Like the Willow Tree by Lois Lowry

Like the Willow Tree by Lois Lowry

In 1918, as the Great War rages in Europe, the Spanish influenza tears a brutal path across the United States, leaving devastation in its wake. Suddenly, eleven-year-old Lydia Pierce and her older brother, Daniel, find themselves orphans of the flu, and are taken by their grieving uncle to be raised in the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake. Thrust into the Shaker’s unfamiliar way of life, Lydia, a fiercely independent girl, must grapple with a new world that is nothing like the one she used to know.

Lydia must work hard, and all the while she worries about her headstrong brother, who has run away. In time, and with her courageous spirit, Lydia learns to overcome the devastation– yet she cannot stop wondering, will Daniel ever return?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Spanish Influenza pandemic
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a baby sibling
  • World War One
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The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry

The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry

Precocious Katy Thatcher always knew she wanted to be a doctor like her father. She joins him on his rounds and has a keen interest in the people around her. She’s especially intrigued by Jacob, a gentle, silent boy who has a special sensitivity toward animals. While Jacob never speaks to or looks at Katy, they develop an unusual friendship and understanding. The townspeople dismiss Jacob as an imbecile. Katy just thinks of him as someone special who has a way of communicating with the animals through his sounds and movements.

And only Katy comes to realize what the gentle, silent boy did for his family. He meant to help, not harm. It didn’t turn out that way.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Pregnancy
  • Death of a baby
  • Drowning
  • Animal death
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Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

Orphaned and physically flawed in a civilization that shuns and discards the weak, Kira faces a frightening uncertain future.

When she is summoned by the Council if Guardians, Kira prepares to fight for her life, but the Council has unexpected plans for her. Now Kira faces new responsibilities. On her quest for truth, she discovers things that will change her life forever.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Misogyny
  • Child abuse
  • Suicide
  • Loss of vision
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
  • Poisoning
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The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver has become one of the most influential novels of our time. The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicide
  • Needles
  • Infanticide
  • Drowning mentioned
  • War & battle mentioned
  • Animal death
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The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racist language
  • Domestic abuse
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Miscarriage
  • Blood depiction
  • Cancer
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a son
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The Siren by Kiera Cass

The Siren by Kiera Cass

Years ago, Kahlen was rescued from drowning by the Ocean. To repay her debt, she has served as a Siren ever since, using her voice to lure countless strangers to their deaths. Though a single word from Kahlen can kill, she can’t resist spending her days on land, watching ordinary people and longing for the day when she will be able to speak and laugh and live freely among them again.

Kahlen is resigned to finishing her sentence in solitude…until she meets Akinli. Handsome, caring, and kind, Akinli is everything Kahlen ever dreamed of… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Teen pregnancy mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of an infant recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault recounted
  • Shipwreck
  • Drowning
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The Betrothed by Kiera Cass

The Betrothed by Kiera Cass

When King Jameson declares his love for Lady Hollis Brite, Hollis is shocked—and thrilled. After all, she’s grown up at Keresken Castle, vying for the king’s attention alongside other daughters of the nobility. Capturing his heart is a dream come true.

But Hollis soon realizes that falling in love with a king and being crowned queen may not be the happily ever after she thought it would be. And when she meets a commoner with the mysterious power to see right into her heart, she finds that the future she really wants is one that she never thought to imagine. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Misogyny
  • Antiziganism (g slur)
  • Arranged marriage discussed
  • Domestic abuse
  • Cheating, grey-area
  • Miscarriage
  • Pregnancy discussed
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a husband
  • Death of a son
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • Home invasion
  • War themes
  • Bullying, recounted
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Recursion by Blake Crouch

Recursion by Blake Crouch

That’s what NYC cop Barry Sutton is learning, as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

That’s what neuroscientist Helena Smith believes. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious memories. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face to face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds, but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.

But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?

At once a relentless pageturner and an intricate science-fiction puzzlebox about time, identity, and memory, Recursion is a thriller as only Blake Crouch could imagine it—and his most ambitious, mind-boggling, irresistible work to date.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist language
  • Gaslighting
  • Depression
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Forced drug use
  • Alzheimers’ disease
  • Needles
  • Nonconsensual human experimentation, on-page
  • Forced & coerced sensory deprivation
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a daughter, recounted
  • Death of a child
  • Torture, including psychological torture
  • Death by a fall, on-page
  • Captivity
  • Kidnapping
  • Atomic bomb
  • Animal medical testing
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Archenemies by Marissa Meyer

In Renegades, Nova and Adrian (aka Insomnia and Sketch) fought the battle of their lives against the Anarchist known as the Detonator. It was a short-lived victory. The Anarchists still have a secret weapon, one that Nova believes will protect her. The Renegades also have a strategy for overpowering the Anarchists, but both Nova and Adrian understand that it could mean the end of Gatlon City – and the world – as they know it.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Murder of a mother, father & infant sister by gun violence recounted
  • Murder by spear mentioned
  • Torture
  • Near-drowning incident mentioned
  • Kidnapping & captivity

Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Renegades by Marissa Meyer

The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies – humans with extraordinary abilities – who emerged from the ruins of a crumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone… except the villains they once overthrew. Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice – and in Nova. But Nova’s allegiance is to a villain who has the power to end them both

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Physical injury (burns)
  • Death of a mother from a fall
  • Murder of a mother, father and baby sister by gun violence recounted
  • Gun violence including fatal shootings, stun guns and tranquilizer guns with poisoned ammunition
  • Fire, poisonous gas and explosions
  • Animal death & cruelty
  • Poverty
  • Bullying
  • War themes recounted & battle scenes (on-page)