OCD & Intrusive Thoughts – Trigger Warning Database

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train. Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater. Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won’t take her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Graphic racist & anti-Asian hate crimes
Parental abandonment & nglect
Health anxiety & intrusive thoughts
Alcohol consumption
Blood & gore dpeiction and body horror
COVID-19 pandemic
Murder
Police brutality mentioned
Gun violence
Car accient
Fire
Animal cruelty & dead bodies

Nowhere Like Home by Sara Shepard

When Lenna gets a call from her old friend Rhiannon, she is startled; Rhiannon disappeared years ago without a trace. But Lenna is even more startled to learn that Rhiannon has a son and that she lives off the grid with a group of women in a community called Halcyon. Rhiannon invites Lenna, a new mother herself, to join them. Why suffer the sleepless nights by yourself? It takes a village, after all. Lenna decides to go and hopefully repair her relationship with Rhiannon, but as she drives into the desert and her cell service gets weaker, she becomes suspicious. Who are… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Sexual assault mentioned
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) & anxiety (protagonist)
Teen pregnancy & fertility treatments mentioned
Kidnapping & stalking
Cults

Puck by Samantha Allen

Meet Puck: the nonbinary, thirty-year-old mastermind behind “Homewreckers”, a dating show that puts troubled couples through hell—with a little help from their exes. Used to being the one pulling the strings, it shocks Puck when their life undergoes a plot twist of its own and their college roommate Mia announces her engagement to her ex’s best friend, Damon. Having only recently broken up with longtime-boyfriend Zander, and never having had much in common with Damon (who lovesick Lena has always pined after), Mia’s news leaves her friend group reeling—and Puck’s mind whirling. When they arrive for a week… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Anxiety & Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

A Deeper Darkness by J.T. Ellison

As a medical examiner, Samantha Owens knows her job is to make a certain sense of death with crisp methodology and precision instruments. But the day the Tennessee floods took her husband and children, the light vanished from Sam’s life. She has been pulled into a suffocating grief no amount of workaholic ardor can penetrate;until she receives a peculiar call from Washington, D.C. On the other end of the line is an old boyfriend’s mother, asking Sam to do a second autopsy on her son. Eddie Donovan is officially the victim of a vicious carjacking, but under Sam’s sharp eye the forensics tell a darker story. The ex-Rang… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Death of a husband & children by drowning
Murder

The Sad Ghost Club, Vol. 2 by Lize Meddings

Ever felt anxious or alone? Like you don’t belong anywhere? Like you’re almost… invisible? Find your kindred spirits at The Sad Ghost Club. (You are not alone. Shhh. Pass it on.) When two strangers meet at a party and realise they both feel different from everyone else there, they start the The Sad Ghost Club – a secret society for the anxious and alone, a club for people who think they don’t belong. But when a third ghost wants to join the club, things get a bit more complicated. Can the two ghosts overcome their insecurities…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Anxiety & depression (theme)
Intrusive thoughts
Suicidal ideation

Afterlife by Melissa Jennings

Afterlife is a collection of poetry about catharsis, self-love, and self-revolution. Afterlife is a journey from the darkness to the light again, and again, and again.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Depression & anxiety
Intrusive thoughts & trauma flashbacks
Suicidal ideation
Self-harm

Vanquish by Pam Godwin

Her life is like a prison cell. A self-made, to-hell-with-the-free-world existence that locks from the inside. Stop judging. Her agoraphobia doesn’t define her. It simply keeps her safe. He belongs in a prison cell. The 6×8, make-me-your-bitch variety that locks from the outside. But he’s free. To hunt. To take. To break. And he just found a sexy new toy. Capturing her is the easy part. Her fucked-up mind, however, makes him question everything he does next. But he’s a determined bastard. If all goes his way, this will hurt like hell.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Internalised fatphobia & body dysmorphia
Rape, sexual slavery & nonconsensual BDSM (on-page)
Sex trafficking (on-page & recounted)
Sex work recounted
Intimate partner violence (on-page)
Emotional & verbal intimate partner abuse recounted
Forced child abandonment
Divorce recounted
Agoraphobia, bulimia & Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (protagonist)
Psychiatric institutionalisation of a parent mentioned
Alcohol consumption
Drug abuse recounted (protagonists)
Death of a mother from an overdose recounted
Murder by gun violence mentioned (secondary character)
Kidnapping (on-page)

Context : The male protagonist kidnaps, rapes, and abuses the female protagonist, his love interest. He is a former stalker and sex trafficker who has raped others in the past. He has a child with a different secondary character who was forcibly taken away. The female protagonist is divorced.

Growing Pangs by Kathryn Ormsbee and Molly Brooks

Katie knows there’s stuff that makes her different. She’s homeschooled, she has freckles, and her teeth are really crooked. But none of these things matter to Kacey. They’re best friends forever. But when they go to summer camp, Kacey starts acting weird. And when Katie gets home, she can’t stop worrying. About getting braces. About 6th grade. About friends. She knows tapping three times or opening and closing a drawer won’t make everything better . . . but sometimes it helps stop the worrying. Is something wrong with her? And will anyone want to be friends with her if they find out?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Turning Twelve by Kathryn Ormsbee and Molly Brooks

Katie can’t wait to turn twelve–pool parties! babysitting! friends! But sometimes it feels like there’s so much new stuff she can barely keep up. First Job? (Yes!) Unfair dress codes? (No way!) Make up (Okay?!) Shaving? (Uh…!) Maybe growing up isn’t as much fun as she had expected. But one thing does seem right–her new friend, Grace. Could Katie have a crush on another girl? Katie knows not everyone around her will approve…which is kind of scary. She might not be ready to tell anyone yet, and that’s fine…but can Katie stay true to herself and embrace the person she’s growing up to be?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia
Anxiety & Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

The Villain by LJ Shen

Cruel. Coldblooded. Hades in a Brioni suit. Cillian Fitzpatrick has been dubbed every wicked thing on planet earth. To the media, he is The Villain. To me, he is the man who (reluctantly) saved my life. Now I need him to do me another, small solid. Bail me out of the mess my husband got me into. What’s a hundred grand to one of the wealthiest men in America, anyway? Only Cillian doesn’t hand out free favours. The price for the money, it turns out, is my freedom. Now I’m the eldest Fitzpatrick brother’s little toy. To play, to mould, to break. Too bad Cillian forgot one, tiny detail. Persephone wasn’t only the goddess of… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Attempted rape (on-page)
Emotional & physical domestic violence and child abuse (on- & off-page, secondary character)
Cancer
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder & Tourette’s Syndrome (protagonist)
Emesis (prologue)
Torture
Blackmail