Tag Archives: Hallucinations & Delusions

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of hallucinations and delusions.

See also Schizophrenia, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Anxiety.

Ward D by Freida McFadden

Medical student Amy Brenner is spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward. Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital’s inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out. And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger. Amy’s worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D. And now she might never escape...

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child Abuse
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Toxic friendship
  • Hallucinations
  • Drug use & abuse mentioned
  • Drugging
  • Murder

Zenith Dream by FT Lukens

When Ren wakes from his life-threatening injury on the Star Stream, he learns that Asher has left with the Phoenix Corps and that the Corps believes Ren to be dead. Despite the opportunity to disappear, Ren is determined to fix his mistakes. He convinces the crew to join him for one last mission—find Asher, free Liam, and escape from the Corps’ reach. But a war is brewing between two formidable armies, and, despite his wish to flee, Ren is drawn into the conflict. With his friends by his side, Ren must make a choice, and it will affect the future of his found family and the cluster forever.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & transphobia
  • Panic attacks
  • Auditory hallucinations
  • Kidnapping & captivity

The Red Hunter by Lisa Unger

Claudia Bishop’s perfect life fell apart when the aftermath of a brutal assault left her with a crumbling marriage, a newborn daughter, and a constant sense of anxiety about the world around her. Now, looking for a fresh start with a home restoration project and growing blog, Claudia takes on a crumbling old house—one that unbeknownst to her has an ugly history and may hide long buried secrets. Claudia Bishop’s perfect life fell apart when the aftermath of a brutal assault left her with a crumbling marriage, a newborn daughter, and a constant sense of anxiety about the world… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hallucinations
  • Murder of parents in a home invasion recounted

Burn the Dark by S.A. Hunt

Robin is a YouTube celebrity gone-viral with her intensely-realistic witch hunter series. But even her millions of followers don’t know the truth: her series isn’t fiction. Her ultimate goal is to seek revenge against the coven of witches who wronged her mother long ago. Returning home to the rural town of Blackfield, Robin meets friends new and old on her quest for justice. But then, a mysterious threat known as the Red Lord interferes with her plans…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & homophobia
  • Domestic violence
  • Hallucinations
  • Suicide
  • Prescription drug abuse & alcohol abuse
  • Institutionalisation
  • Blood & gore depiction including body horror & emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Animal death
  • Animal attack (snake)

The Nursery by Szilvia Molnar

Somewhere in New York, in a cramped two-bed apartment that wilts beneath the intense August heat, a young woman stays at home with her baby. Women have done this before now: given birth, nursed their children, held, carried, soothed. But our narrator, a talented translator in another life, doesn’t know what it means to be a mother. This does not feel natural. This doesn’t feel like any of the stories she has heard about parenthood. As she struggles to adjust to her role as a mother, a lifeline appears in the form of Peter, a neighbour who, like her, is confined to this apartment building. But soon his visits start to disturb as much as soothe, leaving her more fragmented than ever.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Postnatal depression & postpartum psychosis
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction, needles & mentions of cancer

You Shouldn’t Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose

Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker looking for a total escape from her busy life, books an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming. When she arrives, she’s pleasantly surprised to find that the owner is a handsome man by the name of Calvin Wells. But there are things Grace discovers that she’s not too pleased about: A lack of cell phone service. A missing woman. And a feeling that something isn’t right with the town. Despite her uneasiness and misgivings from Calvin’s friends and family, the two grow close and start to fall for one another. However, as her departure date nears, things between them start to change for… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Acrophobia & hallucinations mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Death of parents & a partner recounted
  • Murder
  • Car accident recounted

Godly Heathens by H.E. Edgmon

Gem Echols is a nonbinary Seminole teen living in the tiny town of Gracie, Georgia. Known for being their peers’ queer awakening, Gem leans hard on charm to disguise the anxious mess they are beneath. The only person privy to their authentic self is another trans kid, Enzo, who’s a thousand long, painful miles away in Brooklyn. But even Enzo doesn’t know about Gem’s dreams, haunting visions of magic and violence that have always felt too real. So how the hell does Willa Mae Hardy? The strange new girl in town acts like she and Gem are old companions, and seems to know things about them they’ve never told anyone.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, slavery & genoicde mentioned
  • Transphobia
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse, off-page
  • Hallucinations
  • Self-harm recounted
  • Blood, gore & body horror
  • Emesis
  • Torture
  • Animal death

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

The rule is simple: don’t bleed.

For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she’s been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.

Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she’ll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Incest*
  • Necrophilia mentioned
  • Delusions, including a diagnosis of Capgras Syndrome
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Self-harm including cutting and self-inflicted wounds
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction (theme)
  • Body horror
  • Medical procedures including autopsies
  • Dismemberment
  • Hospital
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother and father, off-page
  • Death of a child
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Strangulation
  • Gun violence
  • Graphic knife violence & stabbing
  • Graphic physical assault
  • Captivity
  • Fire
  • Death of a pet dog
  • Animal death & dead bodies including butchery

Context: a) there is a scene where the protagonist is interrupted having sex with her boyfriend by her doppelgänger and they let her join in and b) it is mentioned that the protagonist’s father caught her touching her doppelgänger’s genitals when she was a kid.

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened. But there will be no turning… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape of a disabled woman resulting in pregnancy, off-page
  • Depression
  • Suicide recounted & suicidal ideation
  • Psychosis
  • Emesis
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder of a disabled woman by stoning
  • Cults & religious abuse

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life with her is hellish. When Laura takes her own life, her ghost haunts Abby and Ralph in very different ways: Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is terrorized by a force intent on destroying everything she loves. To make matters worse, Mrs. Bondy’s daughter is threatening to move Mrs. Bondy from the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape discussed
  • Toxic relationships
  • Parental neglect
  • Emotional abuse
  • Borderline Personality Disorder
  • Hallucinations & delusions
  • Dissociation
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Miscarriage & pregnancy discussed
  • Cannibalism
  • Graphic grief & loss depiction
  • Death of mother
  • Murder