Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno

Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno

Summer of Salt by Kartina Leno book cover

A magic passed down through generations . . . Georgina Fernweh waits with growing impatience for the tingle of magic in her fingers—magic that has been passed down through every woman in her family. Her twin sister, Mary, already shows an ability to defy gravity. But with their eighteenth birthday looming at the end of this summer, Georgina fears her gift will never come.

An island where strange things happen . . . No one on the island of By-the-Sea would ever call the Fernwehs what they really are, but if you need the odd bit of help—say, a sleeping aid concocted by moonlight—they are the ones to ask. No one questions the weather, as moody and erratic as a summer storm… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist language
  • Slut-shaming
  • Victim-blaming
  • Rape, off-page
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Childbirth & pregnancy mentioned
  • Physical illness
  • Emesis
  • Hospitals
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father
  • Attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Gun violence
  • Animal cruelty & death, off-page
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The Wicker King by K Ancrum

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum

When August learns that his best friend, Jack, shows signs of degenerative hallucinatory disorder, he is determined to help Jack cope. Jack’s vivid and long-term visions take the form of an elaborate fantasy world layered over our own—a world ruled by the Wicker King. As Jack leads them on a quest to fulfill a dark prophecy in this alternate world, even August begins to question what is real or not.

August and Jack struggle to keep afloat as they teeter between fantasy and their own emotions. In the end, each must choose his own truth.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist language
  • Child abuse & neglect (theme)
  • Panic attacks & anxiety attacks
  • Depression & depressive episodes
  • Degenerative hallucinatory disorder, hallucinations & delusions
  • Trauma, codependency & separation anxiety
  • Suicidal ideation and self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Needles
  • Surgery
  • Forced psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Fire & pyromania
  • Drowning
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The Weight of the Stars by K Ancrum

The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum

Ryann Bird dreams of travelling across the stars. But a career in space isn’t an option for a girl who lives in a trailer park on the wrong side of town. So Ryann becomes her circumstances and settles for acting out and skipping school to hang out with her delinquent friends. One day she meets Alexandria: a furious loner who spurns Ryann’s offer of friendship. After a horrific accident leaves Alexandria with a broken arm, the two misfits are brought together despite themselves—and Ryann learns her secret: Alexandria’s mother is an astronaut who volunteered for a one-way… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Classism mentioned
  • Sexual assault
  • Parental abandonment discussed
  • Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
  • Hospitalisation for physical injuries (off-page)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Bullying

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Liz Lighty has always believed she’s too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed midwestern town. But it’s okay — Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor.

But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz’s plans come crashing down . . . until she’s reminded of her school’s scholarship for prom king and queen. There’s nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events,.. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Racism
  • Queermisia, specifically lesbomisia & transmisia
  • Public outing
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Emesis
  • Hospital visits due to medical emergency
  • Chronic illness (sickle cell anemia)
  • Death of a mother recounted
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All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.

Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren’t Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson’s emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism, racial slurs & anti-Blackness
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Transmisia
  • Incestuous child molestation &and sexual assault, on-page
  • Trauma
  • Physical assault
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Hospital
  • Cancer

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.

Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Misogyny
  • Child abuse
  • Parental abandonment
  • Self-injury
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Torture
  • Forced institutionalization & abuse by medical professionals
  • Animal cruelty & abuse (off-page)
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Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender

Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender

Being born during a hurricane is unlucky, and 12-year-old Caroline has had her share of bad luck lately. She’s hated and bullied by everyone in her small school on St. Thomas, a spirit only she can see won’t stop following her, and, worst of all, Caroline’s mother left home one day & never came back.

But when a new student named Kalinda arrives, Caroline’s luck begins to turn around. Kalinda, a solemn girl from Barbados with a special smile for everyone, becomes Caroline’s first and only friend — and maybe her first crush. Together, Caroline and Kalinda must set out in a hurricane to find Caroline’s missing mother — before Caroline loses her forever.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Lesbomisia
  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Parental abandonment (theme)
  • Physical child abuse
  • Cheating recounted
  • Suicide attempt recounted (chp. 10)
  • Depression
  • Hospitalisation (on-page & recounted)
  • Bullying (on-page)
  • Near-drowning incident (chps. 1 & 11)
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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Despite the tumour-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Terminal cancer (theme)
  • Loss of vision (secondary character)
  • Medical treatments & procedures including hospitalisation
  • Death of a boyfriend

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom. The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear. But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free? 

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Parental abandonment & neglect
  • Child abuse
  • Physical, emotional & verbal intimate partner abuse (on-page)
  • Depression (side character)
  • Trauma-related amnesia
  • Attempted suicide recounted
  • Self-harm
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Hospital
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an infant & father recounted
  • Murder and attempted murder recounted
  • Car accident
  • Fire

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time.

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Ableism & ableist slurs (r slur)
  • Classism
  • Conversion therapy
  • Graphic domestic & parental abuse
  • Slavery and forced labour
  • Graphic rape & prison rape
  • Paedophilia & child sexual assault
  • Incest
  • Alcoholism & substance addiction
  • PTSD
  • Depression
  • Suicide & self-harm
  • Miscarriage & infertility themes
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic physical injuries
  • Starvation
  • Nonconsensual psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • Death of an infant
  • Police brutality & violence
  • Murder & executions, including the execution of a child
  • Death in police custody and in prison
  • Graphic animal abuse
  • Homelessness
  • Poverty themes
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