Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating mentioned
  • Child abuse, off-page
  • Graphic rape & attempted rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Intimate partner abuse
  • Suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Poisoning
  • Torture
  • Animal attack
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Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.

The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cannibalism
  • Murder
  • Animal death
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Flame in the Mist by Renée Ahdieh

Flame in the Mist by Renée Ahdieh

The only daughter of a prominent samurai, Mariko has always known she’d been raised for one purpose and one purpose only: to marry. Never mind her cunning, which rivals that of her twin brother, Kenshin, or her skills as an accomplished alchemist. Since Mariko was not born a boy, her fate was sealed the moment she drew her first breath.

So, at just seventeen years old, Mariko is sent to the imperial palace to meet her betrothed, a man she did not choose, for the very first time. But the journey is cut short when Mariko’s convoy is viciously attacked by the Black Clan, a dangerous group of bandits who’ve been hired to kill Mariko before she reaches the palace… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging
  • Seppuku*
  • Decapitation
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife & sword violence
  • Poisoning
  • Fire
  • Battle scenes

* Note : Ritual samurai suicide.

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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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Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Panic attacks
  • Suicide
  • Suicidal ideation mentioned
  • Self harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Overdose
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Coma mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion mentioned
  • Strangulation
  • Imprisonment recounted
  • Death from exposure to the cold
  • Drowning
  • Hit-and-run car accident
  • Kidnapping
  • Vivisepulture (buried alive)
  • Psychological torture
  • Electrocution
  • Graphic animal death & death of a pet
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The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman book cover

Lost in a new world, Lyra finds Will—a boy on the run, a murderer—a worthy and welcome ally. For this is a world where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and witches share the skies with troops of angels. Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, and their destinies are bound together… until they are split apart.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Amputation (loss of fingers)
  • Death of a father
  • Murder

The Girl King by Mimi Yu

The Girl King by Mimi Yu

Sisters Lu and Min have always understood their places as princesses of the Empire. Lu knows she is destined to become the dynasty’s first female ruler, while Min is resigned to a life in her shadow. Then their father declares their male cousin Set the heir instead—a betrayal that sends the sisters down two very different paths.

Determined to reclaim her birthright, Lu goes on the run. She needs an ally—and an army—if she is to succeed. Her quest leads her to Nokhai, the last surviving wolf shapeshifter. Nok wants to keep his identity secret, but finds himself forced into an uneasy alliance with the girl whose family killed everyone he ever loved… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Sexual assault
  • Parental abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder
  • Knife & sword violence
  • Animal death
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A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest.

With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite the backcountry and safeguard the colony for King and Crown. But from his wife Jamie knows that three years hence the shot heard round the world will be fired, and the result will be independence — with those loyal to the King either dead or in exile. And there is also the matter of a tiny clipping from The Wilmington Gazette, dated 1776, which reports Jamie’s death, along with his kin. For once, he hopes, his time-traveling family may be wrong about the future.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Death of a pregnant woman
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping
  • Arson
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A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.

What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Substance addiction
  • Recreational drug use & abuse
  • Blood & physical injury depiction
  • Hospital
  • Needles
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Immolation
  • Torture
  • Vivisepulture (being buried alive)
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Kidnapping
  • War & rebellion themes, including child soldiers (themes)
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The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Marital rape
  • Child sexual abuse
  • Parental neglect
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Domestic violence
  • Drug abuse
  • Stillbirth
  • Murder
  • Cults
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