Nubia by L.L. McKinney

Nubia: Real One by L.L. McKinney

Nubia has always been a little bit…different. As a baby she showcased Amazonian-like strength by pushing over a tree to rescue her neighbor’s cat. But, despite having similar abilities, the world has no problem telling her that she’s no Wonder Woman. And even if she was, they wouldn’t want her. Every time she comes to the rescue, she’s reminded of how people see her; as a threat. Her moms do their best to keep her safe, but Nubia can’t deny the fire within her, even if she’s a little awkward about it sometimes. Even if it means people assume the worst.

When Nubia’s best friend, Quisha, is threatened by a boy who thinks he owns the town, Nubia will risk it all–her safety, her home, and her crush on that cute kid in English class–to become the hero society tells her she isn’t.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism, racial slurs, anti-Blackness & hate crime
  • Homomisia & sexism
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Police brutality & racial profiling
  • School shooting and gun violence
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Bullying
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Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young

Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young

The Girls of Innovations Academy are beautiful and well-behaved—it says so on their report cards. Under the watchful gaze of their Guardians, the all-girl boarding school offers an array of studies and activities, from “Growing a Beautiful and Prosperous Garden” to “Art Appreciation” and “Interior Design.” The girls learn to be the best society has to offer. Absent is the difficult math coursework, or the unnecessary sciences or current events. They are obedient young ladies, free from arrogance or defiance. Until Mena starts to realize that their carefully controlled existence may not be quite as it appears.

As Mena and her friends begin to uncover the dark secrets of what’s actually happening there—and who they really are—the girls of Innovations will find out what they are truly capable of. Because some of the prettiest flowers have the sharpest thorns.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Slut shaming
  • Victim blaming
  • Body shaming
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Rape culture (theme)
  • Sexual assault, on- & off-page
  • Sexual harassment
  • Rape of a minor, implied
  • PTSD & trauma
  • Nightmares & flashbacks
  • Dieting & food-shaming
  • Drugging
  • Alchol consumption
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Physical injuries
  • Dead bodies
  • Consensual & non-consensual medical treatment
  • Human medical experimentation
  • Graphic needles
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Graphic torture
  • Knife violence
  • Strangulation
  • Physical assault
  • Loss of autonomy (memory & mind manipulation)
  • Disappearance of a friend
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The Book Ninja by Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus

The Book Ninja by Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus

The Book Ninja by Ali Berg book cover

Sometimes love means having to broaden your literary horizons.

Frankie Rose is desperate for love. Or a relationship. Or just a date with a semi-normal person will do. It’s not that she hasn’t tried. She’s the queen of online dating. But enough is enough. Inspired by her job at The Little Brunswick Street Bookshop, Frankie decides to take fate into her own hands and embarks on the ultimate love experiment.

Her plan? Plant her favourite books on trains inscribed with her contact details in a bid to lure the sophisticated, charming and well-read man of her dreams. Enter Sunny, and one spontaneous kiss later, Frankie begins to fall for him. But there’s just one problem – Frankie is strictly a classics kind of gal, and Sunny is really into Young Adult. Like really.

A quirky and uplifting love letter to books, friendship and soulmates.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Death of a loved one
  • Car accident (recounted)
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A Snowfall of Silver by Laura Wood

A Snowfall of Silver by Laura Wood book cover

A snow-dusted love story. In the Autumn of 1931, eighteen-year-old Freya Trevelyan runs away from her home in Cornwall to follow her dream of becoming an actress. When she is invited to join a theatrical company about to head out on tour, Freya thinks the path to success is clear, and, amidst all the glamour and bustle of stage life, she finds – for the first time – a place to belong. But can reality ever live up to her expectations? What if her life – and falling in love – turn out to be nothing like she planned? An enchanting coming of age romance about following your dreams – even when they aren’t quite what you expected.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Misogyny, slut-shaming & victim-blaming
  • Sexual assault (non-consensual kiss)
  • Sexual harassment
  • Toxic relationship
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Anxiety & implications of Bipolar Disorder
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking
  • Graphic emesis (on-page)
  • Blizzard

The Burning by Laura Bates

The Burning by Laura Bates

The Burning by Laura Bates book cover

What happens when you can’t run or hide from a mistake that goes viral?

This powerful young adult novel by the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project is a necessary book every young adult needs.

A rumor is like fire. And a fire that spreads online… is impossible to extinguish.

New school. Check.
New town. Check.
New last name. Check.
Social media profiles? Deleted.

Anna and her mother have moved hundreds of miles to put the past behind them. Anna hopes to make a fresh start and escape the harassment she’s been subjected to. But then rumors and whispers start, and Anna tries to ignore what is happening by immersing herself in learning about Maggie, a local woman accused of witchcraft in the seventeenth century. A woman who was shamed. Silenced. And whose story has unsettling parallels to Anna’s own.

From Laura Bates, internationally renowned feminist and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, comes a realistic fiction story for the #metoo era. It’s a powerful call to action, reminding all readers of the implications of sexism and the role we can each play in ending it.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny, body-shaming and slut-shaming
  • Persecution of witchcraft
  • Sexual assault, sexual harassment and revenge plot
  • Abortion (mentioned)
  • Death of a parent (recounted)
  • Fire
  • Bullying
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The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be. And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband.

Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and the Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up. Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Child abuse recounted, and domestic violence (off-page)
  • Cheating
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy & abortion recounted
  • Blood & gore depiction and physical injuries
  • Emesis
  • Murder (off-page)
  • Strangulation recounted
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The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.

But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki–near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Homomisia
  • Misogyny
  • Rape and rape of a child mentioned*
  • Self-harm (cutting) for ritual
  • Blood & gore depiction, and physical injuries
  • Graphic murder (on-page)
  • Torture

*Discussed in more detail on-page roughly around pages 277-278 in the UK edition.

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The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Cheating
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Deportation (theme)
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Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust book cover

Sixteen-year-old Mina is motherless, her magician father is vicious, and her silent heart has never beat with love for anyone—has never beat at all, in fact, but she’d always thought that fact normal. She never guessed that her father cut out her heart and replaced it with one of glass. When she moves to Whitespring Castle and sees its king for the first time, Mina forms a plan: win the king’s heart with her beauty, become queen, and finally know love. The only catch is that she’ll have to become a stepmother.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Parental abuse
  • Suicide, suicidal ideation and self-harm
  • Physical injuries and amputation
  • Grief depiction and death of a parent
  • Violence
  • Bullying
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Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton

Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton

Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton book cover

In the ancient river kingdom, where touch is a battlefield and bodies the instruments of war, Mia Rose has pledged her life to hunting Gwyrach: women who can manipulate flesh, bones, breath, and blood. The same women who killed her mother without a single scratch.

But when Mia’s father announces an alliance with the royal family, she is forced to trade in her knives and trousers for a sumptuous silk gown. Determined to forge her own path forward, Mia plots a daring escape, but could never predict the greatest betrayal of all: her own body. Mia possesses the very magic she has sworn to destroy.

Now, as she untangles the secrets of her past, Mia must learn to trust her heart…even if it kills her.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny (central theme)
  • Homomisia, coming out themes and hate crimes
  • Rape (mostly recounted, one graphic on-page scene) and sexual assault
  • Forced non-consensual arranged marriage
  • Physical abuse
  • Suicide and suicidal ideation (mentioned)
  • Blood and gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Grief and loss depiction
  • Death of mother & wife recounted
  • Death of a father & husband recounted
  • Emesis
  • Graphic physical injuries and illness
  • Torture (secondary character, off-page)
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Poisoning
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes
  • Graphic animal death, animal bodies, and hunting
  • Mind control discussed
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