Tag Archives: Child Abuse & Neglect

Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier

Welcome to Wonderland. By day, it’s a magical place boasting a certain retro charm. Excited children, hands sticky with cotton candy, run frenetically from the Giant Octopus ride to the Spinning Sombrero, while the tinkling carnival music of the giant Wonder Wheel—the oldest Ferris wheel in the Pacific Northwest—fills the air. But before daybreak, an eerie feeling descends. Maybe it’s the Clown Museum, home to creepy wax replicas of movie stars and a massive collection of antique porcelain dolls. Or maybe it’s the terrifyingly real House of Horrors. Or…maybe it’s the dead, decaying body left in the midway for all the Wonder Workers… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia & deadnaming
  • Fatphobia
  • Paedophilia & grooming
  • Child abuse (on-page)
  • Domestic violence
  • Drugging
  • Sexual assault & attempted rape (on-page)
  • Infidelity
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Death of a parent & spouse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Abortion
  • School shooting mentioned

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

This is a tale of murder. Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it? Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex–movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island. I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time ― it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect recounted
  • Sex work recounted (survival)
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Child homelessness recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent

Oliver Ryan, handsome, charismatic, and successful, has long been married to his devoted wife, Alice. Together they write and illustrate award-winning children’s books; their life together one of enviable privilege and ease—until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious, and subsequently beats her into a coma. In the aftermath of such an unthinkable event, as Alice hovers between life and death, the couple’s friends, neighbours, and acquaintances try to understand what could have driven Oliver to commit such a horrific act. As his story unfolds, layers are peeled… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence & child abuse
  • Pregnancy
  • Death of a parent

The Escape Room by L.D. Smithson

Everything is a clue. Eight strangers arrive at a remote sea fort off the coast of England. They are here to take part in The Fortress, a mysterious reality TV show in which contestants have to solve a series of complex puzzles. But this is no game, and the consequences of failure are more deadly than anyone anticipated. No one leaves. The show’s sinister purpose becomes clear when the first person is evicted from the competition. Instead of being sent home to their family, they are left to die inside a locked room. The only way out is to win. Under scrutiny from the watching public… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Victim-blaming
  • Fatphobia
  • Domestic violence & child abuse mentioned
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Fire

Nowhere Girl by Cheryl Diamond

What if the people you love most are not who you thought they were? What if you don’t know who you are, either? Cheryl Diamond’s memoir begins when she is four and her family is in Kashmir, India, hurtling down the Himalayas in their battered station wagon headed for the Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh religion. The family are Sikhs. Today. In a few years they will be Jewish. Cheryl’s name is Harbhajan. Today. But in a few years she will be Crystal. By the time she turns nine, Cheryl has had at least six assumed identities. She has lived on five continents, fleeing the specter of Interpol and law enforcement. Her father, a master financial criminal, or so she believes… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Incest & child sexual abuse
  • Emotional, verbal & child abuse

The Things We Didn’t Know by Elba Iris Pérez

Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old when her mother whisks her and her brother, Pablo, away from Woronoco, the tiny Massachusetts factory town that is the only home they’ve known. With no plan and no money, she leaves them with family in the mountainside villages of Puerto Rico and promises to return. Months later, when Andrea and Pablo are brought back to Massachusetts, they find their hometown significantly changed. As they navigate the rifts between their family’s values and all-American culture and face the harsh realities of growing up, they must embrace both the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Racism
  • Cheating
  • Domestic violence & child abuse
  • Parental abandonment
  • Vietnam War
  • Colonisation

King of Greed by Ana Huang

Powerful, brilliant, and ambitious, Dominic Davenport clawed his way up from nothing to become the King of Wall Street. He has everything—a beautiful home, a beautiful wife, and more money than he could spend in a lifetime. But no matter how much he accumulates, he’s never satisfied. In his endless quest for more, he drives away the only person who saw him as enough. It isn’t until she’s gone that he realizes there may be more to life than riches and glory…but by then, it may be too late. Kind, intelligent, and thoughtful, Alessandra Davenport has played the role of trophy… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & abandonment mentioned

Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao

Pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child, Lady Jing is half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole. As the King’s ward, she has spent the past ninety years running errands, dodging the taunts of the spiteful hulijing courtiers, and trying to control her explosive temper – with varying levels of success. So when Jing overhears the courtiers plotting to steal a priceless dragon pearl from the King, she seizes her chance to expose them, once and for all. With the help of a gentle mortal tasked with setting up the Central Bank of Hell, Jing embarks on a wild chase for intel, first through Hell and then mortal Shanghai… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Panic attacks
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Bullying

It’s Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han

It used to be that Belly counted the days until summer, until she was back at Cousins Beach with Conrad and Jeremiah. But not this year. Not after Susannah got sick again and Conrad stopped caring. Everything that was right and good has fallen apart, leaving Belly wishing summer would never come. But when Jeremiah calls saying Conrad has disappeared, Belly knows what she must do to make things right again. And it can only happen back at the beach house, the three of them together, the way things used to be. If this summer really and truly is the last summer, it should end the way it started—at Cousins Beach.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse (parent slaps a child)
  • Emesis
  • Smoking & drug use mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a mother from cancer

The Ruined by Renée Ahdieh

The Sylvan Vale and the Sylvan Wyld are at war. Now that the unsteady truce between them has been broken, lines must be drawn. In an effort to protect the weakened Winter Court, Bastien rallies powerful allies and friends in New Orleans to come to their aid. Meanwhile, under protection alongside her injured mother in the Summer Court, Celine is uncertain of whom to trust. She cannot get word to Bastien, and does not understand why he has not returned. When she realises war between the fey courts is imminent, she journeys with Ali in an effort to find the time travelling mirror and change their fate… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption (secondary characters)
  • Blood-drinking
  • Attempted murder by poisoned arrow and knives
  • Murder by gun violence
  • Graphic torture
  • Accidental explosion resulting in mass death
  • Graphic battles scenes with cannonballs and gunfire