Tag Archives: Misogyny & Sexism

Control by Lydia Kang

When a crash kills their father and leaves them orphaned, Zel knows she needs to protect her sister, Dyl. But before Zel has a plan, Dyl is taken by strangers using bizarre sensory weapons, and Zel finds herself in a safe house for teens who aren’t like any she’s ever seen before—teens who shouldn’t even exist. Using broken-down technology, her new friends’ peculiar gifts, and her own grit, Zel must find a way to get her sister back from the kidnappers who think a powerful secret is encoded in Dyl’s DNA. Set in 2150—in a world of automatic cars, nightclubs with auditory ecstasy drugs, and guys with four arms—this is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny & slut-shaming
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a father in a car accident

One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed―tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne. For a few weeks seventeen years ago, Bourne was national news when its water turned green. The girls have come of age watching their mother’s endless fight for.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism discussed
  • Disability from factory pollution (theme)

Family Family by Laurie Frankel

India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero. Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do—she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie. Soon she’s at the centre of a media storm, battling accusations from the press and.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, sexism & body-shaming mentioned
  • Divorce mentioned
  • Anxiety & mentions of eating disorders
  • Substance addiction & drug abuse mentioned
  • Abortion & miscarriages mentioned
  • Death of a mother mentioned

So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan

After an uneventful Friday at the Dublin office, Cathal faces into the long weekend and takes the bus home. There, his mind agitates over a woman named Sabine with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently. All evening, with only the television and a bottle of champagne for company, thoughts of this woman and others intrude – and the true significance of this particular date is revealed.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny discussed

The Familiars by Stacey Halls

Young Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a noblewoman, is with child again. None of her previous pregnancies have borne fruit, and her husband, Richard, is anxious for an heir. Then Fleetwood discovers a hidden doctor’s letter that carries a dire prediction: she will not survive another birth. By chance she meets a midwife named Alice Grey, who promises to help her deliver a healthy baby. But Alice soon stands accused of witchcraft. Is there more to Alice than meets the eye? Fleetwood must risk everything to prove her innocence. As the two women’s lives become intertwined, the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical sexism & misogyny
  • Adult-minor abusive marriage
  • Lancashire witch trials (theme)
  • Teen pregnancy (protagonist)
  • Infertility & miscarriages recounted

Context : The 17-year-old protagonist is pregnant and married to an adult man. She has had two miscarriages in the past, and is advised to not get pregnant again.

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family’s social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny, antisemitism & religious bigotry
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including body horror and emesis
  • Torture indcuding waterboarding
  • Imprisonment
  • Fire
  • Animal cruelty & death (squirrel)

Act Your Age by Eve Dangerfield

All Kate ‘Middleton’ McGrath wants is a man to call ‘Daddy’ in bed. But kinks aren’t for everyone. She gets it. They’re definitely not going to be for her grumpaholic boss, Mr Henderson. But a girl can dream, can’t she? Especially when he’s always so stern with her. Tyler Henderson is a golden boy who’s lost his shine. He’s old, his dream career is over, his fiancée left him. Now all the former firefighter can do is bury his troubles in paperwork and hard liquor… and try to keep Middleton out of his head. He’s not going anywhere near that girl. He’s done with sweet and innocent. And things don’t come much sweeter or more innocent…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist slurs
  • Workplace sexism
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Cyberharassment & cyberstalking by an ex-partner

Still Life by Sarah Winman

Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amongst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses’s life for the next four decades. As Ulysses returns.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical sexism & homophobia mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • World War II

The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson

London, 1944: Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While war ravages the city above her, Clara has risked everything she holds dear to turn the Bethnal Green tube station into the country’s only underground library. Down here, a secret community thrives with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café, and a theatre—offering shelter, solace, and escape from the bombs that fall upon their city. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on, the women’s determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical sexism
  • Domestic violence
  • Panic attacks & Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Miscarriage
  • World War II

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny
  • Rape mentioned
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Animal cruelty mentioned