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?

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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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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault, implied
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Emotional abuse
  • Drug use
  • Beheading
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Physical & psychological torture
  • Hanging
  • Poverty themes
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The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

Your neighbour told you that she didn’t want your six-month-old daughter at the dinner party. Nothing personal, she just couldn’t stand her crying. Your husband said it would be fine. After all, you only live next door. You’ll have the baby monitor and you’ll take it in turns to go back every half hour. Your daughter was sleeping when you checked on her last. But now, as you race up the stairs in your deathly quiet house, your worst fears are realized. She’s gone. You’ve never had to call the police before. But now they’re in your home, and who knows what they’ll find there. What would you be capable of, when pushed past your limit?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Post-partum depression
  • Murder

Vagrant Queen Vol. 1 by Magdalene Visaggio

Vagrant Queen Vol. 1 by Magdalene Visaggio and illustrated by Jason Smith

Former child queen Elida was driven from her throne at age ten and forced to wander the galaxy, evading the revolutionary forces that wanted her dead. When an old frenemy claims to know the whereabouts of Elida’s long-lost mother, she is forced to return to her former kingdom and stage a rescue.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Beheading
  • Starvation & food scarcity mentioned
  • Death of a mother, off-page
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Sword violence
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)
  • Royal coup & rebellion themes
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