Tag Archives: Genocide & Mass Murder

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende

This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019.

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht—the night their family lost everything. Samuel’s mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Antisemitism
  • Rape mentioned
  • Sexual assault of a child
  • Domestic violence mentioned
  • Alcoholism mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Torture mentioned
  • War themes including the depiction of a pogrom & Kristallnacht

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next. Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fort… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault, on-page & discussed
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Graphic animal death
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Dismemberment
  • Loss of autonomy (possession & mental manipulation/control)
  • Murder & mass murder, on-page, discussed in-detail
  • Torture mentioned
  • Gun violence, on-page
  • Knife violence
  • Explosions & bombings, on-page
  • War & rebellion (central theme)
  • Battle scenes & military violence, on-page

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected. When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering
  • Slavery mentioned
  • Depression
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Plague
  • Nonconsensual castration recounted
  • Emesis mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Death of children
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Torture, off-page
  • Bombings
  • War themes
  • Animal injury
  • Animal death

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún, Vol. 3 by Nagabe

Shiva’s aunt has come to the Outside to bring her home, with several soldiers in tow. Alarmed at this show of force, Teacher tries to protect Shiva, but to no avail. Meanwhile, chaos threatens to engulf the small hamlet on the Inside. Where does Shiva truly belong?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abandonment
  • Mass murder
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture, implied
  • Arrow violence
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Fire

Master Class by Christina Dalcher

Every child’s potential is regularly determined by a standardized measurement: their quotient (Q). Score high enough, and attend a top tier school with a golden future. Score too low, and it’s off to a federal boarding school with limited prospects afterwards. The purpose? An improved society where education costs drop, teachers focus on the more promising students, and parents are happy. Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state’s elite schools. When her nine-year-old daughter bombs a monthly test and her Q score drops to a disastrously low level, she is immedia… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Homomisia
  • Ableism
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Abortion
  • Eugenices
  • The Holocaust mentioned
  • Bullying

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Ableism
  • Queermisia
  • Hate crime
  • Rape mentioned
  • Alcoholism
  • Self-harm
  • Abortion
  • Cancer
  • Dead bodies
  • Murder & mass murder
  • War themes

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pull apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Suicide
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of both parents in a car accident
  • Bombing
  • Workplace mass shooting
  • Bullying

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia
  • Slavery
  • Rape threatened
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Loss of autonomy, by possession
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Murder
  • Knife violence
  • Torture
  • Poisoning
  • Fire
  • Genocide mentioned
  • Fantastical animal attack

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, including slurs & cultural appropriation
  • Classism
  • Colourism
  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Islamophobia
  • Violent hate crime
  • Slavery, including child labour
  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide discussed
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Feet binding discussed
  • Plague
  • Death of mother
  • Grief depiction
  • Murder
  • Police brutality
  • Genocide
  • Gun violence
  • Torture
  • Physical assault
  • Colonization
  • War themes

Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee

When the hexarchate’s gifted young captain Kel Cheris summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn’t reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment – and possessing her. Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev’s fleet, which was tasked with stopping them. Only one of Khiruev’s subordinates, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, seems to be able to resist the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao. Jedao claims to be interested in defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev or Brezan trust him? For that… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape recounted
  • Incest (sibling)
  • Memory loss
  • Suicide
  • Mass shooting
  • Torture
  • Genocide