Tag Archives: Mental Illness

Since She’s Been Gone by Sagit Schwartz

Losing her mother to a hit-and-run at age 15 threw Beatrice “Beans” Bennett’s life into turmoil. Bereft, she developed a life-threatening eating disorder, and went through a challenging recovery process which paved the way for her work as a clinical psychologist decades later. When a new patient arrives at her office and insists that Beans’s mother is still alive—and in danger—Beans is forced to revisit her past in order to uncover the truth. She learns the “patient” is a member of a notorious family that owns a drug company largely responsible for the national opioid… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Eating disorder
  • Self-harm
  • Miscarriage
  • Cancer
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child mentioned
  • Stalking

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Substance addiction & drug abuse
  • Attempted suicide & self-harm
  • Discussion of residential schools

Icarus by K. Ancrum

Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target, revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught. Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black, but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & domestic violence
  • Alcohol consumption & drug abuse
  • Substance addiction discussed
  • Overdose mentioned
  • Death of a loved one from terminal cancer
  • False imprisonment
  • Religious self-flagellation mentioned

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it’s now all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They’ll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other’s out, and they’ll both go on to find the love of their lives. It’s a bonkers idea… and it just might work. Emma hadn’t planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abandonment & neglect recounted
  • Foster care experiences mentioned
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Depression
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent in a car accident mentioned
  • Incarceration of a parent

The Prospects by K.T. Hoffman

Hope is familiar territory for Gene Ionescu. He has always loved baseball, a sport made for underdogs and optimists like him. He also loves his team, the minor league Beaverton Beavers, and, for the most part, he loves the career he’s built. As the first openly trans player in professional baseball, Gene has nearly everything he’s ever let himself dream of—that is, until Luis Estrada, Gene’s former teammate and current rival, gets traded to the Beavers, destroying the careful equilibrium of Gene’s life. Gene and Luis can’t manage a civil conversation off the field or a competent play on it, but in the close confines… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia mentioned & deadnaming recounted
  • Coming out themes
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking mentioned (secondary character)
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Surgery & needles mentioned
  • Hospitalisation for fainting from dehydration after a panic attack
  • Minor sport injury (secondary character)
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Car accident recounted*

*Context : A protagonist had a panic attack while driving. Mentions of scars from top surgery, and the use of needles for testosterone injections and ear piercings. A protagonist is adopted by his uncle after his alcoholic mother abandoned him as a child.

Colton Gentry’s Third Act by Jeff Zentner

Colton Gentry is riding high. His first hit in nearly a decade has caught fire, he’s opening for country megastar Brant Lucas, and he’s married to one of the hottest acts in the country. But he’s hurting. Only a few weeks earlier, his best friend, Duane, was murdered onstage by a mass shooter at a country music festival. One night, with his trauma festering and Jim Beam flowing through his veins, Colton stands before a sold-out arena crowd of country music fans and offers his unfiltered opinion on guns. It goes over poorly. Immediately, his career and marriage… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend & parent
  • Mass shooting discussed

Icon and Inferno by Marie Lu

A year has passed since superstar Winter Young last saw secret agent Sydney Cossette. After barely surviving their first assignment together in London — and their intense chemistry – the two haven’t spoken at all. Though they’re never far from the other’s thoughts, or fantasies. So when Syndey shows up at Winter’s studio one day with a new mission from Panacea, he has no choice but to accept. With the clock ticking, the duo prepares to head to Singapore to rescue an operative in danger — only to learn he’s none other than Sydney’s ex, a rogue agent known as the Arsonist… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & domestic violence recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Murder by poisoning
  • Car bombing
  • Knife & gun violence

Powerless by Lauren Roberts

She is the very thing he’s spent his whole life hunting. He is the very thing she’s spent her whole life pretending to be. Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya—the exceptional, the empowered, the Elites. The powers these Elites have possessed for decades were graciously gifted to them by the Plague, though not all were fortunate enough to both survive the sickness and reap the reward. Those born Ordinary are just that—ordinary. And when the king decreed that all Ordinaries be banished in order to preserve his Elite society, lacking an ability suddenly became a crime—making Paedyn Gray a felon by fate and… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • Panic attack
  • Suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Plague recounted
  • Death of a mother from a fever recounted
  • Death of a father from sword violence recounted
  • Genocide
  • Explosions & fire
  • Knife, sword, spear & weapons violence
  • Whipping
  • Animal death
  • Rockslide

House of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen

Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny – in the midst of her parent’s bitter divorce – and immediately stopped speaking. Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She never accepts clients under thirteen due to her own traumatic childhood, but Stella’s mentor, a revered judge, believes Stella is the only one who can help. From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, historic DC home of the Barclays, she realizes the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental divorce & infidelity
  • Traumatic mutism
  • Drug & alcohol abuse recounted
  • Murder

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

After Zoe Baxter loses her baby, the only way she can find of coping is to try again. But her husband Max disagrees – more than that, he wants a divorce. When they separate, there is no mention of the unborn children they created together, still waiting at the clinic. The Zoe falls in love again, out of the blue, and finds herself with an unexpected second chance to have a family. But Max has found a new life too – one with no place in it for people like Zoe. And he will stand up in court to say that her new choice of partner makes her an unfit mother.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia (theme)
  • Divorce
  • Panic attack
  • Secondary character with dementia
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Stillbirth, miscarriage & abortion
  • Infertility