Hail Mariam by Huda Al-Marashi

Iraqi American Mariam Hassan transfers to a local Catholic school and before her first day her parents remind her that she might be the first Muslim her classmates have ever met. No big deal, right? Just represent an entire religion while making new friends, keeping up with schoolwork, and figuring out who she is. When Mariam’s younger sister, Salma, is diagnosed with a serious lung condition, her family faces endless doctor visits and sleepless nights. Mariam tries to lighten their burden and keep her own problems to herself—including the fact that she’s just… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sibling hospitalised for cancer treatment
  • Minor blood depiction

Fast Pitch by Nic Stone

Shenice Lockwood has her eyes set on the Fastpitch World Series. As team captain, she’d like nothing more than to help her girls take home the trophy and the $10,000 prize money. And as one of the few brown faces on the field, it’d be a personal triumph to show-up her rich, white opponents. But Shenice’s focus gets shaken when her Uncle Jack reveals that a family crime may have been a set-up all along. Shenice will stop at nothing to uncover the past. The closer she gets to the truth, though, the further she gets from her goals for the future.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Dementia
  • Physical injury
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a parent from a terminal illness

Far from Home by Lorelie Brown

My name is Rachel. I’m straight . . . I think. I also have a mountain of student loans and a smart mouth. I wasn’t serious when I told Pari Sadashiv I’d marry her. It was only party banter! Except Pari needs a green card, and she’s willing to give me a breather from drowning in debt. My off-the-cuff idea might not be so terrible. We get along as friends. She’s really romantically cautious, which I find heartbreaking. She deserves someone to laugh with. She’s kind. And calm. And gorgeous. A couple of years with her actually sounds pretty good. If some of Pari’s kindness and calmness rub… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Eating disorder (anorexia)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a father from a heart attack mentioned

Fake Skating by Lynn Painter

From play dates on the playground to sneaking into movie theatres, Dani and Alec were inseparable as kids. Until Dani moved away. Years later, Dani is back in Minnesota, and exited to reconnect with the nerdy and comforting Alec. But teenage Alec is NOTHING like the boy she remembers. He’s the hockey STAR in a town where hockey players are worshipped as gods—and he loves it. When one thing leads to another and Dani and Alec find themselves thrown together and playing the role of boyfriend and girlfriend, “complicated” becomes an understatement. In this Minnesota… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Parental divorce mentioned
  • Anxiety attack (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Hospitalisation for sports injury
  • Physical assault
  • Car accident recounted

Faceless by Alyssa Sheinmel

When Maisie is struck by lightning, her face is partially destroyed. She’s lucky enough to get a face transplant, but how do you live your life when you can’t even recognize yourself anymore? She was a runner, a girlfriend, a good student …a normal girl. Now, after a single freak accident, all that has changed. As Maisie discovers how much her looks did and didn’t shape her relationship to the world, she has to redefine her own identity, and figure out what ‘lucky’ really means.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation for plastic surgery to repair facial burn scars sustained in a lightning strike

Saving Meghan by D.J. Palmer

Can you love someone to death? Some would say Becky Gerard is a devoted mother and would do anything for her only child. Others claim she’s obsessed and can’t stop the vicious circle of finding a cure at her daughter’s expense. Fifteen-year-old Meghan has been in and out of hospitals with a plague of unexplained illnesses. But when the ailments take a sharp turn, doctors intervene and immediately suspect Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a rare behavioural disorder where the primary caretaker, typically the mother, seeks… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Domestic violence & child abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hospitalisation for medical treatment
  • Child with a terminal illness

Satan’s Affair by H.D. Carlton

Every Halloween, Satan’s Affair will come to you. We travel the country, offering terrifying haunted houses, thrilling rides and the tastiest food. And with every passing town, I cleanse this world, one execution at a time. I hide within the walls, casting my judgement for those that reek of evil, singing lullabies to their rotting souls. Once you’ve been chosen, there’s no escaping my henchmen—they cater to my every desire. You can run and you can hide, but it only excites me. Come. Take a walk through my dollhouse, where your… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Schizophrenia & hallucinations
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Eye trauma
  • Blood- & knife-play
  • Murder

Saint Juniper’s Folly by Alex Crespo

For Jaime, returning to the tiny Vermont town of Saint Juniper means returning to a past he’s spent eight years trying to forget. After shuttling between foster homes, he hopes he can make something out of this fresh start. But every gossip in town already knows his business, and with reminders of his past everywhere, he seeks out solitude into the nearby woods, called Saint Juniper’s Folly, and does not return. For Theo, Saint Juniper means being stuck. He knows there’s more out there, but he’s scared to go find it. His senior year is going to be like all the rest, dull and claus… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Foster care system experiences
  • Hospitalisation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • House fire
  • Animal death

All Fired Up by Dylan Newton

As a successful book publicist, Imani Lewis works night and day to promote her authors. It’s her dream job, but she’s become a total workaholic. So when her grandmother invites her to stay for the summer as she recovers from surgery, Imani happily agrees. But being back in the same small town as her one-night stand may not be quite the relaxing break she envisioned. Zander Matthews wakes up every day determined to enjoy the present because he knows from his time in the Marines that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. But he’s never gotten over the beautiful woman… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Body image issues & disordered food thoughts (secondary character)
  • Trauma, insomnia & survivor’s guilt discussed
  • Panic attack
  • Hospitalisation for injury (secondary character)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent in a fire recounted

AfterMath by Emily Barth Isler

After her brother’s death from a congenital heart defect, twelve-year-old Lucy is not prepared to be the new kid at school–especially in a grade full of survivors of a shooting that happened four years ago. Without the shared past that both unites and divides her classmates, Lucy feels isolated and unable to share her family’s own loss, which is profoundly different from the trauma of her peers. Lucy clings to her love of math, which provides the absolute answers she craves. But through budding friendships and an after… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Death of a brother from a congenital heart defect
  • School shooting massacre (aftermath, theme)