Normal People by Sally Rooney

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years.

This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person’s life – a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel. It tells us how difficult it is to talk about how we feel and it tells us – blazingly – about cycles of domination, legitimacy and privilege. Alternating menace with overwhelming tenderness, Sally Rooney’s second novel breathes fiction with new life.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault
  • Domestic violence
  • Depression
  • Suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Recreational drug use
  • Bullying
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We Were Liars by E Lockhart

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Memory loss
  • Hallucinations
  • Self harm
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Migraines
  • Near-drowning incident
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Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she’ll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Fire recounted
  • Animal abuse
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How to Fail at Flirting by Denise Williams

How to Fail at Flirting by Denise Williams

One daring to-do list and a crash course in flirtation turn a Type A overachiever’s world upside down.

When her flailing department lands on the university’s chopping block, Professor Naya Turner’s friends convince her to shed her frumpy cardigan for an evening on the town. For one night her focus will stray from her demanding job and she’ll tackle a new kind of to-do list. When she meets a charming stranger in town on business, he presents the perfect opportunity to check off the items on her list. Let the guy buy her a drink. Check. Try something new. Check. A no-strings-attached hookup. Check…almost…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Revenge porn
  • Attempted rape (chp. 41)
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Physical & psychological intimate partner abuse
  • Cheating recounted
  • Emesis
  • Stalking
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The Fastest Way To Fall by Denise Williams

The Fastest Way To Fall by Denise Williams

Britta Colby works for a lifestyle website, and when tasked to write about her experience with a hot new body-positive fitness app that includes personal coaching, she knows it’s a major opportunity to prove she should write for the site full-time.

As CEO of the FitMe app, Wes Lawson finally has the financial security he grew up without, but despite his success, his floundering love life and complicated family situation leaves him feeling isolated and unfulfilled. He decides to get back to what he loves—coaching. Britta’s his first new client and they click immediately… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Eating disorder mentioned
  • Alcohol & drug abuse off-page

*Note : Intentional changes in exercise and nutrition habits by the main characters, that do not include dieting, are depicted on-page.

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Commute by Erin Williams

Commute by Erin Williams

In Commute, we follow author and illustrator Erin Williams on her daily commute to and from work, punctuated by recollections of sexual encounters as well as memories of her battle with alcoholism, addiction, and recovery. As she moves through the world navigating banal, familiar, and sometimes uncomfortable interactions with the familiar-faced strangers she sees daily, Williams weaves together a riveting collection of flashbacks. Her recollections highlight the indefinable moments when lines are crossed and a woman must ask herself if the only way to avoid being objectified is to simply cease to draw any attention to her physical being.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Homomisia
  • Amisia
  • Fatmisia
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Alcoholism
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Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

Brooklynite Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer, who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning literary author who, to everyone’s surprise, shows up in New York. When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York’s Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can’t deny their chemistry-or the fact that they’ve been secretly writing to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Divorce recounted
  • Sexual harassment of a minor mentioned
  • Child neglect recounted
  • Chronic migraines (protagonist)
  • Alcoholism recovery (protagonist)
  • Self-harm recounted
  • Alcohol consumption (secondary characters)
  • Incarceration recounted (off-page)

Context : The protagonist has chronic migraines and her ex-husband divorced her because he didn’t want to be her caregiver. The protagonist was also harassed by her mother’s partner when she was a teenager.

I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll

I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll

When Ella Longfield overhears two attractive young men flirting with teenage girls on a train, she thinks nothing of it—until she realises they are fresh out of prison and her maternal instinct is put on high alert. But just as she’s decided to call for help, something stops her. The next day, she wakes up to the news that one of the girls—beautiful, green-eyed Anna Ballard—has disappeared.

A year later, Anna is still missing. Ella is wracked with guilt over what she failed to do, and she’s not the only one who can’t forget. Someone is sending her threatening letters—letters that make her fear for her life… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault
  • Eating disorders
  • Self harm
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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader’s wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel – the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Colonialism
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Rape
  • Arranged marriage
  • Substance addiction
  • Drug abuse
  • Death of a child
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire
  • War themes
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The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

Your neighbour told you that she didn’t want your six-month-old daughter at the dinner party. Nothing personal, she just couldn’t stand her crying. Your husband said it would be fine. After all, you only live next door. You’ll have the baby monitor and you’ll take it in turns to go back every half hour. Your daughter was sleeping when you checked on her last. But now, as you race up the stairs in your deathly quiet house, your worst fears are realized. She’s gone. You’ve never had to call the police before. But now they’re in your home, and who knows what they’ll find there. What would you be capable of, when pushed past your limit?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Post-partum depression
  • Murder