Tag Archives: Police Brutality & Violence

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent–which has more than doubled–and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed. One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Child abuse & neglect and mentions of the foster care system
  • Statutory rape & sexual assault
  • Suicide & self-harm
  • Death of a child from drowning recounted
  • Police brutality
  • Incarceration of a parent

More Than This by Krystal Marquis

Newly engaged Ruby Tremaine is eagerly planning her wedding to the love of her life when a nasty rumor threatens her reputation and her marriage. Olivia Davenport has committed to the social justice cause and secretly hopes she’ll be reunited with dashing lawyer Washington DeWight—until her parents decide she’s to marry someone else. Amy-Rose Shepherd is making her lifelong wish of owning a salon come true, but when an incident forces her to return to Freeport Manor, she’s back in the path of John Davenport, who still holds her heart. Helen Davenport… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical racism, misogyny & classism
  • Slavery mentioned
  • Sexual harassment
  • Police brutality

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the colour yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighbourhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental infidelity
  • Presumed death of a mother discussed
  • Murder of a pet dog by stabbing with a garden fork
  • Physical assault & police violence*

Context : The autistic protagonist is grabbed on the arm by a police officer and hits him back in a panic. He is arrested for assaulting police but released. The protagonist believes his mother is dead but his father lied.

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighbourhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy. Andy Fleming’s newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper. He’s barely able to run his life–he’s never paid a bill on time, routinely gets lost on the way to work, and would rather gouge out his own eyes than deal with office politics. Andy… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia & threats of outing
  • Infidelity recounted (protagonist’s ex-fiancée)
  • Parental divorce recounted
  • Physical sibling abuse recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking and drug use
  • Death of a mother in a bombing recounted
  • Police violence & corruption
  • Blackmail
  • Bullying (recounted & off-page)

The Mayor of Maxwell Street by Avery Cunningham

Twenty-year-old Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the alleged “wealthiest Negro in America,” a Kentucky horse breeder whose wealth and prestige catapults his family to the heights of the exclusive, elite Black society. After the unexpected death of her brother—the family’s presumed heir—Nelly goes from being virtually unknown to a premier debutante overnight. But Nelly has aspirations beyond society influence and marriage. For the past year, she has worked undercover as an investigative journalist for the Chicago Defender , sharing the achievements and tribulations of everyday Black people living in the shadow of Jim… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Racism & racial slurs (g slur)
  • Sexual assault
  • Blood & serious physical injury
  • Death of a sibling in a car accident recounted
  • Murder of parents in a fire
  • Gun violence
  • Threats of lynching & police violence

I Come with Knives by S.A. Hunt

Robin – now armed with new knowledge about mysterious demon terrorizing her around town, the support of her friends, and the assistance of her old witch-hunter mentor – plots to confront the Lazenbury coven and destroy them once and for all. Meanwhile, a dangerous serial killer only known as The Serpent is abducting and killing Blackfield residents. An elusive order of magicians known as the Dogs of Odysseus also show up with Robin in their sights. Robin must handle these new threats on top of the menace from the Lazenbury coven, but a secret about Robin’s past may throw all of her plans into jeopardy.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Homophobia & slurs
  • Dismemberment, emesis & body horror
  • Murder
  • Police brutality
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death
  • Animal abuse (cat)

The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill

When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother’s doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer? What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted paedophilia & child sexual assault recounted
  • Attempted sexual assault by a teacher recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder & attempted murder by gun & knife violence
  • Police violence (shooting)

Context : The protagonist was nearly assaulted by a paedophile when she was 10 years old, but her brother stabbed her attacker and saved her.

Saha by Cho Nam-Joo

In a country called ‘Town’, Su is found dead in an abandoned car. The suspected killer is presumed to come from the Saha Estates. Town is a privatised country, controlled by a secretive organisation known as the Seven Premiers. It is a society clearly divided into the haves and have-nots and those who have the very least live on the Saha Estates. Among their number is Jin-Kyung, a young woman whose brother, Dok-yung, was in a relationship with Su and quickly becomes the police’s prime suspect. When Dok-yung disappears, Jin Ky-ung is determined to get to the bottom of things.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & classism
  • Sexual assault
  • Pregnancy & abortion
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Unethical human experimentation & medical procedures (on-page)
  • Gun violence
  • Police brutality
  • Animal cruelty

Blended by Sharon M. Draper

“You’re so exotic!” “You look so unusual.” “But what are you really?” Eleven-year-old Isabella is used to these kinds of comments – her father is black, her mother is white – but that doesn’t mean she likes them. And now that her parents are divorced (and getting along WORSE than ever), Isabella feels more like a push-me-pull-me toy. One week she’s Isabella with her dad, his girlfriend Anastasia, and her son Darren living in a fancy house where they are one of the only black families in the neighbourhood. The next week she’s Izzy with her mom and her boyfriend John-Mark in a…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism and colourism discussed
  • Racial microaggressions (on-page)
  • Hate crime
  • Parental divorce (theme)
  • Panic attack & trauma (secondary character)
  • Lynching discussed
  • Police brutality & violence
  • Hospitalisation for a gunshot wound with minor blood & injury depiction
  • Minor bullying

Context : The protagonist’s best friend finds a noose in her school locker. It’s implied a white student put it there after their class learned about historical lynching. Later, she has a panic attack when a noose appears on the TV during a sleepover. The protagonist’s teenage step-brother is pulled over by the police and tackled to the ground by three officers. They suspect him of robbing a bank and question him. They force the protagonist, an 11-year-old Black girl, out of his car. A female officer shoots her when she reaches into her pocket to call their parents.

Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian

2019. Moud is an out gay teen living in Los Angeles with his distant father, Saeed. When Moud gets the news that his grandfather in Iran is dying, he accompanies his dad to Tehran, where the revelation of family secrets will force Moud into a new understanding of his history, his culture, and himself. 1978. Saeed is an engineering student with a promising future ahead of him in Tehran. But when his parents discover his involvement in the country’s burgeoning revolution, they send him to safety in America, a country Saeed despises. And even worse—he’s forced to live with the American grandmother he never knew existed… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Racism & colourism
  • Suicide (off-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a grandfather from cancer
  • Police brutality & abuse of force*

*Context: The military uses force and gun violence against unarmed protestors.