Stand Off by Andrew Smith

Stand Off by Andrew Smith

It’s his last year at Pine Mountain, and Ryan Dean should be focused on his future, but instead, he’s haunted by his past. His rugby coach expects him to fill the roles once played by his lost friend, Joey, as the rugby team’s stand-off and new captain. And somehow he’s stuck rooming with twelve-year-old freshman Sam Abernathy, a cooking whiz with extreme claustrophobia and a serious crush on Annie Altman—aka Ryan Dean’s girlfriend, for now, anyway.

Equally distressing, Ryan Dean’s doodles and drawings don’t offer the relief they used to… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend recounted*
  • Murder by physical assault recounted

*Note: The protagonist’s gay best friend was beaten to death in a brutal hate crime in the previous book.

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Winger by Andrew Smith

Winger by Andrew Smith

Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids in the Pacific Northwest. He’s living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he’s madly in love with his best friend Annie.

With the help of his sense of humor, rugby buddies, and his penchant for doodling comics, Ryan Dean manages to survive life’s complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what’s important, even when it feels like everything has fallen apart.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Bury Your Gays trope
  • Homomisia
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
  • Bullying

*Note: The protagonist’s gay best friend is beaten to death in a brutal hate crime within the last fifty pages of the book.

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The Survivors by Jane Harper

The Survivors by Jane Harper

Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.

Kieran’s parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.

When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away… 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parent with Dementia
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Murder
  • Disappearance of a sibling recounted
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The Dry by Jane Harper

The Dry by Jane Harper

In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.

Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier.
But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Luke’s death now threatens to bring to the surface.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child physical & sexual abuse
  • Rape & sexual assault of a child
  • Incest (father-daughter)
  • Domestic violence
  • Gambling addiction
  • Depression mentioned
  • Suicide & murder-suicide (theme)
  • Attempted suicide by immolation, on-page
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Graphic dead bodies
  • Blood & gore depiction, including burns
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a son, daughter-in-law & grandson
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a father from bowel cancer mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Fire
  • Drought (theme)
  • Mugging & home invasion recounted
  • Animal death & hunting
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Wires and Nerve, Vol 2 by Marissa Meyer

Wires & Nerve, Vol. 2 by Marissa Meyer and illustrated by Stephen Gilpin

Iko. an audacious android and best friend to the Lunar Queen Cinder. has been tasked with hunting down Alpha Lysander Steele, the leader of a rogue band of bioengineered wolf-soldiers who threaten to undo the tenuous peace agreement between Earth and Luna. Unless Cinder can reverse the mutations that were forced on them years before, Steele and his soldiers plan to satisfy their monstrous appetites with a massacre of the innocent people of Earth. And to show he’s serious, Steele is taking hostages.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Psychosis & hallucinations mentioned
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend & sister
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & hostage situation
  • War themes

On Broken Wings by Chanel Cleeton

On Broken Wings by Chanel Cleeton

A year after losing her husband, Joker, the squadron commander of the Wild Aces, Dani Peterson gets an offer from his best friend, Alex “Easy” Rogers, to help fix up her house. Dani accepts, and their friendship grows–along with an undeniable attraction.

Racked by guilt for loving his best friend’s widow, Easy’s caught between what he wants and can’t have. Until one night everything changes, and the woman who’s always held his heart ends up in his arms. Yet as Easy leaves for his next deployment, he and Dani are torn between their feelings and their loyalty to Joker’s memory.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband
  • Death of a friend
  • Military themes
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Fly With Me by Chanel Cleeton

Fly With Me by Chanel Cleeton

U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Noah Miller—call sign Burn—loves nothing more than flying hard and fast. When he meets a gorgeous and sassy woman while partying in Las Vegas, he immediately locks on to her.

Jordan Callahan owns a thriving clothing boutique, but her love life is far less successful. Her luck changes when six feet, two inches of sexy swagger asks her to dance and turns her world upside down.

One scorching weekend becomes an undeniable chemistry that they can’t leave in Vegas. But the long distance relationship and their different lives threaten to ground their romance. And when the dangers of Noah’s job become all too real, Jordan learns being with a fighter pilot means risking it all for a shot at love…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a friend
  • Military themes
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Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents, all of whom are rich or famous or both. These are the only rules for Jules Larsen’s new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s most high-profile and mysterious buildings. Recently heartbroken and just plain broke, Jules is taken in by the splendor of her surroundings and accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind.

As she gets to know the residents and staff of the Bartholomew, Jules finds herself drawn to fellow apartment sitter Ingrid, who comfortingly, disturbingly reminds her of the sister she lost eight years ago. When Ingrid confides that the Bartholomew is not what it seems and the dark history hidden beneath its gleaming facade is starting to frighten her, Jules brushes it off as a harmless ghost story—until the next day, when Ingrid disappears… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Cheating recounted
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide (on-page & recounted)
  • Self harm by burning (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Blood & physical injuries depiction
  • Nonconsensual medical procedures & experimentation
  • Emesis
  • Hospital
  • Surgery
  • Needles & syringes
  • Cancer & terminal illness mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father mentioned
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Gun violence
  • Graphic fire (on-page)
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Car accident
  • Disappearance of a friend (theme)
  • Death from a fall (on-page)
  • Poverty theme
  • Homelessness
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The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

Fifteen years ago, summer camper Emma Davis watched sleepily as her three cabin mates snuck out of their cabin in the dead of night. The last she–and anyone–saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.

Now a rising star in the NYC art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings.. They catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the socialite and wealthy owner of the very same Camp Nightingale–and when Francesca implores Emma to return to the camp as a painting counselor, Emma sees an opportunity to find closure and move on… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Slut shaming
  • Statutory rape
  • Nonconsensual voyeurism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Substance addiction
  • Anxiety attacks
  • Schizophreniform Disorder
  • Blood & physical depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Hospital & forced institutionalization
  • Terminal cancer
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Drowning
  • Car accident recounted
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Graphic animal death recounted
  • Bullying
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The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

All year the half-bloods have been preparing for battle against the Titans, knowing the odds of victory are grim. Kronos’s army is stronger than ever, and with every god and half-blood he recruits, the evil Titan’s power only grows. While the Olympians struggle to contain the rampaging monster Typhon, Kronos begins his advance on New York City, where Mount Olympus stands virtually unguarded. Now it’s up to Percy Jackson and an army of young demigods to stop the Lord of Time.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Parental abandonment (theme)
  • Cheating recounted
  • Nightmares & hallucinations
  • Self-sacrifice (on-page) & suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend & boyfriend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Explosions
  • Fire
  • Death from a fall
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • War themes & battle scenes (on-page)
  • Animal death