On the Horizon by Lois Lowry

On the Horizon by Lois Lowry & illustrated by Kenard Pak

On the Horizon tells the story of people whose lives were lost or forever altered by the twin tragedies of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. Composed of poems about individual sailors who lost their lives on the Arizona and about the citizens of Hiroshima who experienced unfathomable horror. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Explosion & bombings
  • Fire
  • World War Two, including Pearl Harbour & Hiroshima
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Lady of Shadows by Breanna Teintze

Lady of Shadows by Breanna Teintze

Outlaw wizard Corcoran Gray expected death to be final, but life, and his loved ones, had other plans. A year after being resurrected and flung into a new body, he’s still trying to come to terms with his situation – and his self – when the all-powerful Mages’ Guild demands his help to stop a deadly plague.

He’s inclined to refuse the organisation that still wants him dead, until his partner Brix starts showing symptoms – to save her, Gray will do anything, even if it means working with his greatest enemies.

But it quickly becomes clear that this is no normal plague. The situation is more complicated, and more lethal, than anyone has realised. Ancient dangers are stirring, and thousands of lives are at stake . . .

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Slavery recounted
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Nightmares
  • Plague
  • Graphic dead body
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injury & illness
  • Emesis
  • Paralysis
  • Murder
  • Mass murder recounted
  • Explosion
  • Hanging mentioned
  • Imprisonment
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A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Sexual assault
  • Rape mentioned
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Torture
  • Genocide & mass murder
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The Midnight Star by Marie Lu

The Midnight Star by Marie Lu

Adelina Amouteru is done suffering. She’s turned her back on those who have betrayed her and achieved the ultimate revenge: victory. Her reign as the White Wolf has been a triumphant one, but with each conquest her cruelty only grows. The darkness within her has begun to spiral out of control, threatening to destroy all she’s gained. When a new danger appears, Adelina’s forced to revisit old wounds, putting not only herself at risk, but every Elite. In order to preserve her empire, Adelina and her Roses must join the Daggers on a perilous quest—though this uneasy alliance may prove to be the real danger.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sex work recounted
  • Graphic auditory & visual hallucinations, on-page
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide & attempted suicide, on-page
  • Intentional self-starvation mentioned
  • Self-injury, on-page
  • Physical injuries including burns & scars
  • Death of a friend recounted
  • Death of a lover recounted
  • Death of a sister, on-page
  • Death of a father from a fever illness, off-page)
  • Multiple graphic scenes of murder & attempted murder, on-page
  • Mass murder mentioned
  • Regicide mentioned
  • Knife & sword violence
  • Explosions
  • Fire including attempted murder by being burnt at the stake
  • Imprisonment
  • Forced conscription
  • War themes including battle scenes & naval warfare
  • Animal death & dead bodies
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Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, surviving on the debris of its long-dead progenitors, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity. Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new, is Stefan Advani, rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction including body horror and dead bodies
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Death of a friend, on-page & recounted
  • Death of a girlfriend in a stampede recounted
  • Murder, mass murder & attempted murder, on-page
  • Tank accident
  • Physical assault, on-page
  • Gun violence, on-page
  • Shipwreck
  • Drowning discussed
  • Torture
  • Whipping mentioned
  • Knife violence & stabbing, on-page
  • Riots, on-page
  • Police brutality & violence, on-page
  • Fire & immolation
  • Graphic penal labour & inhumane imprisonment (theme)
  • Homelessness recounted
  • Animal death
  • Animal attack

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling

Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

When a letter arrives for unhappy but ordinary Harry Potter, a decade-old secret is revealed to him that apparently he’s the last to know. His parents were wizards, killed by a Dark Lord’s curse when Harry was just a baby, and which he somehow survived. Leaving his unsympathetic aunt and uncle for Hogwarts, a wizarding school brimming with ghosts and enchantments, Harry stumbles upon a sinister mystery when he finds a three-headed dog guarding a room on the third floor. Then he hears of a missing stone with astonishing powers which could be valuable, dangerous – or both. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Classism
  • Racism
  • Graphic emotional, verbal & physical child abuse
  • Child neglect
  • Nightmares
  • Self-sacrifice
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Minor blood depiction & physical injuries
  • Infirmary
  • Blood drinking
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Explosion
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Genocide and war themes recounted
  • Animal cruelty
  • Animal death
  • Bullying

If you choose to support this novel or author, please reconsider. You can read about the harmful cultural appropriation here, about how she is endangering trans people here, and donate to the queer Indigenous charity Black Rainbow here.

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism and ableist language
  • Racial discrimination
  • Sexual assault, specifically nonconsensual kissing and unwanted touching
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Body horror
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Coma-like state
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a father
  • Death of a stepmother
  • Death of parents
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a partner
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Mass murder
  • Physical assault
  • Explosions
  • Gun violence
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes
  • Bullying
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The Woods, Vol. 1: The Arrow by James Tynion IV

The Woods, Vol. 1: The Arrows by James Tynion IV & illustrated by Michael Dialynas

On October 16, 2013, 437 students, 52 teachers, and 24 additional staff from Bay Point Preparatory High School in suburban Milwaukee, WI vanished without a trace. Countless light years away, far outside the bounds of the charted universe, 513 people find themselves in the middle of an ancient, primordial wilderness. Where are they? Why are they there? The answers will prove stranger than anyone could possibly imagine.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Death of a friend & classmate
  • Murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal attack
  • Bullying
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Check, Please! #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu

Check, Please! Vol. 1: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu

Helloooo, Internet Land. Bitty here!

Y’all… I might not be ready for this. I may be a former junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and very talented amateur pâtissier, but being a freshman on the Samwell University hockey team is a whole new challenge. It’s nothing like co-ed club hockey back in Georgia! First of all? There’s checking. And then, there is Jack—our very attractive but moody captain.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Coming out themes
  • Panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hazing
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Children of the Whales, Vol. 16 by Abi Umeda

Children of the Whales, Vol. 16 by Abi Umeda

In an endless sea of sand drifts the Mud Whale, a floating island city of clay and magic. In its chambers a small community clings to survival, cut off from its own history by the shadows of the past.

Orca is known as the God of Death, a cold and emotionless soldier who has no qualms about using his little sister as a pawn in his game against the empire. But now Chakuro has seen into the very heart of the pain that motivates Orca’s bloody quest. Can a shared history of loss bridge the differences between them? Or is the pull of death too strong for even love to overcome?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Body horror
  • War themes & military violence
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