Tag Archives: Physical Injuries & Illness

All the Noise at Once by DeAndra Davis

All Aiden ever wanted to do was play football just like his star quarterback brother, Brandon. Unfortunately, due to Aiden’s autism, summer football tryouts did not go well when Aiden finds himself at the bottom of a pile-up resulting in an over-stimulation meltdown. But when the school year starts, a spot on the team opens urgently needing to be filled. Aiden finally gets his chance to play the game he loves most. However, not every team member is happy about Aiden’s position on the team, wary of how his autism will present itself on game day. Tensions rise. A fight breaks out. Cops are called. When Brandon tries to interfere… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & ableism
  • Police brutality
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Incarceration for physical assault
  • Emesis

Ash’s Cabin by Jen Wang

Ash has always felt alone. Adults ignore the climate crisis. Other kids Ash’s age are more interested in pop stars and popularity contests than in fighting for change. Even Ash’s family seems to be sleepwalking through life. The only person who ever seemed to get Ash was their Grandpa Edwin. Before he died, he used to talk about building a secret cabin, deep in the California wilderness. Did he ever build it? What if it’s still there, waiting for him to come back…or for Ash to find it? To Ash, that maybe-mythical cabin is starting to feel like the perfect place for a fresh start… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes & deadnaming
  • Death of a grandparent recounted
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Animal injury (dog) from a bear attack (on-page)

Brownstone by Samuel Teer & Mar Julia

Almudena has always wondered about the dad she never met. Now, with her white mother headed on a once-in-a-lifetime trip without her, she’s left alone with her Guatemalan father for an entire summer. Xavier seems happy to see her, but he expects her to live in (and help fix up) his old, broken-down brownstone. And all along, she must navigate the language barrier of his rapid-fire Spanish—which she doesn’t speak. As Almudena tries to adjust to this new reality, she gets to know the residents of Xavier’s Latin American neighborhood. Each member of the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & lesbophobia
  • Parental abandonment
  • Minor physical injury
  • Gentrification

That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally

Shivering and bruised, a teen wakes up on the side of a dirt road with no memory of how she got there―or who she is. A passing officer takes her to the police station, and not long after, a frantic man arrives. He’s been searching for her for hours. He has her school ID, her birth certificate, and even family photos. He is her father. Her name is Mary. Or so he says. When Lola slammed the car door and stormed off into the night, Drew thought they just needed some time to cool off. Except Lola disappeared, and the sheriff, his friends, and the whole town are convinced Drew… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Blood & illness depiction including an allergic reaction
  • Amnesia (protagonist)
  • Murder
  • Disappearance of a child

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

When Hercule Poirot and his associate Arthur Hastings arrive in the French village of Merlinville-sur-Mer to meet their client Paul Renauld, they learn from the police that he has been found that morning stabbed in the back with a letter opener and left in a newly-dug grave adjacent to a local golf course. Among the plausible suspects are Renauld’s wife Eloise, his son Jack, Renauld’s immediate neighbor Madame Daubreuil, the mysterious “Cinderella” of Hasting’s recent acquaintance, and some unknown visitor of the previous day–all of whom Poirot has… Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical sexism
  • Infidelity
  • Minor blood and injury depiction (fainting episodes, dead bodies)
  • Death of a father and husband
  • Death from an epileptic fit mentioned (off-page)
  • Murder by stabbing with a knife
  • Faked being tied up and held captive by armed burglars
  • False incarceration
  • Blackmail mentioned

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

A refugee of the Great War, Poirot has settled in England near Styles Court, the country estate of his wealthy benefactor, the elderly Emily Inglethorp. When Emily is poisoned and the authorities are baffled, Poirot puts his prodigious sleuthing skills to work. Suspects are plentiful, including the victim’s much younger husband, her resentful stepsons, her longtime hired companion, a young family friend working as a nurse, and a London specialist on poisons who just happens to be visiting the nearby village.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical sexism
  • Period-typical racism & racial slurs including antisemitism, antiziganism (g slur) and mentions of blackface
  • Drugging
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Seizures (on-page)
  • Death of a mother from accidental overdose mentioned
  • Murder of a mother/mother-in-law and wife by poisoning (which was first diagnosed as death from heart failure)
  • Incarceration pending trial
  • Military service mentioned
  • Mentions of euthanising a dog

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Rape & attempted rape (recounted & discussed), including a mob lynching after a rape
  • Childbirth (multiple scenes)
  • Stillbirth discussed
  • Death of three children from illness (protagonist)
  • Murder

A False Start by Elsie Silver

I kissed my best friend’s little sister, and the world stood still. That night we were two perfect strangers, the town’s grumpy recluse and a gorgeous girl in the back of a bar. Until we weren’t. Because Nadia Dalca isn’t just some girl. She’s the girl I can’t have. Fourteen years younger than me and completely off-limits. My plan is to stay away, but the universe keeps pushing us together. It’s like some sort of cosmic joke, to give me a taste of something so electric—so real—something that breathed life back into me. Because I can look, but I can’t touch. Her sinful curves, her light… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse reounted
  • Domestic abuse mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Traumatic brain injury & concussion mentioned
  • Alcoholism

Heartless by Elsie Silver

Cade Eaton is thirteen years older than I am and barely looks my way. Until I get him into the hot tub one night for a game of truth or dare. Then all bets are off—and so are our clothes. He’s gruff, a little rough around the edges. But broad-shouldered ranchers with calloused hands and filthy mouths are this city girl’s kryptonite. So who am I to resist? But it’s in our quiet moments together that he softens. It’s when he takes care of me that I realize his hardened exterior is just a façade. It’s when I watch him go all sweet with his little boy that I really fall for him. Someone convinced… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental & spousal abandonment
  • Infidelity*
  • Pregnancy (unplanned)
  • Miscarriage
  • Physical injury (broken fingers)
  • Emesis
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a mother during childbirth recounted

Context : The hero’s ex-wife abandoned him and their son.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down’s Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this story that unfolds over… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Divorce
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned
  • Hospitalisation of a child for a severe allergic reaction (bee sting)
  • Death of a sister from a heart defect at 12-years-old recounted

Context : The protagonist decides to place his daughter with Downs Syndrome in an institution but tells his wife she had passed away at birth.