These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas

These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas

England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they’re not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive, young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true—and that her sister is in graver danger than she feared.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Sex worker shaming
  • Slut-shaming
  • Attempted rape, on-page
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction
  • Chronic illness
  • Physical injury
  • Human medical experimentation
  • Hospital
  • Death of a brother reounted
  • Death of a mother mentioned
  • Death of a father mentioned
  • Mugging with a knife
  • Gun violence
  • Murder
  • Attempted murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Disappearance of a sibling
  • Fire
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Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft edited by Tess Sharpe & Jessica Spotswood

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft edited by Tess Sharpe & Jessica Spotswood

Toil and Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe book cover

A young adult fiction anthology of 15 stories featuring contemporary, historical, and futuristic stories featuring witchy heroines who are diverse in race, class, sexuality, religion, geography, and era.

From good witches to bad witches, to witches who are a bit of both, this is an anthology of diverse witchy tales from a collection of diverse, feminist authors. The collective strength of women working together—magically or mundanely–has long frightened society, to the point that women’s rights are challenged, legislated against, and denied all over the world. Toil & Trouble delves deep into the truly diverse mythology of witchcraft from many cultures and feminist points of view, to create modern and unique tales of witchery that have yet to be explored.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Abusive relationship
  • Substance addiction
  • Panic attacks
  • Drug use recounted
  • Alcohol consumption recounted
  • Childbirth
  • Dead bodies
  • Hospitalisation recounted
  • Death of an aunt
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a friend
  • Fire
  • Bullying
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Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas

Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas

Ollie and Moritz are best friends, but they can never meet. Ollie is allergic to electricity. Contact with it causes debilitating seizures. Moritz’s weak heart is kept pumping by an electronic pacemaker. If they ever did meet, Ollie would seize. But Moritz would die without his pacemaker. Both hermits from society, the boys develop a fierce bond through letters that become a lifeline during dark times—as Ollie loses his only friend, Liz, to the normalcy of high school and Moritz deals with a bully set on destroying him.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language (r slur)
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Victim blaming
  • Child abuse
  • Manic depression
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Childbirth
  • Paralysis
  • Cancer
  • Epilepsy & seizures
  • Hospital
  • Life-threatening weight loss
  • Needles
  • Asphyxia (choking)
  • Poisoning mentioned
  • Drowning
  • Animal death & abuse

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Intimate partner violence recounted
  • Suicide & attempted suicide discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction, including physical injuries
  • Dead bodies
  • Terminal cancer recounted
  • Hospital mentioned
  • Death of a husband recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Mind control & loss of autonomy (theme)
  • Animal attack
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Saga, Vol. 8 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Saga, Vol. 8 by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated Fiona Staples

After the traumatic events of the War for Phang, Hazel, her parents, and their surviving companions embark on a life-changing adventure at the westernmost edge of the universe.

CollectingSaga 43-48.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Transmisia
  • Misogyny
  • Rape
  • Paedophilia mentioned & implied child sexual abuse
  • Physical child abuse
  • Suicidal ideation mentioned
  • Abortion discussed & abortion procedures (on-page)
  • Miscarriage & pregnancy-related medical trauma (theme)
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Hospital
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a wife
  • Death of a friend
  • Graphic murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Hanging
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire
  • War & military violence (theme)
  • Death of a pet dog
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Unbelievable by Sara Shepard

Unbelievable by Sara Shepard book cover

Four pretty little liars’ charmed lives have turned into living nightmares. Emily’s been shipped off to Iowa to live with her überconservative cousins. Aria’s boyfriend is behind bars—because of her. Spencer’s afraid she was involved in Ali’s murder. But Hanna’s fate is far worse: She’s clinging to life in the hospital because she knew too much. These liars have tried to keep their scandals secret, but the truth is about to rock their pretty little world!

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism, fatphobia & and body shaming
  • Homophobia & outing mentioned, including parental disownment
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Amnesia & blackouts mentioned
  • Eating disorder (bulimia)
  • Panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hospitalisation for injury & coma
  • Attempted murder
  • Physical assault mentioned
  • Blackmail & stalking (theme)

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman book cover

Caden Bosch is on a ship that’s headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench.

Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behaviour.
Caden Bosch is designated the ship’s artist in residence to document the journey with images.
Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head.
Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny.

Caden Bosch is torn.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Schizophrenia
  • Attempted suicide
  • Hospitalisation
  • Bullying
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A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis

A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis

A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis book cover

Grace Mae knows madness. She keeps it locked away, along with her voice, trapped deep inside a brilliant mind that cannot forget horrific family secrets. Those secrets, along with the bulge in her belly, land her in a Boston insane asylum. When her voice returns in a burst of violence, Grace is banished to the dark cellars, where her mind is discovered by a visiting doctor who dabbles in the new study of criminal psychology. With her keen eyes and sharp memory, Grace will make the perfect assistant at crime scenes. Escaping from Boston to the safety of an ethical Ohio asylum, Grace… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Paedophilia & child sexual assault
  • Physical & emotional child abuse
  • Depression
  • Attempted suicide
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation

It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

Ambitious New York City teenager Craig Gilner is determined to succeed at life – which means getting into the right high school to get into the right job. But once Craig aces his way into Manhattan’s Executive Pre-Professional High School, the pressure becomes unbearable. He stops eating and sleeping until, one night, he nearly kills himself.

Craig’s suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio. There, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sex addiction
  • Depression
  • Attempted suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation
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Stargazing by Jen Wang

Stargazing by Jen Wang

When Moon’s family moves in next door to Christine’s, Moon goes from unlikely friend to best friend―maybe even the perfect friend. The girls share their favorite music videos, paint their toenails when Christine’s strict parents aren’t around, and make plans to enter the school talent show together. Moon even tells Christine her deepest secret: that she sometimes has visions of celestial beings who speak to her from the stars. Who reassure her that earth isn’t where she really belongs.

But when they’re least expecting it, catastrophe strikes. After relying on Moon for everything, can Christine find it in herself to be the friend Moon needs?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Colourism
  • Sexism
  • Hallucinations & delusions
  • Hospital
  • Brain tumour
  • Surgery
  • Death of a father
  • Bullying
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