Tag Archives: Physical Assault

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of physical assault, including fisticuffs, beatings, mugging, and battery.

See also Hate crimes, Murder & attempted murder, and Bullying.

Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis book cover

Ashley knows this truth deep in her bones, more at home with trees overhead than a roof. So when she goes hiking in the Smokies with her friends for a night of partying, the falling dark and creaking trees are second nature to her. But people are not tame either. And when Ashley catches her boyfriend with another girl, drunken rage sends her running into the night, stopped only by a nasty fall into a ravine. Morning brings the realization that she’s alone – and far off-trail. Lost in undisturbed forest and with… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Parental abandonment
  • Physical child abuse recounted (secondary character)
  • Cheating
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use (off-page)
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a friend mentioned
  • Physical assault
  • Animal death & dead bodies

The Boy Who Steals Houses by C. G. Drews

The Boy Who Steals Houses by C. G. Drews

The Boy Who Steals Houses by C. G. Drews book cover

Can two broken boys find their perfect home?

Sam is only fifteen but he and his autistic older brother, Avery, have been abandoned by every relative he’s ever known. Now Sam’s trying to build a new life for them. He survives by breaking into empty houses when their owners are away, until one day he’s caught out when a family returns home. To his amazement this large, chaotic family takes him under their wing – each teenager assuming Sam is a friend of another sibling. Sam finds himself inextricably caught up in their life, and falling for the beautiful Moxie.

But Sam has a secret, and his past is about to catch up with him.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism and ableist language
  • Child abuse
  • Physical and verbal abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attacks
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Serious injury to a loved ones
  • Physical assault
  • Bullying
  • Homelessness
  • Incarceration of a parent
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

World After by Susan Ee

World After by Susan Ee

World After by Susan Ee book cover

When a group of people capture Penryn’s sister Paige, thinking she’s a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken. Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels’ secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go. Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can’t rejoin the angels, can’t take his rightful place as… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & sexism (on-page)
  • Parent with paranoid schizophrenia with mentions of hallucinations & delusions
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction, including body horror, dead bodies, involuntary body modifications, medical experimentations, and cannibalism
  • Torture & psychological torture (on-page)
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun & sword violence
  • Physical assault
  • Imprisonment
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Explosions
  • Building collapse recounted

Angelfall by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee book cover

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel. Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Misogyny & slut-shaming
  • Sexual harassment & sex work, implied
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Parent with paranoid schizophrenia with mentions of delusions and hallucinations
  • Nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Graphic blood and injury depiction, including dead bodies and body parts, cannibalism, dismemberment, scars, human experimentation, and nonconsensual body modification (theme)
  • Death of children discussed
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Knife & gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Torture
  • Poisoning
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • War themes
  • Animal attack

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa­­–a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks–alone, except for her fox companion–searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Malaria & fevers
  • Dead bodies
  • Body horror
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a mother & father, off-page
  • Death of a grandmother mentioned
  • Death of a child in a pedestrian-car accident, on- & off-page
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Mass death
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Stoning
  • Carjacking mentioned
  • Animal death (insects, repeated scenes)

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel M. Moniz book cover

Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story in Milk Blood Heat delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another.

A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter—whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.

Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat forms an ouroboros of stories that bewitch with their truth.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Parental abandonment
  • Adult-minor relationship between a teacher and student
  • Paedophilia, implied
  • Parental sexual abuse, implied
  • Abortion, mentioned
  • Pregnancy
  • Terminal cancer
  • Physical assault
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Suicide
  • Strangulation
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a father
  • Death from a fall
  • Drowning
  • Graphic near-drowning
  • Robbery
  • Cannibalism, implied
  • Hanging, mentioned
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

No Exit by Taylor Adams

No Exit by Taylor Adams book cover

Nobody said being the daughter of an army general was easy. But when her dad sends a teenage subordinate to babysit her while he’s away… That’s taking it a step too far. Cade, as beautiful as he is deadly, watches Kori with more than just interest. He looks at her like he knows her very soul. And when he saves her from a seemingly random attack, well, that’s when things get weird. Turns out, Kori’s dad isn’t just an army general—he’s the head of a secret government project that has invented a way to travel between parallel dimensions. Dimensions where there are infinite Koris, infinite… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatphobia, racist slur & ableist language
  • Paedophilia, sexual assault & threats of rape
  • Child sex trafficking
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Alcoholism
  • Panic attacks recounted & nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Blood, gore & graphic injury depiction, including terminal cancer & emesis
  • Minor grief depiction
  • Death of a mother, brother & cousin
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Animal murder & torture recounted and death of a pet

Infinity by Jus Accardo

Infinity by Jus Accardo

Infinity by Jus Accardo book cover

Nobody said being the daughter of an army general was easy. But when her dad sends a teenage subordinate to babysit her while he’s away… That’s taking it a step too far.

Cade, as beautiful as he is deadly, watches Kori with more than just interest. He looks at her like he knows her very soul. And when he saves her from a seemingly random attack, well, that’s when things get weird.

Turns out, Kori’s dad isn’t just an army general—he’s the head of a secret government project that has invented a way to travel between parallel dimensions. Dimensions where there are infinite Koris, infinite Cades…and apparently, on every other Earth, they’re madly in love.

Falling for a soldier is the last thing on Kori’s mind. Especially when she finds herself in a deadly crossfire, and someone from another Earth is hell-bent on revenge…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a parent
  • Physical assault
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Mia Tang has a lot of secrets.

Number 1: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, ten-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests.

Number 2: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they’ve been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed.

Number 3: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language?

It will take all of Mia’s courage, kindness, and hard work to get through this year. Will she be able to hold on to her job, help the immigrants and guests, escape Mr. Yao, and go for her dreams?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & anti-Blackness
  • Police brutality
  • Hospital
  • Physical assault
  • Poverty themes
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Wicked King by Holly Black

The Wicked King by Holly Black

The Wicked King by Holly Black book cover

After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her, and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished.

When it becomes all too clear that someone close to Jude means to betray her, threatening her own life and the lives of everyone she loves, Jude must uncover the traitor and fight her own complicated feelings for Cardan to maintain control as a mortal in a Faerie world.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse, recounted
  • Parental abandonment
  • Forced and arranged marriages
  • Cheating
  • Suicide, recounted
  • Self-harm, recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hallucinogenic drugs, mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Dead bodies
  • Death of parents, recounted
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping
  • Captivity
  • Loss of autonomy
  • War themes
  • Bullying

Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com