Saha by Cho Nam-Joo

In a country called ‘Town’, Su is found dead in an abandoned car. The suspected killer is presumed to come from the Saha Estates. Town is a privatised country, controlled by a secretive organisation known as the Seven Premiers. It is a society clearly divided into the haves and have-nots and those who have the very least live on the Saha Estates. Among their number is Jin-Kyung, a young woman whose brother, Dok-yung, was in a relationship with Su and quickly becomes the police’s prime suspect. When Dok-yung disappears, Jin Ky-ung is determined to get to the bottom of things.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & classism
  • Sexual assault
  • Pregnancy & abortion
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Unethical human experimentation & medical procedures (on-page)
  • Gun violence
  • Police brutality
  • Animal cruelty

The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo

Walking through the misty Florida woods one morning, twelve-year-old Rob Horton is stunned to encounter a tiger—a real-life, very large tiger—pacing back and forth in a cage. What’s more, on the same extraordinary day, he meets Sistine Bailey, a girl who shows her feelings as readily as Rob hides his. As they learn to trust each other, and ultimately, to be friends, Rob and Sistine prove that some things—like memories, and heartaches, and tigers—can’t be locked up forever.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abandonment & physical child abuse
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death & hunting
  • Bullying

Context : The protagonist’s father shoots a bird. Mentions of a child being beaten by their father for freeing a pet bird.

The Stalker by Sarah Alderson

Newly-weds Liam and Laura are spending their honeymoon in paradise: just the two of them on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. But they soon discover that all is not as it seems, and the island has a tragic past. And they can’t shake the feeling of being watched… When one morning, they wake to find a message scratched into the window, their worst fears are confirmed. They aren’t alone on the island. And this stranger wants them dead.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatphobia and body shaming (on-page)
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Domestic violence and intimate partner abuse including food deprivation, captivity, physical & sexual assault (on-page)
  • Rape by a spouse/partner (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Mentions of a parent recovering from cancer
  • Physical injury and amateur medical treatment (on-page, glass shard stuck in foot)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a fiance
  • Death of a mother from a fall down the stairs (later revealed to be murder)
  • Murder of a husband by gun violence (on-page, self-defence for abuse)
  • Stalking
  • Animal injury (crow)
  • Kidnapping of a pet dog
  • Murder of a kitten (abusive partner kills the cat off-page by the body is found on-page)

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

This is the story of Macon “Milkman” Dead, heir to the richest black family in a Midwestern town, as he makes a voyage of rediscovery, travelling southwards geographically and inwards spiritually. Through the enlightenment of one man, the novel recapitulates the history of slavery and liberation.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hate crimes including mentions of the real-life murder of Emmett Till
  • Incest mentioned (cousin, father-daughter)
  • Suicide by jumping from a building
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking
  • Attempted murder by strangulation
  • Gun & knife violence

Sula by Toni Morrison

Sula and Nel are two young black girls: clever and poor. They grow up together sharing their secrets, dreams and happiness. Then Sula breaks free from their small-town community in the uplands of Ohio to roam the cities of America. When she returns ten years later much has changed. Including Nel, who now has a husband and three children. The friendship between the two women becomes strained and the whole town grows wary as Sula continues in her wayward, vagabond and uncompromising ways.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racial slurs (n slur)
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse mentioned
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Death of a mother from suicide by fire (self-immolation)
  • Death of a man from being set on fire by his mother
  • Death of a child from an accidental drowning including further mentions of people drowning during a tunnel collapse
  • Physical assault of children mentioned
  • Battle scene recounted with mentions of the bloody death of a solider from gun violence

Blended by Sharon M. Draper

“You’re so exotic!” “You look so unusual.” “But what are you really?” Eleven-year-old Isabella is used to these kinds of comments – her father is black, her mother is white – but that doesn’t mean she likes them. And now that her parents are divorced (and getting along WORSE than ever), Isabella feels more like a push-me-pull-me toy. One week she’s Isabella with her dad, his girlfriend Anastasia, and her son Darren living in a fancy house where they are one of the only black families in the neighbourhood. The next week she’s Izzy with her mom and her boyfriend John-Mark in a…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism and colourism discussed
  • Racial microaggressions (on-page)
  • Hate crime
  • Parental divorce (theme)
  • Panic attack & trauma (secondary character)
  • Lynching discussed
  • Police brutality & violence
  • Hospitalisation for a gunshot wound with minor blood & injury depiction
  • Minor bullying

Context : The protagonist’s best friend finds a noose in her school locker. It’s implied a white student put it there after their class learned about historical lynching. Later, she has a panic attack when a noose appears on the TV during a sleepover. The protagonist’s teenage step-brother is pulled over by the police and tackled to the ground by three officers. They suspect him of robbing a bank and question him. They force the protagonist, an 11-year-old Black girl, out of his car. A female officer shoots her when she reaches into her pocket to call their parents.

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

Alek and Deryn are abroad the Leviathan when the ship is ordered to pick up an unusual passenger. This brilliant/maniacal inventor claims to have a weapon called Goliath that can end the war. But whose side is he really on? While on their top-secret mission, Alek finally discovers Deryn’s deeply kept secret. Two, actually. Not only is Deryn a girl disguised as a guy…she has feelings for Alek. The crown, true love with a commoner, and the destruction of a great city all hang on Alek’s next–and final–move.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Death from electrocution
  • Military violence & war themes including naval warfare, the bombing of submarines, and rocket attacks
  • Animal attack (bear)

Underwater by Marisa Reichardt

Morgan didn’t mean to do anything wrong that day. Actually, she meant to do something right. But her kind act inadvertently played a role in a deadly tragedy. In order to move on, Morgan must learn to forgive—first someone who did something that might be unforgivable, and then herself. But Morgan can’t move on. She can’t even move beyond the front door of the apartment she shares with her mother and little brother. Morgan feels like she’s underwater, unable to surface. Unable to see her friends. Unable to go to school. When it seems Morgan can’t hold… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Agoraphobia & anxiety
  • Parent with Military-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • School shooting & related trauma

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So

Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic humor with sharp emotional depth, Afterparties offers an expansive portrait of the lives of Cambodian-Americans. As the children of refugees carve out radical new paths for themselves in California, they shoulder the inherited weight of the Khmer Rouge genocide and grapple with the complexities of race, sexuality, friendship, and family. With nuanced emotional precision, gritty humor, and compassionate insight into the intimacy of queer and immigrant communities, the stories deliver an explosive introduction to Anthony Veasna So’s work.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence & abuse
  • Cheating
  • Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
  • Death of a parent
  • School shooting
  • Stalking

The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden

Freddie Makin is a spy for hire. For a year he’s been watching Jiang Cheng, an academic whose life seems suspiciously normal. To Freddie it’s just a job: he never asks who’s paying him and why—until the day someone is sent to kill him, and suddenly the watcher becomes the watched. On the run from whoever wants him dead, Freddie knows he must have seen something incriminating. The only trouble is, he has no idea what. Is the CIA behind all this—or does it go higher than that? Have his trackers uncovered his own murky past? As he’s forced into a lethal dance across… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia and body-shaming
  • Classism
  • Attempted rape
  • Infidelity (on-page)
  • Discussions of domestic abuse and violence
  • Disordered eating & food thoughts including calorie counting and food shaming
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother from a stroke mentioned
  • Murder by gun & knife violence
  • Physical assault
  • Stalking
  • Incarceration for physical assault mentioned
  • Poverty & financial difficulties discussed

Context : The protagonist’s employee has her gigolo pretend to be an abusive, violent husband. This includes physical abuse, attempted strangulation, electronic monitoring, and food deprivation. Mentions of the protagonist working to free previous clients from domestic abuse situations, including murdering the abuser when necessary. Her neighbour attempts to rape her and she pushes him down the stairs. The police do not believe her and victim-blame. Her ex-boyfriend hides illegal drugs in his apartment in revenge, and her neighbour goes to jail for drug possession. The protagonist was in jail for assaulting her friend’s rapist because he died from his injuries. Wendy, the protagonist’s employer, also didn’t tell her real husband that she was could not get pregnant, even though he believed they were trying to have a child.