Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles

Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles

In a city covered in ice and ruin, a group of magicians face off in a daring game of magical feats to find the next headliner of the Conquering Circus, only to find themselves under the threat of an unseen danger striking behind the scenes.

As each act becomes more and more risky and the number of missing magicians piles up, three are forced to reckon with their secrets before the darkness comes for them next.

The Star: Kallia, a powerful showgirl out to prove she’s the best no matter the cost. The Master: Jack, the enigmatic keeper of the club, and more than one lie told. The Magician: Demarco, the brooding judge with a dark past he can no longer hide

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Loss of autonomy (mind manipulation)
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Eyeball trauma
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
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Michigan vs. the Boys by Carrie S. Allen

Michigan vs. the Boys by Carrie S. Allen 

Michigan Manning lives for hockey, and this is her year to shine. That is, until she gets some crushing news: budget cuts will keep the girls’ hockey team off the ice this year.

If she wants colleges to notice her, Michigan has to find a way to play. Luckily, there’s still one team left in town …

The boys’ team isn’t exactly welcoming, but Michigan’s prepared to prove herself. She plays some of the best hockey of her life, in fact, all while putting up with changing in the broom closet, constant trash talk and “harmless” pranks that always seem to target her… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Lesbomisic slurs
  • Misogyny
  • Attempted rape
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging
  • Dieting discussed
  • Bullying
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The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

When each summer begins, Belly leaves her school life behind and escapes to Cousins Beach, the place she has spent every summer of her life. Not only does the beach house mean home away from home, but her favourite people are there: Susannah, her mother’s best friend, and her sons, Conrad and Jeremiah. Belly has been chasing Conrad for as long as she can remember, and more than anything, she hopes this summer will be different. Despite distractions from a new guy named Cam and lingering looks from Conrad’s brother, Jeremiah, Belly’s heart belongs to Conrad. Will this be the summer that changes everything?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Parent with terminal cancer (secondary character)

Not Your All-American Girl by Wendy Wan-Long Shang and Madelyn Rosenberg

Not Your All-American Girl by Wendy Wan-Long Shang & Madelyn Rosenberg

Lauren and her best friend, Tara, have always done absolutely everything together. So when they don’t have any classes together in sixth grade, it’s disastrous. The solution? Trying out for the school play. Lauren, who loves to sing, wonders if maybe, just maybe, she will be the star instead of Tara this time.

But when the show is cast, Lauren lands in the ensemble, while Tara scores the lead role. Their teacher explains: Lauren just doesn’t look the part of the all-American girl. What audience would believe that she, half-Jewish, half-Chinese Lauren, was the everygirl star from Pleasant Valley, USA?

From amidst the ensemble, Lauren tries to support her best friend. But when she can’t bring herself to sing anymore, her spot in the play and her friendship are in jeopardy. With the help of a button-making business, the music of Patsy Cline, and her two bickering grandmothers, can Lauren find her voice again?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Racism
  • Hate crimes*

*Note: This book is set in the 1980s and discusses the murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man who was beaten to death by white auto workers who mistakenly believed he was Japanese  and blaming him for the loss of auto jobs in Detroit.

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Yassmin’s Story by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

Yassmin’s Story by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

Frank, fearless, funny, articulate, and inspiring, Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a young Muslim dynamo offering a bracing breath of fresh air—and hope. At 21, Yassmin found herself working on a remote Australian oil and gas rig; she was the only woman and certainly the only Sudanese-Egyptian-Australian background Muslim woman. With her hijab quickly christened a “tea cosy,” there could not be a more unlikely place on earth for a young Muslim woman to want to be. This is the story of how she got there, where she is going, and how she wants the world to change.

Born in the Sudan, Yassmin and her parents moved to Brisbane when she was two, and she has been tackling barriers ever since… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Islamomisia
  • Death of a grandparent
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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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The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

Catalina Martín, finally, not single. Her family is happy to announce that she will bring her American boyfriend to her sister’s wedding. Everyone is invited to come and witness the most magical event of the year.

That would certainly be tomorrow’s headline in the local newspaper of the small Spanish town I came from. Or the epitaph on my tombstone, seeing the turn my life had taken in the span of a phone call.

Four weeks wasn’t a lot of time to find someone willing to cross the Atlantic–from NYC and all the way to Spain–for a wedding… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Dieting & restrictive eating
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
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The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Zoe Archer

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Zoe Archer

Nana is on a road trip, but he is not sure where he is going. All that matters is that he can sit beside his beloved owner Satoru in the front seat of his silver van. Satoru is keen to visit three old friends from his youth, though Nana doesn’t know why and Satoru won’t say.

Set against the backdrop of Japan’s changing seasons and narrated with a rare gentleness and humour, Nana’s story explores the wonder and thrill of life’s unexpected detours. It is about the value of friendship and solitude, and knowing when to give and when to take.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a parent
  • Car accident
  • Animal injury
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Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony

Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony

It’s early one morning on a hot day in August, and millennial congressman Alexander Paine Wilson (R), planning his first reelection campaign and in deep denial about his sexuality, receives a mysterious, over-sized FedEx delivery on his front stoop. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark.

This outrageous, edge-of-your-seat novel hurtles between contemporary Washington, DC, where Wilson tries to get rid of the unsightly beast before it destroys his career, and Victorian England–where we meet Titus Downing, the taxidermist who stuffed the aardvark, and Richard Ostlet, the naturalist who hunted her. Our present world, we begin to see, has been shaped in profound and disturbing ways by the secret that binds these men.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Racism
  • Sexism
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Eye horror
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou’s seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope and joy, achievement and celebration. In this first volume of her autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evoker her childhood with her grandmother in the American South of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother’s lover. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • White supremacy & mentions of the Klu Klux Klan
  • Sexism
  • Rape of a child
  • Sexual assault
  • Chronic bronchitis
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Dead body
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
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