Military Violence & War Themes – Page 39

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness

As a world-ending war surges to life around them, Todd and Viola face monstrous decisions. The indigenous Spackle, thinking and acting as one, have mobilized to avenge their murdered people. Ruthless human leaders prepare to defend their factions at all costs, even as a convoy of new settlers approaches. And as the ceaseless Noise lays all thoughts bare, the projected will of the few threatens to overwhelm the desperate desire of the many. The consequences of each action, each word, are unspeakably vast: To follow a tyrant or a terrorist? To save the life of the one you love most or thousands of strangers? To believe in redemption or assume it is lost?

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Misogyny
Suicide
Death of a friend
Explosion
Fire
Animal death
War themes

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

We were in the square, in the square where I’d run, holding her, carrying her, telling her to stay alive, stay alive till we got safe, till we got to Haven so I could save her – But there weren’t no safety, no safety at all, there was just him and his men…

Fleeing before a relentless army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola right into the hands of their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss. Immediately separated from Viola and imprisoned, Todd is forced to learn the ways of the Mayor’s new order. But what secrets are hiding just outside of town? And where is Viola? Is she even still alive? And who are the mysterious Answer? And then, one day, the bombs begin to explode…

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Misogyny
Blood depiction
Death of a friend
Torture
Explosions
Genocide
War themes

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him — something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn’t she killed by the germ like all the females on New World?

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Death of a parent
Murder
Gun violence
Stabbing
Animal death
War & genocide recounted

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She’s also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie’s parents banish her to Europe to have her “little problem” taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.

1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she’s recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she’s trained by the mesmerizing Lili, code name Alice, the “queen of spies”, who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy’s nose… Read more.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Antisemitism & Nazism
Sexual assault
Suicide
Pregnancy
Abortion
Blood & gore depiction
Hospitalisation
Emesis
Death of a child
Torture
Stalking
World War One & Two

The Huntress by Kate Quinn

The Huntress by Kate Quinn

Bold and fearless, Nina Markova always dreamed of flying. When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, she risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment wreaking havoc on the invading Germans. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress, and only Nina’s bravery and cunning will keep her alive.

Transformed by the horrors he witnessed from Omaha Beach to the Nuremberg Trials, British war correspondent Ian Graham has become a Nazi hunter. Yet one target eludes him: a vicious predator known as the Huntress. To find her, the fierce, disciplined investigator joins forces with the only witness to escape the Huntress alive: the brazen, cocksure Nina. But a shared secret could derail their mission unless Ian and Nina force themselves to confront it… Read more.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Antisemitism
Racism
Threats of sexual assault
Murder
Bombings
War themes

Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn

Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn

Ten Things You Should Know About This Book

1. Sebastian Grey is a devilishly handsome rogue with a secret. 2. Annabel Winslow’s family voted her The Winslow Most Likely to Speak Her Mind and The Winslow Most Likely to Fall Asleep in Church. 3. Sebastian’s uncle is the Earl of Newbury, and if he dies without siring an heir, Sebastian inherits everything. 4. Lord Newbury detests Sebastian and will stop at nothing to prevent this from happening. 5. Lord Newbury has decided that Annabel is the answer to all of his problems. 6. Annabel does not want to marry Lord Newbury, especially when she finds out he once romanced her grandmother. 7 is shocking, 8 is delicious, and 9 is downright wicked, all of which lead the way to 10. Happily. Ever. After.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Arranged marriage
Sexual assault & attempted rape
Insomnia
Physical assault
Military service in the Napoleonic Wars recounted

The Girl with the Make-Believe Husband by Julia Quinn

The Girl with the Make-Believe Husband by Julia Quinn

With her brother Thomas injured on the battlefront in the Colonies, orphaned Cecilia Harcourt has two unbearable choices: move in with a maiden aunt or marry a scheming cousin. Instead, she chooses option three and travels across the Atlantic, determined to nurse her brother back to health. But after a week of searching, she finds not her brother but his best friend, the handsome officer Edward Rokesby. He’s unconscious and in desperate need of her care, and Cecilia vows that she will save this soldier’s life, even if staying by his side means telling one little lie…

When Edward comes to, he’s more than a little confused. The blow to his head knocked out six months of his memory, but surely he would recall getting married. He knows who Cecilia Harcourt is—even if he does not recall her face—and with everyone calling her his wife, he decides it must be true, even though he’d always assumed he’d marry his neighbor back in England… Read more.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Physical injury
Death of a sibling
Death of a parent recounted
Disappearance of a sibling
War themes

Displacement by Kiku Hughes

Displacement by Kiku Hughes

Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II.

These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself “”stuck”” back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial slurs
Colourism
Sexism
Hate crimes
Cancer
Death
Grief depiction
Confinement
Imprisonment
War themes, specifically WW2 & Japanese internment camp

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial slurs
Homomisia, including internalised homomisia & homomisic slurs
Rape recounted
Parental abuse
Domestic abuse mentioned
Substance addiction
Recreational drug use & abuse
Cancer
Death of a grandparent
Vietnam War discussed
Animal abuse
Bullying

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Yeongdo, Korea 1911. A club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then a Christian minister offers a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man he barely knows to a hostile country where she has no friends and no home, Sunja’s salvation is just the beginning of her story.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
Misogyny
Physical & emotional abuse
Suicide
Suicidal ideation
Starvation
Death of a parent
Colonialism
Korean War & World War two