The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Actress and divorced mother Chris MacNeil starts to experience ‘difficulties’ with her usually sweet-natured eleven-year-old daughter Regan. The child becomes afflicted by spasms, convulsions and unsettling amnesiac episodes; these abruptly worsen into violent fits of appalling foul-mouthed curses, accompanied by physical mutation. Medical science is baffled by Regan’s plight and, in her increasing despair, Chris turns to troubled priest and psychiatrist Damien Karras, who immediately recognises something profoundly malevolent in Regan’s distorted fetures and speech. On Karras’s recommendation, the Church summons Father Merrin, a specialist in the exorcism of demons . . .

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Homomisia (f slur)
  • Medical misdiagnosis of schizophrenia and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)

Home Plate by Christina Lee

My final baseball season with the Easton U Pirates feels bittersweet. I’d like to go out on a high note, graduate, and focus on the family business. But a certain pitcher is making senior year a challenge. Not only because Maclain is stubborn as hell, but because he makes me feel things I never have about another guy. With each snarky comment and hard-won grin, he reveals a little more of himself, and before I know it, I’m in over my head. I’ll be graduating college this year, which also means the end of baseball, a sport I’ve played my entire life. It feels like a significant chapter is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalised homomisia
  • Death of a parent from cancer, off-page

Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

Clay: Marymount girls are good girls. We’re chaste, we’re untouched, and even if we weren’t, no one would know, because we keep our mouths shut. Not that I have anything to share anyway. I never let guys go too far. I’m behaved. Beautiful, smart, talented, popular, my skirt’s always pressed, and I never have a hair out of place. I own the hallways, walking tall on Monday and dropping to my knees like the good Catholic girl I am on Sunday. That’s me. Always in control. Or so they think. The truth is that it’s easy for me to resist them, because what I truly want, they can never be. Something soft and smooth. Someone dangerous and wild…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalized homomisia
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Intimate partner violence mentioned
  • Revenge porn*
  • Staff-student relationship*
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother from suicide recounted
  • Death of a father from a heart attack recounted
  • Death of a brother from leukaemia
  • Bullying

*Context : The protagonist filmed a secondary character during a sexual experience and uploaded the video to the internet. A school employee has a ‘consensual ‘ sexual relationship with an underage student.

At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson

Tommy and Ozzie have been best friends since the second grade, and boyfriends since eighth. They spent countless days dreaming of escaping their small town—and then Tommy vanished. More accurately, he ceased to exist, erased from the minds and memories of everyone who knew him. Everyone except Ozzie. Ozzie doesn’t know how to navigate life without Tommy, and soon he suspects that something else is going on: that the universe is shrinking. When Ozzie is paired up with the reclusive and secretive Calvin for a physics project, it’s hard for him to deny the feelings developing between them, even if he still loves… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Child abuse
  • Statutory rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Self-harm
  • Depression
  • Explosion
  • Plane crash

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn’t sure he wants to. After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & slurs
  • Outing
  • Sexual assault & attempted rape
  • Alcoholism
  • Grandparent with Alzheimer’s Disease
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Miscarriage
  • Nonconsensual medical procedures and experimentation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a boyfriend from suicide recounted
  • Bullying & cyberbullying

The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary

Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend’s wedding in the north of Scotland. The playlist is all planned and the snacks are packed. But, not long after setting off, a car slams into the back of theirs. The driver is none other than Addie’s ex, Dylan, who she’s avoided since their traumatic break-up two years earlier. Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, and they’ve totalled their car, so Addie has no choice but to offer them a ride. The car is soon jam-packed full of luggage and secrets, and with three hundred miles ahead of them… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Sexual assault
  • Emotional parental abuse
  • Depression
  • Alcohol & drug abuse
  • Minor physical injury (sprained wrist)
  • Emesis
  • Car accident
  • Stalking

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

If it weren’t for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Hate crimes
  • Fire

Holly by Stephen King

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down. Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Homomisia
  • Rape
  • Sexual harassment
  • Abortion
  • Cancer
  • Cannibalism
  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • School shooting

Pageboy by Elliot Page

Pageboy is a ground-breaking coming-of-age memoir from the Academy Award-nominated actor Elliot Page. A generation-defining actor and one of the most famous trans advocates of our time, Elliot will now be known as an uncommon literary talent, as he shares never-before-heard details and intimate interrogations on gender, love, mental health, relationships, and Hollywood.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic homomisia & slurs
  • Lesbomisia & slurs
  • Transmisia, deadnaming & misgendering
  • Coming out themes including outing
  • Sexual assault
  • Adult-minor relationship & grooming
  • Emotional child abuse
  • Eating disorder including food restriction
  • Body dysphoria discussed
  • Social anxiety & panic attacks
  • Self-harm
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Emesis
  • Top surgery
  • Stalking

Hard Sell by Hudson Lin

Danny Yip walks into every boardroom with a plan. His plan for struggling tech company WesTec is to acquire it, shut it down, and squeeze the last remaining revenue out of it for his Jade Harbour Capital portfolio. But he didn’t expect his best friend’s younger brother—the hottest one-night stand he ever had—to be there.

Tobin Lok has always thought the world of Danny. He’s funny, warm, attractive—and totally out of Tobin’s league. Now, pitted against Danny at work, Tobin might finally get a chance to prove… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Outing
  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Paedophilia
  • Child sex trafficking
  • Death of a mother from cancer recounted
  • Blackmail
  • Car-and-bicycle accident