Tag Archives: Fatphobia & Body Shaming

The Stalker by Sarah Alderson

Newly-weds Liam and Laura are spending their honeymoon in paradise: just the two of them on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. But they soon discover that all is not as it seems, and the island has a tragic past. And they can’t shake the feeling of being watched… When one morning, they wake to find a message scratched into the window, their worst fears are confirmed. They aren’t alone on the island. And this stranger wants them dead.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatphobia and body shaming (on-page)
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Domestic violence and intimate partner abuse including food deprivation, captivity, physical & sexual assault (on-page)
  • Rape by a spouse/partner (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Mentions of a parent recovering from cancer
  • Physical injury and amateur medical treatment (on-page, glass shard stuck in foot)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a fiance
  • Death of a mother from a fall down the stairs (later revealed to be murder)
  • Murder of a husband by gun violence (on-page, self-defence for abuse)
  • Stalking
  • Animal injury (crow)
  • Kidnapping of a pet dog
  • Murder of a kitten (abusive partner kills the cat off-page by the body is found on-page)

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.

    Mile High by Liz Tomforde

    Zanders: Chicago hockey isn’t complete without me – everyone’s favourite player to hate. I know my role, and I play it well. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy spending the majority of my game time in the penalty box before leaving the arena with a new girl on my arm each night. What I don’t like is the new flight attendant on our team’s private plane. She works for me, not the other way around. But I’ll be sure to remind her of that, and I can guarantee, by the end of the season, she’ll be begging to quit her job. But every road trip blurs the lines, and I can’t quite figure out if I keep pushing that flight attendant call button in order to… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Fatphobia & body-shaming discussed including internalised body-shaming and dysmorphia
    • Panic attacks
    • Suicidal ideation
    • Emesis
    • Alcohol consumption & drug use

    Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier

    Welcome to Wonderland. By day, it’s a magical place boasting a certain retro charm. Excited children, hands sticky with cotton candy, run frenetically from the Giant Octopus ride to the Spinning Sombrero, while the tinkling carnival music of the giant Wonder Wheel—the oldest Ferris wheel in the Pacific Northwest—fills the air. But before daybreak, an eerie feeling descends. Maybe it’s the Clown Museum, home to creepy wax replicas of movie stars and a massive collection of antique porcelain dolls. Or maybe it’s the terrifyingly real House of Horrors. Or…maybe it’s the dead, decaying body left in the midway for all the Wonder Workers… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Transphobia & deadnaming
    • Fatphobia
    • Paedophilia & grooming
    • Child abuse (on-page)
    • Domestic violence
    • Drugging
    • Sexual assault & attempted rape (on-page)
    • Infidelity
    • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
    • Death of a parent & spouse
    • Suicidal ideation
    • Abortion
    • School shooting mentioned

    The Escape Room by L.D. Smithson

    Everything is a clue. Eight strangers arrive at a remote sea fort off the coast of England. They are here to take part in The Fortress, a mysterious reality TV show in which contestants have to solve a series of complex puzzles. But this is no game, and the consequences of failure are more deadly than anyone anticipated. No one leaves. The show’s sinister purpose becomes clear when the first person is evicted from the competition. Instead of being sent home to their family, they are left to die inside a locked room. The only way out is to win. Under scrutiny from the watching public… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Victim-blaming
    • Fatphobia
    • Domestic violence & child abuse mentioned
    • Murder
    • Torture
    • Fire

    The Sorrows by Jonathan Janz

    Ben Shadeland and Eddie Blaze are the hottest young music composers in Hollywood. Fresh off an Oscar nomination, they’ve just been chosen to score a big-budget horror movie by Lee Stanley, the most demanding director in film. But Ben, the creative half of the duo, hasn’t written a note since his wife divorced him and got custody of their three-year-old son. Chris Blackwood is the gambling-addicted heir to the Blackwood fortune, which includes the Sorrows, an island off the coast of northern California. The island and its castle have been uninhabited since a series of gruesome, unexplained murders in… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Fatphobia & body-shaming
    • Racism
    • Attempted rape
    • Murder
    • Torture

    Finders Keepers by Stephen King

    The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn’t published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel. Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robin… Read more,

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Racism
    • Fatphobia & body-shaming
    • Homophobia
    • Rape
    • Suicide
    • Cancer
    • Murder & attempted murder
    • Knife, sword & axe violence

    Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao

    On paper, Zoe Zeng has made it in New York’s fashion world. After a string of unpaid internships, she’s now a fashion columnist at Chic, lives in a quaint apartment in Manhattan, and gets invited to exclusive industry events. But life in New York City isn’t as chic as Zoe imagined. Her editor wants her to censor her opinions to please the big brands; she shares her “quaint” ( small) apartment with two roommates who never let her store kimchi in the fridge; and how is she supposed to afford the designer clothes expected for those parties on her meager salary? Then one… Read more,

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Misogyny
    • Fatphobia & body-shaming
    • Sexual harassment

    The Sacrifice by Shantel Tessier

    A Lord is to marry after he graduates from Barrington University, an elite college for the rich. A Lady’s job is to help him fit into a world unaware of his secret society. The Lord does not get to choose who he spends the rest of his life with. But there is always an exception to the rule. And I just so happen to be his. I was to wed a Lord of my parents’ choosing. Wealth can’t buy you everything, or I would have had freedom years ago. Instead, my strict parents made sure I lived a dull life in a mansion resembling a prison. But on my wedding day, I was handed over to another man-an even more ruthless Lord that my family hatred. Tyson… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Human trafficking
    • Fatphobia & body-shaming
    • Slut-shaming
    • Adult-minor relationship mentioned
    • Forced marriage
    • Parental infidelity
    • Rape & attempted rape
    • Intimate partner violence
    • Emotional & physical child abuse
    • Parent with alcoholism
    • Alcohol consumption
    • Drugging
    • Unplanned pregnancy due to reproductive assault and medical abuse
    • Involuntary psychiatric hospitalisation
    • Body modifications including branding and involuntary implantation of a tracker
    • Needles
    • Emesis
    • Dieting & weight loss recounted
    • Faked death of a pregnant sister and girlfriend recounted
    • Murder & attempted murder
    • Torture
    • Knife violence & stabbing
    • Physical assault
    • Kidnapping
    • Arson & immolation

    *Context : The female protagonist (FMC) is raped while sedated and involuntarily instituitionalised by a secondary character. The FMC’s fiancé intended to drug and rape her. The FMC’s doctor administers a hormone injection to aid with ovulation under the disguise of birth control; she becomes pregnant as a result. The FMC’s mother was married to a 23-year-old man when she was only 17-years-old. The MMC threatens to kill the FMC’s brother if she doesn’t marry him. The FMC’s father installed cameras without the FMC or MMC’s consent and watched them have sex.

    The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

    Geeta’s no-good husband disappeared five years ago. She didn’t kill him, but everyone thinks she did–no matter how much she protests.

    But she soon discovers that being known as a “self-made” widow has some surprising perks. No one messes with her, no one threatens her, and no one tries to control (ahem, marry) her. It’s even been good for her business; no one wants to risk getting on her bad side by not buying her jewelry… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Misogyny
    • Classism
    • Fatmisia & body-shaming
    • Rape & attempted rape
    • Sexual assault
    • Domestic violence
    • Alcoholism
    • Murder of a husband
    • Acid attacks mentioned