Tag Archives: Genocide & Mass Murder

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of genocide and mass murder.

See also War themes & military violence, Racism, and Gun violence.

Us Dark Few by Alexis Patton

Khalani is a Prisoner. Takeshi is a Guard. Both are slaves to the Underground. Khalani Kanes has never stood on the surface of the earth. In the underground city of Apollo, faith and dreams are as absent as the sun. She longed to visit Genesis, the infamous Domed City and the final place where humanity lives aboveground. But when Khalani is given a life sentence and thrown into prison for a theft she didn’t commit, those wishes shatter into oblivion. In Braderhelm Prison, murderers are neighbors, ruthless and cold-blooded guards live to punish, and every second is a battle… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & attempted rape, thwarted by the perpetrator being beaten to death & having his eyes plucked out
  • Physical child abuse & domestic violence recounted, resulting in the love interest murdering his step-father in revenge for murdering his mother
  • Suicidal ideation (protagonist, on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking
  • Decapitation mentioned
  • Murder of a mother & father recounted (protagonist)
  • Physical assault & death in ‘fight pits’
  • Mass shooting mentioned
  • Imprisonment (theme), including inhumane treatment of prisoners through electrocution, starvation, and being worked to death
  • Nuclear fallout & terrorism recounted (post-apocalyptic world, set 300 years after the events)

The Duke by Anna Cowan

Kate, Duke of Howard, is known throughout Europe as a merciless autocrat not to be crossed. Consumed by a bitter rivalry, she avoids society and has vowed never to trap a woman into marriage with a monster like herself. The beautiful, ambitious courtesan Celine Genet once threw herself on the mercy of the visiting Duke of Howard. She was desperate to escape the guillotine. But after a night of searing passion, the duke left her to the ravages of Revolutionary Paris and didn’t look back. Now Celine is in London and in possession of a dangerous letter that proves the Duke… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering & sex worker-shaming
  • Sexual assault (unwanted kiss)
  • Nightmare
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of relatives in a fire
  • Death of an ex-partner in the French Revolution
  • Physical assault
  • Blackmail

Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni

When Nar’s non-Armenian boyfriend gets down on one knee and proposes to her in front of a room full of drunk San Francisco tech boys, she realizes it’s time to find someone who shares her idea of romance. Enter her mother: armed with plenty of mom-guilt and a spreadsheet of Facebook-stalked Armenian men, she convinces Nar to attend Explore Armenia, a month-long series of events in the city. But it’s not the mom-approved playboy doctor or wealthy engineer who catches her eye—it’s Erebuni, a woman as equally immersed in the witchy arts as she is in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & biphobia and coming out themes
  • Alcoholism
  • Death of a parent in a car accident recounted

The Rebel Girls of Rome by Jordyn Taylor

NOW: Grieving the loss of her mother, college student Lilah is hoping to reconnect with her ever-distant grandfather who refuses to talk about his past. When a fellow student in Italy brings a long-lost family heirloom to her attention, Lilah travels to Rome with her grandfather in the hopes of unlocking his history as a survivor of the Holocaust once and for all. But as they get closer to the truth—and the possibility of healing through new connections—she begins to realize that some secrets may be too painful to unbury… THEN: It’s 1943, and nineteen-year-old Bruna and… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical antisemitism & Nazism
  • Intergenerational trauma & survivor’s guilt
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother
  • World War Two & the Holocaust (on-page)

Bound by Firelight by Dana Swift

After a magical eruption devastates the kingdom of Belwar, royal heir Adraa is falsely accused of masterminding the destruction and forced to stand trial in front of her people, who see her as a monster. Adraa’s punishment? Imprisonment in the Dome, an impenetrable, magic-infused fortress filled with Belwar’s nastiest criminals—many of whom Adraa put there herself. And they want her to pay. Jatin, the royal heir to Naupure, has been Adraa’s betrothed, nemesis, and fellow masked vigilante… but now he’s just a boy waiting to ask her the biggest question… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Torture
  • False imprisonment (on-page, protagonist)
  • War themes & mass death

Wild Rain by Beverly Jenkins

A reporter has come to Wyoming to do a story on doctors for his Black newspaper back east. He thinks Colton Lee will be an interesting subject…until he meets Colton’s sister, Spring. She runs her own ranch, wears denim pants instead of dresses, and is the most fascinating woman he’s ever met. But Spring, who has overcome a raucous and scandalous past, isn’t looking for, nor does she want, love. As their attraction grows, will their differences come between them or unite them for an everlasting love?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny, slut-shaming & racism
  • Slavery recounted (protagonist)
  • Dubious consent scenario recounted (‘dubcon’)
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Hospitalisation & surgery for gunshot wound
  • Gun violence
  • Cheyenne Massacre mentioned

Death Note, Vol. 3: Hard Run by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

Light is chafing under L’s extreme surveillance, but even 64 microphones and cameras hidden in his room aren’t enough to stop Light. He steps up the game, but before the battle of wits can really begin, a family emergency distracts him. But even though Light isn’t using the Death Note right now, someone else is! Who’s the new “Kira” in town?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Heart attack
  • Hospitalisation
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Hostage situation
  • Blackmail
  • Illegal & unethical surveillance and invasions of privacy by law enforcement

The Night War by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

It’s 1942. German Nazis occupy much of France. And twelve-year-old Miriam, who is Jewish, is not safe. With help and quick thinking, Miri is saved from the roundup that takes her entire Jewish neighborhood. She escapes Paris, landing in a small French village, where the spires of the famous Chateau de Chenonceau rise high into the sky, its bridge across the River Cher like a promise, a fairy tale. But Miri’s life is no fairy tale. Her parents are gone – maybe alive, maybe not. Taken in at the boarding school near the chateau, pretending to be Catholic to escape Nazi capture, Miri is called upon… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical antisemitism & Nazism (theme), including physical beatings and setting houses on fire as a hate crime
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a husband discussed
  • Police brutality & violence (on-page)
  • World War II (theme) with mentions of concentration camps
  • St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre discussed

Lena and the Burning of Greenwood by Nikki Shannon Smith

In the early 1920s, the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the wealthiest Black community in the United States. But Tulsa is still a segregated city. “Black Wall Street” and white Tulsa are very much divided. Twelve-year-old Lena knows this, but she feels safe and sheltered from the racism in her successful, flourishing neighbourhood. That all changes when Dick Rowland, a young Black man from Greenwood, is accused of assaulting a white woman. Racial tensions boil over. Mobs of white citizens attack Greenwood… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical racism & hate crimes, including the Tulsa Race Massacre (theme)

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

In the far future, after human civilization has spread through the galaxy, communications begin to arrive in an apparently alien language. They appear to threaten invasion, but in order to counter the threat, the messages must first be understood.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatphobia & body shaming, homophobia & misogyny
  • Suicide
  • Psychosis
  • Genocide
  • Kidnapping & captivity