The Silence of Bones by June Hur

The Silence of Bones by June Hur

Homesick and orphaned sixteen-year-old Seol is living out the ancient curse: “May you live in interesting times.” Indentured to the police bureau, she’s been tasked with assisting a well-respected young inspector with the investigation into the politically charged murder of a noblewoman.

As they delve deeper into the dead woman’s secrets, Seol forms an unlikely bond of friendship with the inspector. But her loyalty is tested when he becomes the prime suspect, and Seol may be the only one capable of discovering what truly happened on the night of the murder. But in a land where silence and obedience are valued above all else, curiosity can be deadly.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Religious persecution & hate crimes (central theme)
  • Misogyny & gendered slurs
  • Slut-shaming
  • Ableist language
  • Indentured servitude
  • Sexual assault (unwanted touching) mentioned (chp 9)
  • Suicide, attempted suicide & suicidal ideation recounted and discussed (multiple times)
  • Suicide from a fall mentioned (chp 1)
  • Suicide from hanging mentioned (chp 16)
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned
  • Death of a baby and infanticide recounted
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic dead bodies and autopsy scene
  • Graphic physical injuries, illness & wound descriptions
  • Needles
  • Nonconsensual branding and resulting scars recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother (on-page)
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Death from starvation & exposure to the cold mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Regicide (off-page)
  • Torture (one on-page scene, otherwise discussed or recounted)
  • Kidnapping & hostage situation
  • Whipping mentioned (chp 3)
  • Police brutality and violence
  • Drowning mentioned & near-drowning incident
  • Animal attack (chp 2)
  • Animal injuries mentioned (chp 9)
  • Animal death, hunting, & animal butchering mentioned
  • Poverty themes

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom. The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear. But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free? 

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Parental abandonment & neglect
  • Child abuse
  • Physical, emotional & verbal intimate partner abuse (on-page)
  • Depression (side character)
  • Trauma-related amnesia
  • Attempted suicide recounted
  • Self-harm
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Hospital
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an infant & father recounted
  • Murder and attempted murder recounted
  • Car accident
  • Fire

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

Fatima lives in the city of Noor, a thriving stop along the Silk Road. There the music of myriad languages fills the air, and people of all faiths weave their lives together. However, the city bears scars of its recent past, when the chaotic tribe of Shayateen djinn slaughtered its entire population — except for Fatima and two other humans. Now ruled by a new maharajah, Noor is protected from the Shayateen by the Ifrit, djinn of order and reason, and by their commander, Zulfikar.

But when one of the most potent of the Ifrit dies, Fatima is changed in ways she cannot fathom, ways that scare even those who love her. Oud in hand, Fatima is drawn into the intrigues of the maharajah and his sister, the affairs of Zulfikar and the djinn, and the dangers of a magical battlefield.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual harassment
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Disappearance of a sibling
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Massacre and genocide recounted
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Poisoning
  • Fire
  • War themes
  • Poverty themes
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Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.

However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie up some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia
  • Deadnaming & misgendering
  • Gender dysphoria
  • Coming out themes
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Disownment and child homelessness
  • Blood depiction & use of blood for magic and in rituals
  • Dead bodies
  • Serious injury of a loved one
  • Hospital (brief scene)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father & mother recounted
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Gun violence recounted
  • Police racial discrimination mentioned
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Smoking & alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Animal blood used for magic and in rituals
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All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo

All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo

When novelist Manuel Ortigosa learns that his husband, Álvaro, has been killed in a car crash, it comes as a devastating shock. It won’t be the last. He’s now arrived in Galicia. It’s where Álvaro died. It’s where the case has already been quickly closed as a tragic accident. It’s also where Álvaro hid his secrets.

Álvaro’s trail leads Manuel deep into one of Spain’s most powerful and guarded families. Behind the walls of their forbidding estate, Manuel is nothing but an unwelcome and dangerous intruder. Then he finds two allies: a stubbornly suspicious police lieutenant and Álvaro’s old friend–and private confessor–from seminary school. Together they’re collecting the pieces of Álvaro’s past, his double life, and his mysterious death.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband
  • Car accident recounted
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All the Ways Home

All the Ways Home by Elsie Chapman

Sometimes, home isn’t where you expect to find it.

After losing his mom in a fatal car crash, Kaede Hirano–now living with a grandfather who is more stranger than family–developed anger issues and spent his last year of middle school acting out.

Best-friendless and critically in danger repeating the seventh grade, Kaede is given a summer assignment: write an essay about what home means to him, which will be even tougher now that he’s on his way to Japan to reconnect with his estranged father and older half-brother. Still, if there’s a chance Kaede can finally build a new family from an old one, he’s willing to try. But building new relationships isn’t as easy as destroying his old ones, and one last desperate act will change the way Kaede sees everyone–including himself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother
  • Car accident recounted
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All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Depression
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Suicide, attempted suicide & suicidal ideation (theme)*
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister
  • Death of a boyfriend
  • Car accident
  • Death by drowning

*Note: The main character dies by suicide at the end of book.

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Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

Gumiho: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

Eighteen-year-old Gu Miyoung has a secret. She’s a gumiho–a nine-tailed fox who survives by consuming the energy of men. But she’s also half-human and has a soft spot for people. So she won’t kill indiscriminately. With the help of a shaman, Miyoung only takes the lives of men who have committed terrible crimes. Devouring their life force is a morbid kind of justice… or so she tells herself.

But killing men no one would ever miss in bustling modern-day Seoul also helps Miyoung keep a low profile. She and her mother protect themselves by hiding in plain sight. That is until Miyoung crosses paths with a handsome boy her age as he’s being attacked by a goblin in the woods… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Ableist language
  • Physical, emotional & verbal parental abuse
  • Parental neglect & abandonment
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide & attempted suicide discussed
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Seizures, multiple on-page scenes
  • Coma
  • Hospital (setting)
  • Medical procedures, including blood tests & surgery mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother, on-page
  • Death of a grandmother, on-page
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Attempted infanticide recounted
  • Hostage situation
  • Drowning recounted
  • Loss of autonomy (theme)*
  • Bullying

*Note: The main character is a gumiho, and people are able to control her actions and force her to follow their instructions when they possess her fox bead.

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Here Lie the Secrets by Emma Young

Here Lie the Secrets by Emma Young

Mia’s best friend Holly died when they were thirteen. But years later, Holly still hasn’t left her.

Spending the summer in New York, Mia is hoping to escape the visions of Holly that haunt her life at home. There she meets Rav, a parapsychology student, who convinces her to take part in a study into why some people see ghosts. Soon she is caught up in the investigation of Halcyon House, which is reputed to be haunted by a poltergeist. As Mia confronts her fears, what she learns about the house and herself will change her life forever.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Child abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Visual hallucinations
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a friend recounted
  • Bullying mentioned
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Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…

In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.

Separated by distance – and Papi’s secrets – the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Coming out themes
  • Sexual harassment
  • Sexual assault & attempted rape of a minor, on-page
  • Sex trafficking & coerced sex work of a minor discussed
  • Cheating
  • Pregnancy discussed
  • Premature childbirth scene & resuscitation of a newborn
  • Emesis
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from dengue fever recounted
  • Death of a father & husband (theme)
  • Death of a sister mentioned
  • Stalking
  • Plane crash, off-page but discussed throughout the novel
  • Poverty themes
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