Tag Archives: Disordered Eating & Exercise

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of eating disorders and other forms of disordered eating, including anorexia, bulimia and AFRID; as well as all warnings related to disordered weight & body thoughts and excessive exercise.

I Will Mend You by Gigi Styx

My worst nightmare finally stepped out of the mirror. And the only man who can save me is a ghost. I’m trapped in a forgotten nightmare with the monster I most fear. The key to my freedom lies behind a wall of memories. Xero’s specter invades my mind, whispering both vengeance and salvation. He insists he’s real, yet I can’t trust my shattered psyche. But as my tormentors draw close, I must rely on the phantom I betrayed for protection—and for revenge. She’s ensnared by darkness, and only I can set her free. To save her, I must become the vengeful spirit she fears. Amethyst’s mind is a maze of terror and confusion. Freeing… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child & organ trafficking
  • Elder abuse
  • Victim-blaming
  • Rape, dubious consent (‘dubcon’), sexual harassment, & attempted sexual assault
  • Paedophilia, grooming, & child sexual abuse
  • Underage sex work mentioned (secondary character)
  • Gang rape (secondary character)
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Hallucinations & memory loss
  • Immolation
  • Abortion (forced) recounted
  • Medical misconduct (medication tampering)
  • Forced feeding
  • Cannibalism & dismemberment
  • Genital mutilation (castration)
  • Murder & murder of a child/infant
  • Graphic torture (on-page)
  • Car accident
  • Poisoning
  • Arson
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Imprisonment
  • Stalking & blackmail
  • Bullying & online harassment

Braving the Storm by Elliott Rose

I’m not supposed to feel this way… I never wanted to disappear more than while around my family. Briar Lane, the girl only useful for one thing: my surname. A business handshake and pawn to be traded. My father’s chess piece shuffled between empires. That was my life back in L.A. but all it took was finding the dirty secret stuffed in a jacket pocket, and my entire world unraveled. So, I fled to the one place I knew they could never find me. Crimson Ridge. Arriving in this snowy, harsh world, I thought I’d be starting over on my own, but it turns out I couldn’t have been… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Statutory assault & rape, child prostitution & grooming mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Internalised victim-blaming by a rape survivor mentioned (secondary character)
  • Child abandonment & foster care system experiences mentioned (secondary character)
  • Verbal & emotional intimate partner abuse & gaslighting by ex-partner mentioned
  • Forced arranged marriage mentioned
  • Threats of disownment recounted
  • Infidelity by ex-partner discussed
  • Anxiety (protagonist) & nightmares recounted
  • Restrictive eating mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of alcoholism
  • Suicide of a pregnant side character by overdose mentioned
  • Infertility
  • Physical head injury (on-page) & mentions of past bull-riding injuries
  • Death of parents mentioned including death during childbirth (off-page)
  • Home invasion (off-page)
  • Blackmail & nonconsensual surveillance
  • Animal abuse mentioned

*Context : A romance between an adopted uncle and his estranged niece.

Tear This Downby Barbara Dee

For as long as Freya can remember, she has loved living in her cozy hometown of Wellstone. Not only is the town itself named for local and historical hero Benjamin Wellstone but everything in schools, beaches, and stores. There’s even a giant statue of him to remind everyone of the good things he did. But while doing research for a big school project, Freya discovers that Benjamin isn’t the big hero everyone has been taught to believe. He had some redeeming qualities, but he also held incredibly problematic views towards women, believing they shouldn’t have the right to…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Mentions of the plight of historical suffragists, including their hunger strikes & being force-fed

Everything I Know About You by Barbara Dee

During a class trip to DC, twelve-year-old Tally and her best friends, Sonnet and Caleb (a.k.a. Spider) are less than thrilled when they are assigned roommates and are paired with kids who are essentially their sworn enemies. For Tally, rooming with “clonegirl” Ava Seely feels like punishment, rather than potential for fun. But the trip is full of surprises. Despite a pact to stick together as much as they can, Sonnet pulls away, and spider befriends Marco, the boy who tormented him last year. And Marco just might “like” Tally—what’s that about? But the uneasy peace in Ava and… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Secondary character with anorexia (theme)

Vanquish by Pam Godwin

Her life is like a prison cell. A self-made, to-hell-with-the-free-world existence that locks from the inside. Stop judging. Her agoraphobia doesn’t define her. It simply keeps her safe. He belongs in a prison cell. The 6×8, make-me-your-bitch variety that locks from the outside. But he’s free. To hunt. To take. To break. And he just found a sexy new toy. Capturing her is the easy part. Her fucked-up mind, however, makes him question everything he does next. But he’s a determined bastard. If all goes his way, this will hurt like hell.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Internalised fatphobia & body dysmorphia
  • Rape, sexual slavery & nonconsensual BDSM (on-page)
  • Sex trafficking (on-page & recounted)
  • Sex work recounted
  • Intimate partner violence (on-page)
  • Emotional & verbal intimate partner abuse recounted
  • Forced child abandonment
  • Divorce recounted
  • Agoraphobia, bulimia & Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (protagonist)
  • Psychiatric institutionalisation of a parent mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug abuse recounted (protagonists)
  • Death of a mother from an overdose recounted
  • Murder by gun violence mentioned (secondary character)
  • Kidnapping (on-page)

Context : The male protagonist kidnaps, rapes, and abuses the female protagonist, his love interest. He is a former stalker and sex trafficker who has raped others in the past. He has a child with a different secondary character who was forcibly taken away. The female protagonist is divorced.

Shoulder Season by Christina Clancy

The small town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is an unlikely location for a Playboy Resort, and nineteen-year old Sherri Taylor is an unlikely bunny. Growing up in neighboring East Troy, Sherri plays the organ at the local church and has never felt comfortable in her own skin. But when her parents die in quick succession, she leaves the only home she’s ever known for the chance to be part of a glamorous slice of history. In the winter of 1981, in a costume two sizes too small, her toes pinched by towering stilettos, Sherri joins the daughters of dairy farmers and factory workers for the defining experience of her life…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Drug use
  • Disordered eating

Perfect Little Monsters by Cindy R.X. He

Ella Moore was the most popular girl in school…and also the most hated. When she’s murdered at her own party, there are too many suspects to count–and too many people who think she deserved it. The police’s prime suspect is the new girl, Dawn Foster. She was the last to hand Ella a drink on the night Ella died. Plus, all of Ella’s friends with a motive for wanting her dead are more than willing to implicate Dawn. But Dawn refuses to go down without a fight. She’s determined to clear her name. As she delves deeper into the past, she discovers that Ella and her friends had… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatphobia & body-shaming
  • Adult-minor relationship & toxic friendships
  • Disordered eating
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Car accident
  • Fire
  • Kidnapping & stalking
  • Bullying & cyberbullying

What the Neighbors Saw by Melissa Adelman

When Alexis and her husband Sam buy a neglected Cape Cod house in an exclusive DC suburb, they are ecstatic. Sam is on the cusp of making partner at his law firm, Alexis is pregnant with their second child, and their glamorous neighbours welcome the couple with open arms. Things are looking up, and Alexis believes she can finally leave her troubled past behind. But the neighbourhood’s picture-perfect image is shattered when their neighbour Teddy – a handsome, successful father of three – is found dead on the steep banks of the Potomac River. The community is shaken… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Pregnancy from rape mentioned
  • Infidelity
  • Incest (half-siblings)
  • Disordered eating
  • Murder

Context : The protagonist has her husband murdered because she finds out they’re half-siblings and she can’t deal with the public humiliation. She also learns she is the product of rape.

Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention….

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism & Nazism mentioned
  • Rape & sexual assault
  • Child pornography, paedophilia & grooming mentioned
  • Disordered eating & body dysmorphia
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption & drug abuse (on-page)
  • Murder

The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden

Freddie Makin is a spy for hire. For a year he’s been watching Jiang Cheng, an academic whose life seems suspiciously normal. To Freddie it’s just a job: he never asks who’s paying him and why—until the day someone is sent to kill him, and suddenly the watcher becomes the watched. On the run from whoever wants him dead, Freddie knows he must have seen something incriminating. The only trouble is, he has no idea what. Is the CIA behind all this—or does it go higher than that? Have his trackers uncovered his own murky past? As he’s forced into a lethal dance across… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia and body-shaming
  • Classism
  • Attempted rape
  • Infidelity (on-page)
  • Discussions of domestic abuse and violence
  • Disordered eating & food thoughts including calorie counting and food shaming
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother from a stroke mentioned
  • Murder by gun & knife violence
  • Physical assault
  • Stalking
  • Incarceration for physical assault mentioned
  • Poverty & financial difficulties discussed

Context : The protagonist’s employee has her gigolo pretend to be an abusive, violent husband. This includes physical abuse, attempted strangulation, electronic monitoring, and food deprivation. Mentions of the protagonist working to free previous clients from domestic abuse situations, including murdering the abuser when necessary. Her neighbour attempts to rape her and she pushes him down the stairs. The police do not believe her and victim-blame. Her ex-boyfriend hides illegal drugs in his apartment in revenge, and her neighbour goes to jail for drug possession. The protagonist was in jail for assaulting her friend’s rapist because he died from his injuries. Wendy, the protagonist’s employer, also didn’t tell her real husband that she was could not get pregnant, even though he believed they were trying to have a child.