Tag Archives: Eating Disorders

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

For body image issues, see Fatphobia & body shaming, Emesis, and Weight loss & gain. See Institutionalisation for psychiatric hospitalisation and treatment centres. Suicide, Self-harm, and Medical treatment may be relevant. See also Anxiety, OCD, and PTSD & trauma.

Unbelievable by Sara Shepard

Four pretty little liars’ charmed lives have turned into living nightmares. Emily’s been shipped off to Iowa to live with her überconservative cousins. Aria’s boyfriend is behind bars—because of her. Spencer’s afraid she was involved in Ali’s murder. But Hanna’s fate is far worse: She’s clinging to life in the hospital because she knew too much. These liars have tried to keep their scandals secret, but the truth is about to rock their pretty little world!

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism, fatphobia & and body shaming
Homophobia & outing mentioned, including parental disownment
Teacher-student relationship
Infidelity mentioned
Amnesia & blackouts mentioned
Eating disorder (bulimia)
Panic attacks
Alcohol consumption
Hospitalisation for injury & coma
Attempted murder
Physical assault mentioned
Blackmail & stalking (theme)

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard

Everyone has something to hide, especially high school juniors Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna. Spencer covets her sister’s boyfriend. Aria’s fantasizing about her English teacher. Emily’s crushing on the new girl at school. Hanna uses some ugly tricks to stay beautiful. But they’ve all kept an even bigger secret since their friend Alison vanished. How do I know? Because I know everything about the bad girls they were, the naughty girls they are, and the dirty secrets they’ve kept. And guess what? I’m telling.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Fatphobia &body shaming
Misogyny, slut-shaming, ableism & racism
Homophobia & lesbophobia
Child emotional abuse & neglect
Teacher-student relationship
Sexual harassment
Infidelity
Eating disorders (bulimia), including disordered food thoughts, binging, and purging (on-page) and discussions of weight loss
Self-harm mentioned
Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
Murder
Stalking & blackmail (theme)
Car accident
Bullying

Killer by Sara Shepard

In picture-perfect Rosewood, Pennsylvania, ash-blond highlights gleam in the winter sun and frozen lakes sparkle like Swarovski crystals. But pictures often lie— and so do Rosewood’s four prettiest girls. Hanna, Aria, Spencer, and Emily have been lying ever since they became friends with beautiful Alison DiLaurentis. Ali made them do terrible things—things they had to keep secret for years. And even though Ali was killed at the end of seventh grade, their bad-girl ways didn’t die with her. Hanna’s on a mission to corrupt Rosewood’s youth, starting with a very attractive sophomore. Aria’s snooping into her boyfriend’s past. Spencer’s stealing—

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism, misogyny, & slut-shaming
Homophobia, including mentions of conversion therapy mentioned
Fatphobia & body shaming
Sexual assault & sexual harassment
Child neglect & abuse
Eating disorder, including disordered food thoughts, bingeing & purging
Anxiety attack
Alcohol consumption
Emesis recounted
Attempted murder
Blackmail & stalking (theme)
Forest fire
Car accident recounted

Heartless by Sara Shepard

Four gorgeous girls are telling very ugly stories. First Emily, Aria, Hanna, and Spencer claimed they found a dead body in the woods behind Spencer’s house, only to have it vanish without a trace. Then, when the same woods went up in flames, they swore they saw someone who’s supposed to be dead rise from the ashes. And even after all that, the pretty little liars are still playing with fire. Call me heartless, but it’s about time someone shut these liars up for good. After all, nobody likes a girl who cries wolf—least of all me.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism, racial slurs & misogyny
Fatphobia & body shaming
Sexual harassment
Parental infidelity mentioned
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Panic attacks
Eating disorder
Suicide mentioned
Fire
Imprisonment
Blackmail & stalking (theme)
Bullying

Flawless by Sara Shepard

Spencer stole her sister’s boyfriend. Aria is brokenhearted over her English teacher. Emily likes her new friend Maya . . . as much more than a friend. And Hanna’s obsession with looking flawless is literally making her sick. But the most horrible secret of all is something so scandalous it could destroy their perfect little lives. And someone named “A” is threatening to do just that. At first they thought A was Alison, their friend who vanished three years ago . . . but then Alison turned up dead. So could A be Melissa, Spencer’s ultra-competitive sister? Or Maya, who wants… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Fatphobia & body shaming
Ableism, racism & misogyny
Lesbophobia & outing mentioned
Sexual assault/attempted rape & incestuous child sexual abuse
Eating disorder (bulimia), including discussions of bingeing &purging
Panic attack
Suicide & self-harm
Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a friend
Fire
Blackmail & stalking (theme)
Car accident mentioned
Bullying

Miss You Hate You Love You Bye by Abby Sher

Miss You Hate You Love You Bye by Abby Sher

Miss You Love You Hate You Bye by Abby Sher book cover

Zoe and Hank (short for Hannah) have been inseparable since they met in elementary school. The leader of the pack, Zoe is effortlessly popular while Hank hides comfortably in her shadow. But when Zoe’s parents unexpectedly divorce, Zoe’s perfect facade starts cracking little by little. Sinking under the weight of her broken family, Zoe develops an eating disorder. Now she must rely on Hank for help.

Hank struggles to help Zoe; after all, she is used to agreeing, not leading. How can she help her best friend get better before it’s too late?

Written partially in letters from Zoe and mostly in narrative from Hank’s perspective, Miss You Love You Hate You Bye is a poignant and eye-opening novel about friendship, mental health, and learning to put yourself first.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Eating disorders, specifically anorexia and bulimia
Self-harm, specifically cutting

Neverland by Margot McGovern

When she was twelve, Kit Learmonth watched her parents drown in a storm as their boat sailed over the Tranter Sink Hole. Now seventeen, Kit doesn’t remember the incident, and she doesn’t want to. In fact, her only clear memories from before her parents’ death are of the fantastical stories of pirates and mermaids that she and her dad invented about the small island where she grew up, a place she calls Neverland. Following Kit’s parents’ deaths, her uncle and guardian, Doc, transformed the island into a boarding… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Eating disorder
Suicide discussed
Self-harm
Psychiatric hospitalisation (setting)
Death of a mother & father by drowning in a boating accident recounted

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third book in McGuire’s Wayward Children series, returns to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children in a standalone contemporary fantasy for fans of all ages. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the “real” world.

When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.) If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests…

A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do. Warning: May contain nuts.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Fatmisia
Transmisia
Racism mentioned
Misgendering
Eating disorders mentioned
Death of a parent
Torture
Kidnapping & captivity

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

The Larkin family isn’t just lucky—they persevere. At least that’s what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn’t drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer.

But wrecks seem to run in the family. Tall, funny, musical Violet can’t stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life.

Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family’s missing piece – the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children. Desperate to make amends, Violet embarks on a wildly ambitious mission: locate the Lyric, lain hidden in a watery grave for over a century.

She finds a fellow wreck hunter in Liv Stone, an amateur local historian whose sparkling intelligence and guarded gray eyes make Violet ache in an exhilarating new way. Whether or not they find the Lyric, the journey Violet takes-and the bridges she builds along the way-may be the start of something like survival.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Disordered eating
Suicide attempt, side character
Alcohol abuse

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves–now protective, now hedonistic–move into control, Ada’s life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author’s realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Sexual abuse
Eating disorder/s
Suicide
Self-harm
Substance abuse