Redefining Realness by Janet Mock

Redefining Realness by Janet Mock

In 2011, Marie Claire magazine published a profile of Janet Mock in which she stepped forward for the first time as a trans woman. Those 2300 words were life-altering for the People.com editor, turning her into an influential and outspoken public figure and a desperately needed voice for an often voiceless community. In these pages, she offers a bold and inspiring perspective on being young, multicultural, economically challenged, and transgender in America. Welcomed into the world as her parents’ firstborn son, Mock decided early on that she would be… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Racism
  • Gender dysphoria
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Sex work
  • Cheating
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Self-harm
  • Alcoholism
  • Substance addiction
  • Emesis
  • Gun violence

Names for the Dawn by CL Beaumont

Names for the Dawn by C.L. Beaumont

Seasoned Park Ranger Will Avery has found his home in the Denali wilderness, cherishing his solitary routines for the decade leading up to 1991. The trade-off that no one knows of his identity as a transgender man feels worth it for the comforting assurance he finds in the towering glaciers. Until Will discovers an unexpected passenger in his truck—the visiting wolf biologist everyone in the Park is ecstatic to meet—Nikhil Rajawat. Nikhil doesn’t return his new colleagues’ fervour. He’s dreamt of Denali for one reason: the pinnacle of his research, and it isn’t anyone’s business that this is the last year he’ll get to chase the wolves. He… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Homomisia discussed
  • Transmisia recounted*
  • Familial estrangement & disownment*
  • Physical child abuse recounted*
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Insomnia
  • Nightmare
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Recovery from substance addiction including an off-page relapse
  • Suicidal ideation recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned (sc)
  • Weight loss mentioned
  • Gender dysphoria & body dysmorphia
  • Scars from top surgery mentioned
  • Gun violence*
  • Bullying
  • Animal death, including a wolf cub & death of a pet dog

*Context : When the protagonist came out to his father, his father shot a gun at the barn near him. He has wondered for years if it was intentional or an accident. As a child, the protagonist’s mother physically abused him and burnt him with cigarettes.

Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly

Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly

When Alexei Lebedev finally comes out to his conservative community, it does not go well. That’s how he ended up on the rugged Pacific Crest Trail, hoping he can figure out a new life plan in the thousands of miles it’ll take to walk the famed hike. He’s prepared for rattlesnakes, blisters, and months of solitude. What he’s not prepared for is the ray of sunshine named Ben Caravalho. Charismatic and outgoing, Ben’s personality and infectious laughter are a stark opposite of Alexei’s quiet, reserved demeanour. But no matter how determined Alexei is to hike the trail alone, it seems he and Ben can’t avoid… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Familial estrangement due to religious-based queermisia
  • Coming out recounted
  • Emotionally abusive relationship recounted
  • Social anxiety
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of an aunt from Alzheimer’s Disease

Afterglow by Phil Stamper

Afterglow by Phil Stamper

After a summer of life-changing, these four friends are finally ready for senior year. Gabriel is thrilled to create his school’s first LGBTQ+ advocacy group, but his long-distance relationship is fading from summer love to something else. Heath feels secure for the first time in years, but with his future riding on a baseball scholarship, each pitch triggers his anxiety. Reese is set on pursuing a career in fashion design, but his creativity takes him in an unexpected direction he isn’t yet ready to share. Sal wants to be in politics, specifically local politics. After a chat with his aunt, he is ready for an unlikely path… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia *
  • Hate crime*
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical assault*

*Context : A character punches a gay classmate, threatens further violence, and uses homophobic slurs. Graphic microaggressions and outright bias occur toward the gay characters living in a small conservative town.

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson

Dino doesn’t mind spending time with the dead. His parents own a funeral home, and death is literally the family business. He’s just not used to them talking back. Until Dino’s ex-best friend July dies suddenly—and then comes back to life. Except not exactly. Somehow July is not quite alive, and not quite dead. As Dino and July attempt to figure out what’s happening, they must also confront why and how their friendship ended so badly, and what they have left to understand about themselves, each other, and all those grand mysteries of life.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Depression
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Dead bodies
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Car accident

To Target the Heart by Aldrea Alien

To Target the Heart by Aldrea Alien

How can he win with the odds stacked against him? Prince Hamish has no interest in fulfilling his duty of marrying. Not to a woman, at least. That doesn’t stop his mother, Queen Fiona, from presenting him with every eligible noblewoman that enters their castle. He’s certain it’ll be no different with the representative of the Udynea Empire. So when they do arrive, Hamish is relieved the imperial prince, Darshan, is not the woman everyone expected. Until the man kisses him and Hamish is confronted by the very emotion… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Slavery mentioned
  • Physical & psychological child abuse
  • Depression
  • Attempted suicide
  • Graphic attempted murder

To Poison a Prince by Aldrea Alien

To Poison a Prince by Aldrea Alien

Imperial Crown Prince Darshan knew his journey home wasn’t going to be the modest one he hoped for, especially not after eloping with Hamish, a former prince—and now exile—of Tirglas. When he thwarts a clumsy attempt on his husband’s life during a soirée hosted by his long-standing rival and half-sister, he figures the worst is behind them. Yet, the threat of death continues to shadow them across the empire. Someone is intent on making the rumours of his husband’s demise a reality, someone who can erase the memory of their very presence from people’s minds… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Homophobia mentioned
  • Physical & psychological child abuse mentioned
  • Depression mentioned
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Graphic attempted murder
  • Poisoning

Together We Caught Fire by Eva V. Gibson

Together We Caught Fire by Eva V. Gibson

Lane Jamison’s life is turned upside down the week before her senior year when her father introduces her to his new fiancée: mother of Grey McIntyre, Lane’s secret, longtime crush. Now with Grey living in Lane’s house, there’s only a thin wall separating their rooms, making it harder and harder to deny their growing mutual attraction—an attraction made all the more forbidden by Grey’s long-term girlfriend Sadie Hall, who also happens to be Lane’s friend. Torn between her feelings for Grey and her friendship with Sadie—not to mention her desire to keep the peace at home—Lane befriends Sadie’s older brother, Connor… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Religious persecution
  • Child abuse
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Recreational drug use
  • Overdose
  • Homelessness

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there’s only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she’s determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god–and she’s decided Jess is going to help her do it. Drawn into a world... Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Homomisia
  • Misogyny
  • Racism
  • Coming out themes
  • Graphic attempted rape, on-page
  • Sexual assault recounted
  • Domestic abuse
  • Physical child abuse
  • Cheating recounted
  • Cancer & remission discussed
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a grandmother, off-page
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gang violence
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (possession, theme)
  • Poverty themes

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore

Graciela Cristales’s whole world changes after she and a boy she barely knows are assaulted at the same party. She loses her gift for making enchanted pan dulce. Neighbourhood trees vanish overnight, while mirrored glass appears, bringing reckless magic with it. And Ciela is haunted by what happened to her, and what happened to the boy whose name she never learned. But when the boy, Lock, shows up at Ciela’s school, he has no memory of that night, and no clue that a single piece of mirrored glass is taking his life apart. Ciela decides to help him, which means hiding... Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Homomisia
  • Bimisia
  • Racism
  • Sexism
  • Classism
  • Victim blaming
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Drugging
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a grandparent recounted
  • Bullying