Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett

Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett

Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett book cover

Ever since last year’s homecoming dance, best friends-turned-best enemies Zorie and Lennon have made an art of avoiding each other. It doesn’t hurt that their families are the modern-day Californian version of the Montagues and Capulets. But when a group camping trip goes south, Zorie and Lennon find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Alone. Together. What could go wrong?

With no one but each other for company, Zorie and Lennon have no choice but to hash out their issues via witty jabs and insults as they try to make their way to safety. But fighting each other while also fighting off the forces of nature makes getting out of the woods in one piece less and less likely.

And as the two travel deeper into Northern California’s rugged backcountry, secrets and hidden feelings surface. But can Zorie and Lennon’s rekindled connection survive out in the real world? Or was it just a result of the fresh forest air and the magic of the twinkling stars?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist language
  • Lesbomisia
  • Racism
  • Islamophobia
  • Cheating
  • Anxiety attacks (on-page)
  • Depression mentioned
  • Suicide of a parent
  • Blood depiction & physical injury
  • Chronic illness (main character, specifically hives)
  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father & mother recounted
  • Physical assault
  • Plane crash mentioned
  • Animal attacks, specifically snake and bear attacks
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Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo book cover

Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land, all while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. But she can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her—or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Body shaming
  • Suicide attempt by self-sacrifice
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood and gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Emesis
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical and psychological torture
  • Knife violence
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions & bombings
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Hostage situation
  • Airship accident
  • War themes
  • Animal death
  • Animal dead bodies & body parts
  • Hunting
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Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo book cover

The Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne.

Now the nation’s fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army.

Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives.

Alina will have to forge new alliances and put aside old rivalries as she and Mal race to find the last of Morozova’s amplifiers. But as she begins to unravel the Darkling’s secrets, she reveals a past that will forever alter her understanding of the bond they share and the power she wields. The firebird is the one thing that stands between Ravka and destruction—and claiming it could cost Alina the very future she’s fighting for.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Victim blaming
  • Facial difference discrimination
  • Persecution for witchcraft (mentioned)
  • Rape and sexual assault (recounted)
  • Parental abandonment (implied)
  • Trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Suicide attempt as self-sacrifice (recounted)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood and gore depiction, dead bodies, eyeball trauma and branding
  • Physical sickness and scars
  • Death of a brother, son, girlfriend and friend (recounted)
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Explosion, knife violence, physical assault and poisoning
  • Captivity, blackmail, hostage situation, exile and banishment
  • War themes
  • Animal death and bodies (recounted), hunting
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Between Us by Clare Atkins

Between Us by Clare Atkins

Between Us by Clare Atkins book cover

Anahita is passionate, curious and determined. She is also an Iranian asylum seeker who is only allowed out of detention to attend school. On weekdays, during school hours, she can be a ‘regular Australian girl’.

Jono needs the distraction of an infatuation. In the past year his mum has walked out, he’s been dumped and his sister has moved away. Lost and depressed, Jono feels as if he’s been left behind with his Vietnamese single father, Kenny.

Kenny is struggling to work out the rules in his new job; he recently started work as a guard at the Wickham Point Detention Centre. He tells Anahita to look out for Jono at school, but quickly comes to regret this, spiraling into suspicion and mistrust. Who is this girl, really? What is her story? Is she a genuine refugee or a queue jumper? As Jono and Anahita grow closer, Kenny starts snooping behind the scenes…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racial slurs
  • Self-harm
  • Drug and alcohol abuse
  • Physical assault
  • Confinement
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Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Police brutality
  • Imprisonment
  • Bullying
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Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.

When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.

But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Gentrification & classism
  • Cheating
  • Slut-shaming
  • Sexual harassment and the non-consensual distribution of private photos
  • Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a family member
  • Physical assault
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Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno

Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno

Summer of Salt by Kartina Leno book cover

A magic passed down through generations . . . Georgina Fernweh waits with growing impatience for the tingle of magic in her fingers—magic that has been passed down through every woman in her family. Her twin sister, Mary, already shows an ability to defy gravity. But with their eighteenth birthday looming at the end of this summer, Georgina fears her gift will never come.

An island where strange things happen . . . No one on the island of By-the-Sea would ever call the Fernwehs what they really are, but if you need the odd bit of help—say, a sleeping aid concocted by moonlight—they are the ones to ask. No one questions the weather, as moody and erratic as a summer storm… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist language
  • Slut-shaming
  • Victim-blaming
  • Rape, off-page
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Childbirth & pregnancy mentioned
  • Physical illness
  • Emesis
  • Hospitals
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father
  • Attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Gun violence
  • Animal cruelty & death, off-page
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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo book cover

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Persecution for ‘witchcraft’ (theme)
  • Indentured servitude and slavery
  • Forced underaged sex work recounted
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Disownment
  • Substance and gambling addiction
  • Nightmares
  • Coerced suicide (implied)
  • Alcohol consumption, recreational drug use & non-consensual drugging including forced and coerced drug dependency
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including dead bodies, emesis, medical experimentation, plague, eyeball trauma, and non-consensual body modifications
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father & brother recounted
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Knife and gun violence
  • Torture
  • Strangulation
  • Explosions
  • Kidnapping and captivity
  • Incarceration
  • Drowning
  • Animal death
  • Animal attack & death by an animal attack
  • Bullying

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.

Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren’t Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson’s emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism, racial slurs & anti-Blackness
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Transmisia
  • Incestuous child molestation &and sexual assault, on-page
  • Trauma
  • Physical assault
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Hospital
  • Cancer

Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

Gumiho: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

Eighteen-year-old Gu Miyoung has a secret. She’s a gumiho–a nine-tailed fox who survives by consuming the energy of men. But she’s also half-human and has a soft spot for people. So she won’t kill indiscriminately. With the help of a shaman, Miyoung only takes the lives of men who have committed terrible crimes. Devouring their life force is a morbid kind of justice… or so she tells herself.

But killing men no one would ever miss in bustling modern-day Seoul also helps Miyoung keep a low profile. She and her mother protect themselves by hiding in plain sight. That is until Miyoung crosses paths with a handsome boy her age as he’s being attacked by a goblin in the woods… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Ableist language
  • Physical, emotional & verbal parental abuse
  • Parental neglect & abandonment
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide & attempted suicide discussed
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Seizures, multiple on-page scenes
  • Coma
  • Hospital (setting)
  • Medical procedures, including blood tests & surgery mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother, on-page
  • Death of a grandmother, on-page
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Attempted infanticide recounted
  • Hostage situation
  • Drowning recounted
  • Loss of autonomy (theme)*
  • Bullying

*Note: The main character is a gumiho, and people are able to control her actions and force her to follow their instructions when they possess her fox bead.

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