Plague, Pandemic & Contagion – Page 3 – Trigger Warning Database

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Sexism
Transmisia mentioned
Child neglect
Deadnaming
Anxiety mentioned
Intrusive thoughts
Nightmares
Suicidal ideation, implied
Alcohol consumption
Drugging
Graphic blood & gore depiction including dead bodies and body parts
Body horror
Graphic cannibalism
Pandemic
Scars
Needles & syringes
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a grandparent
Death of a sibling
Murder
Gun violence
Captivity & confinement
Fire

*Context : The plot revolves around the protagonist eating people to survive. The deadname is not explicitly stated. The pandemic involves a fictionalised disease. Similarly, the drugging incident involves a fictional drug.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s travelling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Infidelity mentioned
Suicide recounted
Drug use
COVID-19 pandemic
False imprisonment
Gun violence

A Death-Struck Year by Makiia Lucier

A Death-Struck Year by Makiia Lucier

For Cleo Berry, the people dying of the Spanish Influenza in cities like New York and Philadelphia may as well be in another country–that’s how far away they feel from the safety of Portland, Oregon. And then cases start being reported in the Pacific Northwest. Schools, churches, and theaters shut down. The entire city is thrust into survival mode–and into a panic. Headstrong and foolish, seventeen-year-old Cleo is determined to ride out the pandemic in the comfort of her own home, rather than in her quarantined boarding school dorms. But when the Red Cross pleads for volunteers, she can’t ignore the call. As Cleo struggles to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Spanish Influenza pandemic (theme)

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey

Loup Garron was born and raised in Santa Olivia, an isolated, disenfranchised town next to a US military base inside a DMZ buffer zone between Texas and Mexico. A fugitive “Wolf-Man” who had a love affair with a local woman, Loup’s father was one of a group of men genetically-manipulated and used by the US government as a weapon. The “Wolf-Men” were engineered to have superhuman strength, speed, sensory capability, stamina, and a total lack of fear, and Loup, named for and sharing her father’s wolf-like qualities, is marked as an outsider.… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Domestic abuse
Pandemic
Medical experimentation
Bombing
Animal death (dog), off-page

Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

Paama’s husband is a fool and a glutton. Bad enough that he followed her to her parents’ home in the village of Makendha, now he’s disgraced himself by murdering livestock and stealing corn. When Paama leaves him for good, she attracts the attention of the undying ones – the djombi – who present her with a gift: the Chaos Stick, which allows her to manipulate the subtle forces of the world. Unfortunately, not all the djombi are happy about this gift: the Indigo Lord believes this power should be his and his alone, and he sets about trying to persuade Paama to return the Chaos… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Sexism
Suicide mentioned
Plague

Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

Twelve-year-old Fee is a shy Korean American boy and a newly named section leader of the first sopranos in his local boys’ choir. But when Fee learns how the director treats his section leaders, he is so ashamed he says nothing of the abuse, not even when Peter, his best friend, is in line to be next. When the director is arrested, Fee tries to forgive himself for his silence. But when Peter takes his own life, Fee blames only himself. In the years that follow he slowly builds a new life, teaching near his hometown. There he meets a young student who is the picture of Peter and is forced to confront the past he believed was gone.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Homomisic slurs
Paedophilia, including child pornography
Suicide by gun
Self-immolation
Self-harm
Black Death pandemic
Death of a grandparents
Murder
Arson

Fever by Deon Meyer

Fever by Deon Meyer

Nico Storm and his father Willem drive a truck filled with essential supplies through a desolate land. They are among the few in South Africa–and the world, as far as they know–to have survived a devastating virus which has swept through the country. Their world turned upside down, Nico realizes that his superb marksmanship and cool head mean he is destined to be his father’s protector, even though he is still only a boy. But Willem Storm, though not a fighter, is both a thinker and a leader, a wise and compassionate man with a vision for a new community that survivors will rebuild from the ruins. And so Amanzi is founded… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Child abuse
Suicide
Medical epidemic
Death of a parent
Murder
Gun violence
War themes
Animal cruelty

Agnes at the End of the World by Kelly McWilliams

Agnes at the End of the World by Kelly McWilliams

Agnes loves her home of Red Creek–its quiet, sunny mornings, its dusty roads, and its God. There, she cares tirelessly for her younger siblings and follows the town’s strict laws. What she doesn’t know is that Red Creek is a cult, controlled by a madman who calls himself a prophet. Then Agnes meets Danny, an Outsider boy, and begins to question what is and isn’t a sin. Her younger brother, Ezekiel, will die without the insulin she barters for once a month, even though medicine is considered outlawed. Is she a sinner for saving him? Is her sister, Beth, a sinner for dreaming of the world beyond Red Creek? As the Prophet grows more… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny
Ableism
Statutory rape
Adult-minor relationship
Forced child marriage & polygyny
Paedophilia and child sexual abuse
Child abuse, on-page
Domestic violence mentioned
Depression
Pandemic
Serious physical injury
Diabetic shock & crisis
Hanging mentioned
Kidnapping recounted
Cults (theme)

Chosen Champion by Elise Kova

Chosen Champion by Elise Kova

Vi Solaris is on the eve of getting everything she’s ever wanted—her family, her home, her throne—and to save the world she’s going to have to give it all up. The Empire sees her as their Crown Princess, returning at long last. But Vi only sees visions of fate guiding her to the world’s gruesome end. Across the sea is a man who holds the keys to deciphering her premonitions and thwarting the ancient evil ravaging their world. But to get to him, Vi will have to contend with enemies of the crown, romance she didn’t expect, sorcerer pirates, and a betrayal she never saw coming. She will… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Plague
Shipwreck

Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne

Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne

Seventeen-year-old Stella Ainsley wants just one thing: to go somewhere—anywhere—else. Her home is a floundering spaceship that offers few prospects, having been orbiting an ice-encased Earth for two hundred years. When a private ship hires her as a governess, Stella jumps at the chance. The captain of the Rochester, nineteen-year-old Hugo Fairfax, is notorious throughout the fleet for being a moody recluse and a drunk. But with Stella he’s kind. But the Rochester harbours secrets: Stella is certain someone is trying to kill Hugo and the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Alcohol abuse
Plague
Blood depiction
Death of a parent recounted
Fire