Tag Archives: Death of a Friend

Thin Air by Kellie M. Parker

Eight hours. Twelve contestants. A flight none of them might survive. A flight to Paris full of teenagers seeking opportunity turns deadly in this suspenseful, locked-door YA thriller. Perfect for fans of Diana Urban, Karen McManus, and Jessica Goodman.

Seventeen-year-old boarding school student Emily Walters is selected for an opportunity of a lifetime—she’ll compete abroad for a cash prize that will cover not only tuition to the college of her choice, but will lift her mother and her out of poverty… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cheating
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging & drug abuse
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Blood, gore and injury depiction including dead bodies
  • Hospitalisation
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Needles
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Fire
  • Disappearance of a loved one

A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti

When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run? So that’s what Annabelle does—she runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She’s not ready to think about the why yet, just the how—muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person—The Taker—that haunts her. Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and two friends (her self-appoint.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Toxic friendship
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Excessive exercise (self-harm)
  • Murder of a friend by gun violence
  • Stalking

Dangerous by Shannon Hale

Maisie ‘Danger’ Brown needs excitement. When she wins a harmless-sounding competition to go to astronaut boot camp, that’s exactly what she gets . . . But she never imagined it would feature stumbling into a terrifying plot that kills her friends and might just kill her too. Now there’s no going back. Maisie has to live by her middle name if she wants to survive – and she’ll need to be equally courageous to untangle the romance in her life too. 

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableist language & slurs
  • Death of a friend
  • Torture
  • Drowning
  • Bullying

The Celebrants by Steven Rowley

t’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honour a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves. But this reunion… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Divorce recounted
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Drug overdose
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Cancer
  • HIV/AIDs
  • Death of a friend
  • Plane crash

A Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Christina C. Jones

Simone is a woman on a mission: Stop being boring, and fall in love. That’s easier said than done with no prospects on the table… or under the table… or near the table. Her luck changes when fellow neighbourhood business owner Roman Taylor walks through the door of her flower shop. Roman is single, successful, and sexy — everything Simone is looking for to embark on a whirlwind summer romance with the potential to spark an everlasting love. But things are never as “perfect” as they seem, and Simone — and Roman — have to decide if they’re willing to risk their hearts when things get a little messy in their pursuit of a crazy little thing called love.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Miscarriage
  • Unplanned pregnancy
  • Coma
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Death of a friend

Near the Bone by Christina Henry

Mattie can’t remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they’re not alone after all. There’s something in the woods that wasn’t there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws. When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Graphic domestic violence including physical beatings, deprivation of food, water and shelter, and denial of autonomy (theme)
  • Martial rape, off-page
  • Miscarriage & stillbirth recounted
  • Chronic arm injury
  • Emesis, on-page
  • Blood & gore depiction including the hanging of dead bodies
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Strangulation, on-page
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Animal death and dead bodies (fox, bear)

Lying in the Deep by Diana Urban

After being jilted by her ex-boyfriend and best friend, Jade couldn’t be more ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime—11 countries in 4 months, all from the luxurious Campus on Board ship—and to wedge an entire globe between her and the people who broke her heart. But when Jade discovers the backstabbing couple are also setting sail, her obsession with them grows and festers, leading to a shocking murder. And as their friends begin to drop like flies, Jade and her new crush must race to clear her name and find the killer they’re trapped at sea with….before anyone else winds up in body bags.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Overdose mentioned (opiates)
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Death from hanging
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Car accident

Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro

An ancient majestic oak stands beneath the stars on Division Street. And under the tree sits Ben Wilf, a retired doctor, and ten-year-old Waldo Shenkman, a brilliant, lonely boy who is pointing out his favourite constellations. Waldo doesn’t realize it but he and Ben have met before. And they will again, and again. Across time and space, and shared destiny. Division Street is full of secrets. An impulsive lie begets a secret—one which will forever haunt the Wilf family. And the Shenkmans, who move into the neighbourhood many years later, bring secrets of their own. Spanning fifty kaleidoscopic years, on a street, and in a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alzheimer’s Disease
  • Death of a friend in a drunk driving accident

At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop

Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice. Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Explosions

Teen Killers Club by Lily Sparks

Seventeen-year-old Signal Deere has raised eyebrows for years as an unhappy Goth misfit from the trailer park. When she’s convicted of her best friend Rose’s brutal murder, she’s designated a Class A–the most dangerous and manipulative criminal profile. To avoid prison, Signal signs on for a secret program for 18-and-under Class As and is whisked off to an abandoned sleep-away camp, where she and seven bunkmates will train as assassins. Yet even in the Teen Killers Club, Signal doesn’t fit in. She’s squeamish around blood. She’s kind and empathetic… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia & grooming
  • Dead body
  • Decapitation
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Needles
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Murder
  • Death of a friend
  • Cult
  • Incarceration