Tag Archives: Police Brutality & Violence

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of police brutality, and police violence; as well as police discrimination, abuse of power, and racial profiling.

If I Were a Weapon by Skye Kilaen

When dying alien ships materialized across the Earth, their nanite infection knocked Deneve Wilder out cold. She woke up with the ability to see the future. Determined to keep anyone from using her visions for evil, she took to the road. Giving up everything was a small price to pay for freedom.

The ship that hit Jolie Betancourt’s town gave her the power to set things on fire. It was safer to start over in a new city. Then one terrible mistake demonstrated far too clearly that for her, solitude is safer. For everyone… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & attempted kidnapping
  • Building fire
  • Police & military violence
  • Car accident, off-page
  • Homelessness

Things You Won’t Say by Sarah Pekkanen

Every morning, as her husband Mike straps on his SIG Sauer and pulls on his heavy Magnum boots, Jamie Anderson tenses up. Then comes the call she has always dreaded: There’s been a shooting at police headquarters. Mike isn’t hurt, but his long-time partner is grievously injured. As weeks pass and her husband’s insomnia and disconnectedness mount, Jamie realizes he is an invisible casualty of the attack. Then the phone rings again. Another shooting but this time Mike has pulled the trigger. But the shooting does more than just alter Jamie’s world. It’s about to change everything for two other women. Christie Simmons, Mike.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity discussed
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Attempted murder of a police partner by gun violence
  • Police shooting of an unarmed latinx teen in a gang fight

An Echo in the City by K.X. Song

Sixteen-year-old Phoenix knows her parents have invested thousands of dollars to help her leave Hong Kong and get an elite Ivy League education. They think America means big status, big dreams, and big bank accounts. But Phoenix doesn’t want big; she just wants home. The trouble is, she doesn’t know where that is … until the Hong Kong protest movement unfolds, and she learns the city she’s come to love is in danger of disappearing. Seventeen-year-old Kai sees himself as an artist, not a filial son, and certainly not a cop. But when his mother dies, he’s forced to leave… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Sexual harassment
  • Police brutality

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, including slurs & cultural appropriation
  • Classism
  • Colourism
  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Islamophobia
  • Violent hate crime
  • Slavery, including child labour
  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide discussed
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Feet binding discussed
  • Plague
  • Death of mother
  • Grief depiction
  • Murder
  • Police brutality
  • Genocide
  • Gun violence
  • Torture
  • Physical assault
  • Colonization
  • War themes

The Widowmaker by Hannah Morrissey

Ever since business mogul Clive Reynolds disappeared twenty years ago, the name “Reynolds” has become synonymous with “murder” and “mystery.” And now, lured by a cryptic note, down-on-her-luck photographer Morgan Mori returns home to Black Harbor and into the web of their family secrets and double lives. The same night she photographs the Reynolds holiday get-together, Morgan becomes witness to a homicide of a cop that triggers the discovery of a long-buried clue. This could finally be the thing to crack open the chilling cold case, and Investigator Ryan Hudson… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Incest*
  • Rape of a minor*
  • Sexual assault*
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Police brutality
  • Fire

Context: The protagonist was raped by her uncle as a child. Her half-brother sexually assaults (and possibly rapes) her as well.

Invisible Son by Keri Beevis

Life can change in an instant. When you’re wrongfully accused of a crime. When a virus shuts everything down. When the girl you love moves on. Andre Jackson is determined to reclaim his identity. But returning from juvie doesn’t feel like coming home. His Portland, Oregon, neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying, and COVID-19 shuts down school before he can return. And Andre’s suspicions about his arrest for a crime he didn’t commit even taint his friendships. It’s as if his whole life has been erased. The one thing Andre is counting on is his relationship  with the Whitaker kids…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger & Content Warnings

Hate, Discrimination & Oppression
  • Racism (theme)
  • Racial slurs recounted
Sex & Sexual Violence

Abuse & Relationships

Mental Health & Suicide
  • Suicide mentioned
Alcohol & Drugs
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Smoking mentioned (cigarettes)
Pregnancy & Childbirth

Medical, Gore & Injury

Death & Loss

Violence & Crime
  • False incarceration of a minor
  • Police violence
    • The protagonist is tackled and held to the ground before his arrest.
    • The murder of George Floyd & Breonna Taylor happens off-page.
War & Genocide
  • Gentrification
Natural Disasters

Animal Death & Cruelty

Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams

Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams

As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia. Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Klu Klux Klan
  • Hate crimes mentioned
  • Child abuse
  • Forced institutionalisation mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Police violence mentioned
  • Lynching, off-page
  • Mass drowning mentioned
  • Animal sacrifice (snake)

A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée

A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée

Twelve-year-old Shayla is allergic to trouble. All she wants to do is to follow the rules. (Oh, and she’d also like to make it through seventh grade with her best friendships intact, learn to run track, and have a cute boy see past her giant forehead. But in junior high, it’s like all the rules have changed. Now she’s suddenly questioning who her best friends are and some people at school are saying she’s not black enough. Wait, what? Shay’s sister, Hana, is involved in Black Lives Matter, but Shay doesn’t think that’s for her. After experiencing a powerful protest, though, Shay decides… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial profiling
  • Cultural appropriation
  • Police brutality & violence
  • Bullying

Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor

Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor

Flare is power. With only a drop of flare, one can light the night sky with fireworks . . . or burn a building to the ground — and seventeen-year-old Ingrid Ellis wants her fair share. Ingrid doesn’t have a family fortune, monetary or magical, but at least she has a plan: Rise to the top on the arm of Linden Holt, heir to a hefty political legacy and the largest fortune of flare in all of Candesce. Her only obstacle is Linden’s father who refuses to acknowledge her. So when Senator Holt announces his run for president, Ingrid uses the situation to her advantage. She strikes a… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Classism
  • Misogyny
  • Abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction
  • Police brutality
  • Fire & immolation
  • Explosion
  • Incarcerated parent
  • Terrorism

The Attack by Catherine Jinks

The Attack by Catherine Jinks

Robyn Ayres works as the camp caretaker on Finch Island, a former leper colony off the coast of Queensland. Her current clients are a group of ex-military men who run a tough-love program for troubled teens. The latest crop looks like the usual mix of bad boys and sad boys. Then Robyn takes a second look at a kid called Darren. Last time she saw him his name was Aaron, and Robyn was his primary school teacher. And she was somehow at the centre of a vicious small-town custody battle involving his terrifying grandmother. Bruising classroom dynamics, manipulative parents and carers and horrendous small-town politics… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Lesbomisia mentioned
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Drug abuse mentioned
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Police corruption