Tag Archives: Hospitalisation

The Absolutist by John Boyne

The Absolutist by John Boyne

September 1919: Twenty-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a clutch of letters to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian’s brother Will during the Great War. They trained together. They fought together. But in 1917, Will laid down his guns on the battlefield and declared himself a conscientious objector, an act which has brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family. The letters, however, are not the real reason for Tristan’s visit. He holds a secret deep within him. One that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction & medical content including emesis, needles & hospitalisation
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Bullying

Tuesdays Are Just As Bad by Cethan Leahy

Tuesdays Are Just As Bad by Cethan Leahy

What would you do if you were haunted by yourself?

When Adam wakes in hospital after a failed suicide attempt, he finds that he is not alone. In his room is someone only he can see and hear. Tied together by an invisible bond, Adam on his ghostly companion try to find a way to co-exist as Adam works to get his life back on track. But life is never that simple and as the pressure builds on Adam to appear ‘normal’, will his constant shadow turn out to be friend or foe?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicidal ideation
  • Attempted suicide recounted
  • Hospital

The Switch by Beth O’Leary

The Switch by Beth O’Leary

The Switch by Beth O'Leary

When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen’s house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She’d like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn’t offer many eligible gentlemen.

Once Leena learns of Eileen’s romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire. But with gossiping neighbours and difficult family dynamics to navigate up north, and trendy London flatmates and online dating to contend with in the city, stepping into one another’s shoes proves more difficult than either of them expected.

Leena learns that a long-distance relationship isn’t as romantic as she hoped it would be, and then there is the annoyingly perfect – and distractingly handsome – school teacher, who keeps showing up to outdo her efforts to impress the local villagers. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, but is her perfect match nearer home than she first thought?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic abuse
  • Cheating
  • Panic attack
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sibling
  • Hospital
  • Terminal cancer

One of Us Is Next by Karen McManus

One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus

A ton of copycat gossip apps have popped up since Simon died, but in the year since the Bayview four were cleared of his shocking death, no one’s been able to fill the gossip void quite like he could. The problem is no one has the facts. Until now. This time it’s not an app, though—it’s a game.

Phoebe’s the first target. If you choose not to play, it’s a truth. And hers is dark. Then comes Maeve and she should know better—always choose the dare. But by the time Knox is about to be tagged, things have gotten dangerous. The dares have become deadly, and if Maeve learned anything from Bronwyn last year, it’s that they can’t count on the police for help. Or protection.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Public outing recounted
  • Slut-shaming
  • Victim-blaming
  • Sexual assault, on-page & detailed
  • Suicide recounted
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Cancer remission & relapsing discussed
  • Mild blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Hospital
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Death of a classmate & ex-boyfriend, off-page
  • Death of a child, off-page
  • Death by a fall
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Explosion & attempted bombing
  • Death threats
  • Blackmail
  • Stalking
  • Bullying

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth—musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies—the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Incest
  • Sexual abuse
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Adultery
  • Depersonalisation & derealisation
  • Alcoholism
  • Schizophrenia
  • Agoraphobia
  • Claustrophobia
  • Panic attacks
  • Hallucinations & delusions
  • Suicide
  • Drug use
  • Hospitalisation
  • Hypothermia
  • Loss of limb
  • Death of a sibling
  • Death of an uncle
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Grief depiction
  • Gun violence
  • Stalking
  • Graphic death of a dog

Paper Cranes Don’t Fly by Peter Vu

Paper Cranes Don’t Fly by Peter Vu

For Adam Auttenberg, the hospital is like a second home. Despite the ever-growing tumour in his head, he just wishes he was normal. This is until his latest operation when everything seems like a lost hope, and he knows he isn’t normal. He doesn’t know what to do, because there is nothing he can do. Facing the toughest challenge of his life, all Adam has to help him are his friends. But will they be enough?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Medical procedures
  • Hospitalisation
  • Terminal brain cancer (theme)
  • Death of a friend

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult 

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.

But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Dementia
  • Self-harm
  • Suicidal ideation
  • COVD-19
  • Hospitalisation

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue 

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child sexual abuse recounted
  • Domestic abuse mentioned
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Childbirth
  • Stillborn & miscarriage
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Hospitalisation
  • Pandemic

Listen, Layla by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Listen, Layla by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Layla has ended the school year on a high and can’t wait to spend the holidays hanging out with her friends and designing a prize-winning Grand Designs Tourismo invention. But Layla’s plans are interrupted when her grandmother in Sudan falls ill and the family rush to be with her.

The last time Layla went to Sudan she was only a young child. Now she feels torn between her Sudanese and Australian identities. As political tensions in Sudan erupt, so too do tensions between Layla and her family. Layla is determined not to lose her place in the invention team, but will she go against her parents’ wishes? What would a Kandaka do?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Islamomisia
  • Racism
  • Sexism discussed
  • Grandmother hospitalised due to a stroke
  • Cousin hospitalised for gunshot wounds to the shoulder & leg
  • Death of a friend mentioned
  • Bullying
  • Gun violence
  • Riots, on-page

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost.

Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racist language
  • Sexism
  • Ableism
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic dead bodies
  • Body horror
  • Hospitalisation
  • Decapitation, on-page
  • Murder (theme)
  • Gun violence
  • Infanticide by defenestration, on-page
  • Physical assault
  • Fire
  • Riots
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)