate things Kayla is capable of. Only Jane can help her – by being drawn into Kayla’s dark world. And… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Sexual assault of a minor
  • Statutory rape
  • Underage sex work
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The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud

The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud

In the six months since Anthony, Lucy, and George survived a night in the most haunted house in England, Lockwood & Co. hasn’t made much progress. Quill Kipps and his team of Fittes agents keep swooping in on Lockwood’s investigations. Finally, in a fit of anger, Anthony challenges his rival to a contest: the next time the two agencies compete on a job, the losing side will have to admit defeat in the Times newspaper.

Things look up when a new client, Mr. Saunders, hires Lockwood & Co. to be present at the excavation of Edmund Bickerstaff, a Victorian doctor who reportedly tried to communicate with the dead. Saunders needs the coffin sealed with silver to prevent any supernatural trouble. All goes well-until George’s curiosity attracts a horrible phantom… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Sexism
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Medical experimentation
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
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The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

For more than fifty years, the country has been affected by a horrifying epidemic of ghosts. A number of Psychic Investigations Agencies have sprung up to destroy the dangerous apparitions.

Lucy Carlyle, a talented young agent, arrives in London hoping for a notable career. Instead she finds herself joining the smallest, most ramshackle agency in the city, run by the charismatic Anthony Lockwood. When one of their cases goes horribly wrong, Lockwood & Co. have one last chance of redemption. Unfortunately this involves spending the night in one of the most haunted houses in England, and trying to escape alive.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Suicide & attempted suicide (on-page)
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Murder
  • Explosion
  • Fire
  • Drowning
  • Torture
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This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self.

To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Physical parental abuse
  • Depression
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Overdose mentioned
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The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis

The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis

Seventeen-year-old Evan Panos doesn’t know where he fits in. His strict Greek mother refuses to see him as anything but a disappointment. His quiet, workaholic father is a staunch believer in avoiding any kind of conflict. And his best friend Henry has somehow become distractingly attractive over the summer.

Tired, isolated, scared—Evan’s only escape is drawing in an abandoned church that feels as lonely as he is. And, yes, he kissed one guy over the summer. But it’s his best friend Henry who’s now proving to be irresistible. It’s Henry who suddenly seems interested in being more than friends. And it’s Henry who makes him believe that he’s more than his mother’s harsh words and terrifying abuse.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Hate crimes
  • Physical & emotional child abuse (theme)
  • Depression
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Grief & loss depiction
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Take Me Home Tonight by Morgan Matson

Take Me Home Tonight by Morgan Matson

Kat and Stevie—best friends, theater kids, polar opposites—have snuck away from the suburbs to spend a night in New York City. They have it all planned out. They’ll see a play, eat at the city’s hottest restaurant, and have the best. Night. Ever. What could go wrong?

They’re barely off the train before they’re dealing with destroyed phones, family drama, and unexpected Pomeranians. Over the next few hours, they’ll have to grapple with old flames, terrible theater, and unhelpful cab drivers. But there are also cute boys to kiss, parties to crash, dry cleaning to deliver (don’t ask), and the world’s best museum to explore.

Over the course of a wild night in the city that never sleeps, both Kat and Stevie will get a wake-up call about their friendship, their choices…and finally discover what they really want for their future.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Gun violence
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First, Become Ashes by KM Szpara

First, Become Ashes by K.M. Szpara

Lark spent the first twenty-four years, nine months, and three days of his life training for a righteous quest: to rid the world of monsters. Alongside his partner Kane, he wore the cage and endured the scourge in order to develop his innate magic. He never thought that when Kane left, he’d next see him in the company of FBI agents and a SWAT team. He never dreamed that the leader of the Fellowship of the Anointed would be brought up on charges of abuse and assault.

He never expected the government would tell him that the monsters aren’t real–that there is no magic, and all the pain was for nothing.

Lark isn’t ready to give up. He is determined to fulfill his quest, to defeat the monsters he was promised. Along the way he will grapple with the past, confront love, and discover his long-buried truth.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Physical & emotional child abuse
  • Graphic rape, including consent violations & nonconsensual BDSM (multiple scenes)
  • Self-harm (self-inflicted burns)
  • Cults
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
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An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir book cover

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
 
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
 
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
 
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
 
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Attempted rape, on-page
  • Rape threats
  • Child abuse
  • Physical abuse
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Torture
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