Grief & Loss Depiction – Page 78 – Trigger Warning Database

Wing Jones by Katherine Webber

Wing Jones by Katherine Webber

Also known as The Heartbeats of Wing Jones.

Wing Jones, like everyone else in her town, has worshipped her older brother, Marcus, for as long as she can remember. Until the night when everything changes. Marcus, drunk at the wheel after a party, kills two people and barely survives himself. With Marcus now in a coma, Wing is crushed, confused, and angry—could Marcus, the golden boy, really have done something so irresponsible, so reckless? To make matters worse, the bank is threatening to repossess her family’s house because all their money is going to pay her brother’s mounting medical bills.

Every night, unable to sleep, Wing finds herself sneaking out to go to the school’s empty track. When Aaron, Marcus’s best friend, sees her running one night, he recognizes that her speed, skill, and agility could get her spot on the track team—and better still, a shot at a coveted sponsorship from a major athletic gear company. Wing can’t pass up the opportunity to train with her longtime crush and to help her struggling family, but can she handle being thrust out of Marcus’s shadow and into the spotlight?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
Graphic physical injuries
Coma
Grief & loss depiction
Car accident

Neverland by Shari Arnold

Neverland by Shari Arnold

It’s been four months since seventeen-year-old Livy Cloud lost her younger sister, but she isn’t quite ready to move on with her life — not even close. She’d rather spend her time at the Seattle Children’s hospital, reading to the patients and holding onto memories of the sister who was everything to her and more.

But when she meets the mysterious and illusive Meyer she is drawn into a world of adventure, a world where questions abound.

Is she ready to live life without her sister? Or more importantly, is she brave enough to love again?

In this modern reimagining of Peter Pan, will Livy lose herself to Neverland or will she find what she’s been searching for?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Grief depiction
Death of a child
Death of a sister

Alone in the Wild by Kelley Armstrong

Alone in the Wild by Kelley Armstrong

Every season in Rockton seems to bring a new challenge. At least that’s what Detective Casey Duncan has felt since she decided to call this place home. Between all the secretive residents, the sometimes-hostile settlers outside, and the surrounding wilderness, there’s always something to worry about.

While on a much needed camping vacation with her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, Casey hears a baby crying in the woods. The sound leads them to a tragic scene: a woman buried under the snow, murdered, a baby still alive in her arms… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Forced sex work, mentioned
Sexual slavery, mentioned
Recreational drug use
Blood depiction
Death and loss depiction
Murder
Gun violence
Animal injury
Animal death

Toffee by Sarah Crossan

Toffee by Sarah Crossan

Also known as Being Toffee.

One is trying to forget. The other is trying to remember.

After running away from an abusive home, Allison finds herself taking shelter in a shed behind an abandoned house. But the house isn’t empty after all; an elderly woman named Marla, who suffers from dementia, lives there. And rather than turn her away, Marla welcomes her – she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past named Toffee.

Allison is used to hiding who she really is, and trying to be what other people want her to be, so she decides to play along. But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real companion, Allison begins to waver. They both deserve a home, a safe place, and a family – but at what cost?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Sexism
Slut shaming
Sexual harassment
Physical, verbal & emotional child abuse (theme)
Domestic violence and physical & emotional abuse
Elder abuse
Cheating mentioned
Depersonalisation
Suicidal ideation
Self-harm
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use (smoking)
Death from childbirth & traumatic childbirth mentioned
Dementia (theme)
Minor blood depiction & physical injuries, including burns
Emesis
Hospital
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother & wife recounted
Homelessness
Animal death
Death of a pet dog mentioned
Animal attack mentioned

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankentstein by Kiersten White

Elizabeth Lavenza hasn’t had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her “caregiver,” and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets . . . until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything–except a friend.

Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable–and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk. Soon she and Victor are inseparable.

But her new life comes at a price. As the years pass, Elizabeth’s survival depends on managing Victor’s dangerous temper and entertaining his every whim, no matter how depraved. Behind her blue eyes and sweet smile lies the calculating heart of a girl determined to stay alive no matter the cost . . . as the world she knows is consumed by darkness.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Classism
Misogyny
Slut shaming
Graphic physical, verbal & emotional abuse
Parental abandonment
Intimate partner abuse & violence
Nightmares
Self-sacrifice (on-page) & suicidal ideation mentioned
Alcohol consumption
Nonconsensual drugging
Graphic blood & gore depiction
Graphic dead bodies & body parts
Graphic physical injuries & wound descriptions
Graphic medical procedures & experiments
Emesis
Forced hospitalisation
Body horror
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother recounted
Death of an uncle (off-page)
Death of a friend
Death of a child
Death of a brother
Murder & attempted murder
Gun violence
Graphic strangulation
Hanging (off-page)
Fire (multiple scenes)
Kidnapping & captivity
Building collapse
Stalking
Graphic animal abuse (on-page) & animal death

Hideous Beauty by William Hussey

Hideous Beauty by William Hussey

When Dylan and Ellis’s secret relationship is exposed on social media, Dylan is forced to come out. To Dylan’s surprise they are met with support and congratulations, and an amazing reception at their highschool dance. Perhaps people aren’t as narrow-minded as he thought?

But Dylan’s happiness is short-lived. Ellis suddenly becomes angry, withdrawn, and as they drive home from the dance, he loses control of the car, sending it plunging into Hunter’s Lake. Barely conscious, Dylan is pulled free of the wreck, while Ellis is left to drown.

Grief-stricken, Dylan vows to discover what happened to Ellis that night and piece together the last months of his boyfriend’s life – and realises just how little he knew about the boy he loved.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Coming out themes
Homomisia
Rape
Physical & sexual abuse
Recreational drug use
Cancer
Grief & loss depiction
Car accident

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn’t think–she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with “the smiling man,” a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price.

Ollie is captivated by the tale until her school trip the next day to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a haunting history all its own. There she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she’s been reading about. Could it be the story about the smiling man is true? Ollie doesn’t have too long to think about the answer to that. On the way home, the school bus breaks down, sending their teacher back to the farm for help. But the strange bus driver has some advice for the kids left behind in his care: “Best get moving. At nightfall they’ll come for the rest of you.” Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie’s previously broken digital wristwatch, a keepsake reminder of better times, begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN.

Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed the bus driver’s warning. As the trio head out into the woods–bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them–the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: “Avoid large places. Keep to small.”

And with that, a deliciously creepy and hair-raising adventure begins.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableist language
Nightmares
Suicide, mentioned
Mild blood and injury
Grief depiction
Death of a mother, mentioned
Death of a husband, mentioned
Death of a father, mentioned
Death of a brother, mentioned
Death of a child, mentioned
Murder
Fire
Plane crash
Disappearance of a loved one, recounted
Bullying

No Exit by Taylor Adams

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Nobody said being the daughter of an army general was easy. But when her dad sends a teenage subordinate to babysit her while he’s away… That’s taking it a step too far.

Cade, as beautiful as he is deadly, watches Kori with more than just interest. He looks at her like he knows her very soul. And when he saves her from a seemingly random attack, well, that’s when things get weird.

Turns out, Kori’s dad isn’t just an army general—he’s the head of a secret government project that has invented a way to travel between parallel dimensions. Dimensions where there are infinite Koris, infinite Cades…and apparently, on every other Earth, they’re madly in love.

Falling for a soldier is the last thing on Kori’s mind. Especially when she finds herself in a deadly crossfire, and someone from another Earth is hell-bent on revenge…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableist language
Sexist language
Fatmisia
Racist slur/s
Mental illness slur/s
Rape threats
Sexual assault
Paedophilia
Child sex trafficking
Child abuse, recounted
Alcoholism
Panic attacks, recounted
Nightmares
Alcohol consumption
Alcohol abuse
Blood and gore depiction
Graphic physical injury
Terminal cancer
Emesis
Minor grief depiction
Death of a parent
Death of a brother
Death of a mother
Death of a cousin
Murder and attempted murder
Gun violence
Physical assault
Torture
Kidnapping
Captivity
Psychological torture
Animal murder and torture, recounted
Death of a pet

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

Aching, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Summer Bird Blue explores big truths about insurmountable grief, unconditional love, and how to forgive even when it feels impossible.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Grief depiction
Death of a brother

The Leaving by Tara Altebrando

The Leaving by Tara Altebrando

Six were taken. Eleven years later, five come back–with no idea of where they’ve been.

Eleven years ago, six kindergarteners went missing without a trace. After all that time, the people left behind moved on, or tried to.

Until today. Today five of those kids return. They’re sixteen, and they are . . . fine. Scarlett comes home and finds a mom she barely recognizes, and doesn’t really recognize the person she’s supposed to be, either. But she thinks she remembers Lucas. Lucas remembers Scarlett, too, except they’re entirely unable to recall where they’ve been or what happened to them. Neither of them remember the sixth victim, Max. He doesn’t come back. Everyone wants answers. Most of all Max’s sister Avery, who needs to find her brother–dead or alive–and isn’t buying this whole memory-loss story.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Child abuse
Absent parent
Cheating
Alcoholism
Depression
Asthma
Grief depiction
Death of a friend
Death of a child
Death of a sibling
Murder
Kidnapping