Tag Archives: Mental Illness

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

Rafe is a normal teenager from Boulder, Colorado. He plays soccer. He’s won skiing prizes. He likes to write. And, oh yeah, he’s gay. He’s been out since 8th grade, and he isn’t teased, and he goes to other high schools and talks about tolerance and stuff. And while that’s important, all Rafe really wants is to just be a regular guy. Not that GAY guy. To have it be a part of who he is, but not the headline, every single time. So when he transfers to an all-boys’ boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret — not so much going back in the closet as start … Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalised homomisia
  • Ableism
  • Outing
  • Depression mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a relative from cancer
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The Navigator’s Touch by Julia Ember

The Navigator’s Touch by Julia Ember

After invaders destroyed her village, murdered her family, and took her prisoner, shield-maiden Ragna is hungry for revenge. A trained warrior, she is ready to fight for her home, but with only a mermaid and a crew of disloyal mercenaries to aid her, Ragna knows she needs new allies. Guided by the magical maps on her skin, battling storms and mutiny, Ragna sets sail across the Northern Sea. She petitions the Jarl in Skjordal for aid, but despite Ragna’s rank and fighting ability, the Jarl sees only a young girl, too inexperienced to lead, unworthy of help. To prove herself to the Jarl and win her crew’s respect, Ragna undertakes… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood & graphic injury depiction
  • Murder of a child
  • Torture discussed
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping of a child
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal death

Husband Material by Alexis Hall

Husband Material by Alexis Hall

In BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, Luc and Oliver met, pretended to fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak and disappointment and family and friends…and somehow figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like everyone around them is getting married, and Luc’s feeling the social pressure to propose. But it’ll take more than four weddings, a funeral, and a bowl full of special curry to get these two from I don’t know what I’m doing to I do. Good thing Oliver is such perfect HUSBAND MATERIAL.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalised homomisia
  • Eating disorder mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent from a heart attack, off-page

Yes and I Love You by Roni Loren

Yes & I Love You by Roni Loren

Everyone knows Miz Poppy, the vibrant reviewer whose commentary brightens the New Orleans nightlife. But no one knows Hollyn, the real face behind the media star… or the fear that keeps her isolated. When her boss tells her she needs to add video to her blog or lose her job, she’s forced to rely on an unexpected source to help her face her fears. When aspiring actor Jasper Deares finds out the shy woman who orders coffee every day is actually Miz Poppy, he realizes he has a golden opportunity to get the media attention his acting career needs. All he has to do is… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Parental abandonment
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Suicidal ideation recounted
  • Bullying recounted

A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

In 1982, Evelyn’s daughter, Jackie, is a frazzled single mother grappling with her absent husband’s drug addiction. Just as she comes to terms with his abandoning the family, he returns, ready to resume their old life. Jackie must decide if the promise of her husband is worth the near certainty he’ll leave again. Jackie’s son, T.C., loves the creative process of growing marijuana more than the weed itself. He finds something hypnotic about training the seedlings, testing the levels, trimming the leaves, and drying the buds. He was a square before Hurricane Katrina, but the New Orleans he knew didn’t survive the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Racism
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Domestic violence
  • Substance addiction
  • War themes

Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

Once a year, the path appears in the forest and Lucy Gallows beckons. Who is brave enough to find her–and who won’t make it out of the woods? It’s been exactly one year since Sara’s sister, Becca, disappeared, and high school life has far from settled back to normal. With her sister gone, Sara doesn’t know whether her former friends no longer like her…or are scared of her, and the days of eating alone at lunch have started to blend together. When a mysterious text message invites Sara and her estranged friends to “play the game” and find local ghost legend Lucy Gallows, Sara… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Physical child abuse, off-page
  • Amnesia
  • Suicide
  • Eye trauma
  • Starvation discussed
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Disappearance of a sibling (theme)
  • Drowning, on-page
  • Animal attack

Beth and Amy by Virginia Kantra

Beth and Amy by Virginia Kantra

Amy March is more like her older sister Jo than she’d like to admit. An up-and-coming designer in New York’s competitive fashion industry, ambitious Amy is determined to get out of her sisters’ shadow and keep her distance from their North Carolina hometown. But when Jo’s wedding forces her home, she must face what she really wants…and confront the One Big Mistake that could upend her life and forever change her relationship with Jo. Gentle, unassuming Beth grew up as the good girl of the family. A talented singer-songwriter, she’s overcome her painful… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Eating disorder
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attacks
  • Hospitalisation

Air Awakens by Elise Kova

Air Awakens by Elise Kova

The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war. Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world. Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Explosion
  • Knife violence
  • Poisoning

A Deal with the Elf King by Elise Kova

A Deal with the Elf King by Elise Kova

The elves come for two things: war and wives. In both cases, they come for death. Three thousand years ago, humans were hunted by powerful races with wild magic until the treaty was formed. Now, for centuries, the elves have taken a young woman from Luella’s village to be their Human Queen. To be chosen is seen as a mark of death by the townsfolk. A mark nineteen-year-old Luella is grateful to have escaped as a girl. Instead, she’s dedicated her life to studying herbology and becoming the town’s only healer. That is, until the Elf King unexpectedly arrives, for her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child neglect recounted
  • Forced marriage
  • Sibling with substance addiction
  • Drug use & abuse discussed
  • Alcohol consumption, on-page
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Heart disease & other chronic illnesses mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Attempted kidnapping
  • War & rebellion discussed

Earth’s End by Elise Kova

Earth’s End by Elise Kova

A woman awoken in air, a soldier forged by fire, a weapon risen from blood. Vhalla Yarl has made it to the warfront in the North. Forged by blood and fire, she has steeled her heart for the final battle of the Solaris Empire’s conquest. The choices before Vhalla are no longer servitude or freedom, they are servitude or death. The stakes have never been higher as the Emperor maintains his iron grip on her fate, holding everything Vhalla still has left to lose in the balance.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism
  • Knife violence
  • Poisoning
  • War themes & battle scenes