Tag Archives: Mental Illness

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of mental illness.

See also Anxiety, Panic attacks, Suicide, Self-harm, Phobias, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Addiction.

Love, Life, and the List by Kasie West

Seventeen-year-old Abby Turner’s summer isn’t going the way she’d planned. She has a not-so-secret but definitely unrequited crush on her best friend, Cooper. She hasn’t been able to manage her mother’s growing issues with anxiety. And now she’s been rejected from an art show because her work “has no heart.” So when she gets another opportunity to show her paintings, Abby isn’t going to take any chances. Which is where the list comes in. Abby gives herself one month to do ten things, ranging from face a fear (#3) to learn a stranger’s story (#5) to fall in love (#8). She knows that if she can complete the list, she’ll become… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parent with agoraphobia

Iz the Apocalypse by Susan Currie and Bex Glendining

A fierce voice longs to break free. A spark ignites inside fourteen-year-old Iz Beaufort when she hears school music group Manifesto perform. Even though she hasn’t written a song since That Place, she recognizes herself in the moving performance and longs to be part of the group, certain that they might actually understand her. But Manifesto is based at the prestigious Métier School, and Iz has bounced through twenty-six foster homes. Plus, there’s no way Dominion Children’s Care would ever send a foster kid to a private school when a public option is available. So Iz does what any passionate, broken, off-the-chart wunderkind might… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Panic attacks
  • Bullying

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 of dugout bench… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia mentioned
  • Anxiety

The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth

Picture a lovely cottage on a cliff, with sloping lawns, walking paths, and beautiful flowers. It’s Gabe and Pippa Gerard’s dream home in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Over the past several months, Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until one day, he doesn’t. When Pippa discovers Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral. . . .Did the victim jump? Was she pushed? And would Gabe, the love of Pippa’s life, her soulmate . . . lie? As the perfect façade of their marriage begins to crack, the deepest… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Postpartum Depression
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Death of a partner
  • Murder

And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling

They thought he was a helpless old man. They were wrong. When two teenagers break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs, what starts as a simple burglary turns into a nightmare for all involved. Emmett Burr has secrets he’s been keeping in his basement for more than two decades, and he’ll do anything to keep his past from being revealed. As he gets the upper hand on his tormentors, the lines blur between victim, abuser, and protector. Personal tragedy has sent former police officer Ben Packard back to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake in search of a fresh start. Now a sheriff’s deputy, Packard is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Rape
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Substance addiction & alcoholism
  • Drug use
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

Molly Gray is not like anyone else. With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, she has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But just as her life reaches a pinnacle state of perfection, her world is turned upside down when J.D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead— very dead —on the hotel’s tea room floor. When Detective Stark, Molly’s old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul. Suspects abound, and everyone wants to who killed J.D. Grimthorpe? Was it Lily, the new Maid-in… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & harassment
  • Alcoholism mentioned
  • Death of a parent & guardian mentioned
  • Blackmail
  • Murder
  • Poisoning
  • Animal death (rat)

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumours, especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life. But now phenomenally huge hit true crime… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Infidelity
  • Alcoholism
  • Intimate partner abuse (on-page)
  • Graphic murder (on-page)

The Teacher by Freida McFadden

Lesson #1: Trust no one. Eve has a good life. She wakes up each day, kisses her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Except… Last year, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye. Addie can’t be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that’s what everyone says. But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Teacher-student relationship & grooming
  • Statutory rape
  • Domestic abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Blood & injury including concussion
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder by strangulation

Creep by Jennifer Hillier

If he can’t have her… Dr. Sheila Tao is a professor of psychology. An expert in human behavior. And when she began an affair with sexy, charming graduate student Ethan Wolfe, she knew she was playing with fire. Consumed by lust when they were together, riddled with guilt when they weren’t, she knows the three-month fling with her teaching assistant has to end. After all, she’s finally engaged to a kind and loving investment banker who adores her, and she’s taking control of her life. But when she attempts to end the affair, Ethan Wolfe won’t let her walk away… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sex addiction (protagonist)
  • Infidelity

Only If You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham

Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Magnetic, addictive. Bold and dangerous. Especially for Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margot is the shy one, the careful one, always the sidekick and never the center of attention. But when Lucy singles her out at the end of the year, a year Margot spent studying and playing it safe, and asks her to room together, something in Margot can’t say no—something daring, or starved, or maybe even envious. And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Infidelity
  • Emesis
  • Murder
  • Drug & alcohol abuse
  • Significant weight loss due to trauma