Midnight Beauties by Megan Shepherd

Midnight Beauties by Megan Shepherd

Ever since she discovered her affinity for magic, seventeen-year-old Anouk has been desperate to become a witch. It’s the only way to save her friends who, like Anouk, are beasties: animals enchanted into humans. But unlike Anouk, the other beasties didn’t make it out of the battle at Montélimar in one piece.

With her friends now trapped in their animal forms, Anouk is forced into a sinister deal involving a political marriage with her sworn enemy, a wicked plot to overthrow London’s fiercest coven of witches, and a deadly trial of fire to become a witch. The price for power has always been steep in the world of the Haute. Now, it will cost Anouk everything.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia
  • Animal death
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Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

Seventeen-year-old Anouk envies the human world, where people known as Pretties lavish themselves in fast cars, high fashion, and have the freedom to fall in love. But Anouk can never have those things, because she is not really human. Enchanted from animal to human girl and forbidden to venture beyond her familiar Parisian prison, Anouk is a Beastie: destined for a life surrounded by dust bunnies and cinders serving Mada Vittora, the evil witch who spelled her into existence. That is, until one day she finds her mistress murdered in a pool of blood—and Anouk is accused of the crime.

Now, the world she always dreamed of is rife with danger. Pursued through Paris by the underground magical society known as the Haute, Anouk and her fellow Beasties only have three days to find the real killer before the spell keeping them human fades away. If they fail, they will lose the only lives they’ve ever known…but if they succeed, they could be more powerful than anyone ever bargained for.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Transmisic language, and the Bury Your Gays & Tragic Gay tropes*
  • Sexual harassment
  • Blood & gore depiction, and dead bodies mentioned
  • Murder
  • Imprisonment
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Animal death and animal cruelty

*The only queer (cis) character dies as a sacrifice for the straight characters 80% of the way into the book, almost immediately after being revealed to be gay; it is also revealed that he was in love with a straight boy who would never love him back.

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The Golden Tower by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black

The Golden Tower by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black

A generation ago, powerful mage Constantine Madden came close to achieving what no magician had ever achieved: the ability to bring back the dead. He didn’t succeed . . . but he did find a way to keep himself alive, inside a young child named Callum Hunt.

Facing up to what he is, Callum has battled chaos and evil across four years of magical training at the Magisterium, eventually defeating the armies of chaos in an epic battle.

It came at a cost.

Now, triumphant and heartbroken, Callum Hunt has just about had enough, and is ready to complete his training. But the evil Callum faced has not given up just yet…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism, internalised ableism & ableist language
  • Nightmares
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend discussed
  • Death of a mother, wife and son recounted
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Kidnapping recounted & hostage situation
  • Imprisonment recounted
  • Fire
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Bullying
  • Animal attack
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The Silver Mask by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black

The Silver Mask by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black

A generation ago, Constantine Madden came close to achieving what no magician had ever achieved: the ability to bring back the dead. He didn’t succeed . . . but he did find a way to keep himself alive, inside a young child named Callum Hunt.

Now Call is one of the most feared and reviled students in the history of the Magisterium, thought to be responsible for a devastating death and an ever-present threat of war. As a result, Call has been imprisoned and interrogated. Everyone wants to know what Constantine was up to-and how he lives on. But Call has no idea.

It is only when he’s broken out of prison that the full potential of Constantine’s plan is suddenly in his hands . . . and he must decide what to do with his power.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism, internalised ableism & ableist language
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend & son recounted
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Imprisonment
  • Fire
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Bullying
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The Bronze Key by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black

The Bronze Key by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black

Magic can save you. Magic can kill you.

Students at the Magisterium are supposed to be safe. Under the watchful eyes of the mages, they are taught to use magic to bring order to a chaotic world.

But now the chaos is fighting back. Call, Tamara, and Aaron should be worrying about things like pop quizzes and magic contests. Instead, after the shocking death of one of their classmates, they must track down a sinister killer… and risk their own lives in the process.

As Call, Tamara, and Aaron discover, magic can only be as good as the person who wields it. In evil hands, it has the capacity to do immeasurable harm, unless it is stopped in time.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism, internalised ableism & ableist language
  • Classism
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Imprisonment
  • Bullying
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Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Police brutality
  • Imprisonment
  • Bullying
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Internment by Samira Ahmed

Internment by Samira Ahmed

Internment by Samira Ahmed book cover

Rebellions are built on hope.

Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens.

With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp’s Director and his guards.

Heart-racing and emotional, Internment challenges readers to fight complicit silence that exists in our society today.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Islamophobia, displacement and internment camps
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Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Wilder Girls by Rory Power book cover

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty’s life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don’t dare wander outside the school’s fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Suicide, suicidal ideation & self-harm (on-page)
  • Blood, gore& injury depiction, including graphic body horror, emesis, loss of limb, eye trauma, needles, and involuntary medical experimentation & medical treatment
  • Starvation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend, child & father
  • Murder & attempted mass murder
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence &stabbing
  • Hanging
  • Bombing mentioned
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Chemical gassing
  • Animal death & hunting, including graphic animal dead bodies, and death by an animal attack

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

The daughter of a union with an outsider that cast her once-proud family into disgrace, Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol and lead a life of submission, devotion and absolute conformity, like all the women in the settlement.

But a chance mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood that surrounds Bethel – a place where the first prophet once pursued and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still walking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the diary of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.

Fascinated by secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realises the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her . . .

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & colourism
  • Misogyny
  • Slut-shaming
  • Ableist language
  • Persecution for witchcraft
  • Physical, verbal & emotional child abuse
  • Sexual assault
  • Rape & statutory rape recounted
  • Paedophilia & child molestation recounted
  • Forced nonconsensual marriage*
  • Exile & ex-communication
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Suicide recounted
  • Self-harm & self-inflicted injuries
  • Pregnancy & child pregnancy (secondary character)
  • Death from childbirth (two on-page scenes), and mentions of miscarriage & stillbirth
  • Graphic blood depiction & menstruation discussed
  • Plague (multiple)
  • Seizures & stroke (side character)
  • Nonconsensual branding
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Death of a son recounted
  • Death of a best friend (on-page)
  • Strangulation
  • Drowning
  • Being burned alive
  • Earthquake
  • Imprisonment & captivity
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Animal death & sacrifice

Note: This book portrays a cult which uses its beliefs to justify abuse, torture, misogyny, racism & paedophilia, including the marriage, rape (‘bedding’) & impregnation of multiple children (not graphic or on-page, but mentioned & discussed by secondary characters).

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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo book cover

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Persecution for ‘witchcraft’ (theme)
  • Indentured servitude and slavery
  • Forced underaged sex work recounted
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Disownment
  • Substance and gambling addiction
  • Nightmares
  • Coerced suicide (implied)
  • Alcohol consumption, recreational drug use & non-consensual drugging including forced and coerced drug dependency
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including dead bodies, emesis, medical experimentation, plague, eyeball trauma, and non-consensual body modifications
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father & brother recounted
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Knife and gun violence
  • Torture
  • Strangulation
  • Explosions
  • Kidnapping and captivity
  • Incarceration
  • Drowning
  • Animal death
  • Animal attack & death by an animal attack
  • Bullying