Rumble by Ellen Hopkins

Rumble by Ellen Hopkins

Matthew Turner doesn’t have faith in anything.

Not in family—his is a shambles after his younger brother was bullied into suicide. Not in so-called friends who turn their backs when things get tough. Not in some all-powerful creator who lets too much bad stuff happen. And certainly not in some “It Gets Better” psychobabble.

No matter what his girlfriend Hayden says about faith and forgiveness, there’s no way Matt’s letting go of blame. He’s decided to “live large and go out with a huge bang,” and whatever happens happens. But when a horrific event plunges Matt into a dark, silent place, he hears a rumble … a rumble that wakes him up, calling everything he’s ever disbelieved into question.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
  • Recreational drug use
  • Suicide
  • Death of a brother
  • Explosion
  • Hanging
  • Bullying
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Triangles by Ellen Hopkins

Triangles by Ellen Hopkins

Holly: Filled with regret for being a stay-at-home mom, she sheds sixty pounds and loses herself in the world of extramarital sex. Will it bring the fulfillment she is searching for? Andrea: A single mom and avowed celibate, she watches her friend Holly’s meltdown with a mixture of concern and contempt. Holly is throwing away what Andrea has spent her whole life searching for – a committed relationship with a decent guy. So what if Andrea picks up Holly’s castaway husband? Marissa: She has more than her fair share of challenges – a gay, rebellious teenage son, a terminally ill daughter, and a husband who buries himself in his work rather than face the facts.

As one woman’s marriage unravels, another’s rekindles. As one woman’s family comes apart at the seams, another’s reconfigures into something bigger and better.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug abuse
  • Teen pregnancy
  • Terminal illness
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Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Three teens, three stories—all interconnected through their parents’ family relationships. As the adults pull away, caught up in their own dilemmas, the lives of the teens begin to tilt….

Mikayla, almost eighteen, is over-the-top in love with Dylan, who loves her back jealously. But what happens to that love when Mikayla gets pregnant the summer before their senior year—and decides to keep the baby?

Shane turns sixteen that same summer and falls hard in love with his first boyfriend, Alex, who happens to be HIV positive… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language (r slur)
  • Homomisia, internalised homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Slut shaming
  • Rape
  • Domestic abuse recounted
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Attempted child sexual assault recounted
  • Depression
  • Attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug abuse
  • AIDS & HIV
  • Bullying
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Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else that they’d rather be. For four high-school seniors, their goals of perfection are just as different as the paths they take to get there.

Cara’s parents’ unrealistic expectations have already sent her twin brother Conner spiraling toward suicide. For her, perfect means rejecting their ideals to take a chance on a new kind of love. Kendra covets the perfect face and body—no matter what surgeries and drugs she needs to get there. To score his perfect home run—on the field and off—Sean will sacrifice more than he can ever win back. And Andre realizes that to follow his heart and achieve his perfect performance, he’ll be living a life his ancestors would never understand.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Outing
  • Physical child abuse
  • Cheating
  • Teacher-student relationship mentioned
  • Date rape
  • Revenge pornography
  • Suicide
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Hospitalisation
  • Knife violence & stabbing
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Fallout by Ellen Hopkins

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins

Nineteen years after Kristina Snow met the monster—crank—her children are reeling from the consequences of her decisions. Instead of one big, happy family, they are a desperate tangle of scattered lives united by anger, doubt, and fear.

A predisposition to addiction and a sense of emptiness where a mother’s love should be leads all three down the road of their mother’s notorious legacy. Sex, drugs, alcohol, abuse—there is more of Kristina in her children than they would ever like to believe. But when the thread that ties them together brings them face-to-face, they’ll discover something powerful in each other and in themselves—the trust, the hope, the courage to begin to break the cycle.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antiziganism (g slur)
    Misogyny
  • Slut shaming
  • Victim blaming
  • Physical & sexual child abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Sexual assault & attempted rape
  • Substance addiction
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug abuse
  • Teen pregnancy
  • Pregnancy from rape
  • Stalking
  • Car accident
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Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching … for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don’t expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words “I love you” are said for all the wrong reasons.

Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story—a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, “Can I ever feel okay about myself?”

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Substance addiction
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Recreational drug abuse
  • Hospitalisation
  • Murder
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Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family—on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that’s where their differences begin.

For Kaeleigh, she’s the misplaced focus of Daddy’s love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites—and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex.

Secrets like the ones the twins are harboring are not meant to be kept—from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it’s obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is—who?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Graphic paedophilia & child sexual abuse (on-page)
  • Incest
  • Rape & sexual assault (on-page)
  • Forced modelling for child pornorgraphy recounted
  • Cheating
  • Physical child abuse
  • Self-harm
  • Depression
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Recreational drug use & abuse
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Car accident
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Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Crank chronicles the turbulent and often disturbing relationship between Kristina, and the “monster,” the highly addictive drug crystal meth, or “crank.” Kristina is introduced to the drug while visiting her largely absent and ne’er-do-well father. While under the influence of the monster, Kristina discovers her sexy alter-ego, Bree, Bree will do all the things good girl Kristina won’t, including attracting the attention of dangerous boys who can provide her with a steady flow of crank.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abandonment & neglect
  • Rape & rape by coercion
  • Self-harm
  • Substance addiction (theme)
  • Recreational drug abuse
  • Blood depiction & blood-drinking
  • Teen pregnancy
  • Incarceration
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The Searcher by Tana French

The Searcher by Tana French

Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a remote Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force, and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing, and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but somehow he can’t make himself walk away. Soon Cal will discover that even in the most idyllic small town, secrets lie hidden, people… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic violence
  • Child abuse
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Recreational drug use
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death
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The Summer Children by Dot Hutchinson

The Summer Children by Dot Hutchinson

When Agent Mercedes Ramirez finds an abused young boy on her porch, covered in blood and clutching a teddy bear, she has no idea that this is just the beginning. He tells her a chilling tale: an angel killed his parents and then brought him here so Mercedes could keep him safe.

His parents weren’t just murdered. It was a slaughter—a rage kill like no one on the Crimes Against Children team had seen before. But they’re going to see it again. An avenging angel is meting out savage justice, and she’s far from through… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Domestic abuse
  • Recreational drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
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