Tag Archives: Poverty & Financial Difficulties

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of poverty and financial difficulties, including eviction.

See also Food/water scarcity, Displacement, and Gentrification.

A Family Matter by Claire Lynch

Dawn is a young mother, still adjusting to life with her husband, when Hazel lights up her world like a torch in the dark. Theirs is the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly life is more complicated, and more joyful, than Dawn ever expected. But she has responsibilities and commitments. She has a daughter. Heron has just received news from his doctor that turns everything upside down. He’s an older man, stuck in the habits of a quiet existence. Telling Maggie, his only child—the person around whom his life has revolved—seems impossible. Heron… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia, resulting in loss of custody
  • Parental abandonment discussed
  • Cancer discussed

Scandal of the Summer by Alexandra Vasti

Eccentric heiress Lady Ruby Ballimore has had enough of the Marriage Mart. After offending yet another Very Important Marquess―and imperiling her father’s diplomatic career―Ruby flees London for the holiday house of a glamorous (and better yet, absent) princess. Armed with a forged invitation and accompanied by her like-minded friends, Ruby arrives at the Cornwall estate expecting a summer of blissful freedom. Instead, she discovers a derelict mansion and the most suspiciously charming man she’s ever met. Former privateer and current con artist Captain Malcolm Archer… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Attempted murder & kidnapping
  • Financial difficulties

Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti

Celebrated authoress Lady Georgiana Cleeve has achieved fame and fortune. Unfortunately, she’s also acquired an enemy: the enigmatic Lady Darling, whose spine-tingling plots appear to be pulled straight from Georgiana’s own manuscripts. What’s a stubborn, steely writer to do? Unmask her rival, of course. But unmasking doesn’t go according to plan—because Lady Darling is actually Cat Lacey, the butler’s daughter and object of Georgiana’s very secret, very embarrassing teenage infatuation. Cat Lacey has spent a decade clawing her family our of poverty. The last… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia & classism
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Domestic violence recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Financial difficulties & food insecurity discussed

Our Ex’s Wedding by Taleen Voskuni

Ani Avakian was supposed to be the Bay Area’s premier Armenian wedding planner by now. But after a huge blow to her business, she’s determined to redeem herself by taking on the biggest job of her career: a wedding for an indie movie star. The wedding is set at a stunning Armenian-owned winery, and Ani is eager to connect with the owner, who she’ll be working closely with. But then she actually meets him. Sure, Raffi is ridiculously hot and charming, but he’s also insufferably smug. Though the real gut punch comes when Ani meets the happy couple—because the act… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Financial difficulties discussed (credit card debt)

The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly

When twelve-year-old Michael Rosario meets a mysterious boy from the future, his life is changed forever. It’s August 1999. For twelve-year-old Michael Rosario, life at Fox Run Apartments in Red Knot, Delaware, is as ordinary as ever—except for the looming Y2K crisis and his overwhelming crush on his fifteen-year-old babysitter, Gibby. But when a disoriented teenage boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, Michael discovers there is more to life than stockpiling supplies and pining over Gibby. It turns out that Ridge is carefree, confident, and cold, things… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation for illness
  • Financial difficulties
  • Bullying

Deep Secrets by Nikki Shannon Smith

Colette only wants three to prove she isn’t weak, to get a job, and to uncover the mystery surrounding her father. All her life she’s heard that he died in a factory accident, but she’s haunted by dreams of bitter cold and a sea of stars—and part of her knows it’s somehow connected to him. Colette is not to work, is not to leave the house, and is to never speak of her father. But when Colette secretly gets a job, she becomes fascinated by the stories that Walter, the store owner, tells. He was aboard the Titanic before it sank. He saw… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical racism discussed
  • Death of a father in a factory accident
  • Death of a brother in the Titanic tragedy (secondary character)
  • Poverty & financial difficulties during the Great Depression

Pour Decisions by Audrey Vaughn

When I move back to my ex’s small town, I want to avoid him at all costs. JD didn’t just break my heart ten years ago. He ran it over, then backed over it again. So naturally, I end up as his physical therapist. And to rub salt in the wound, he finds out I’m living out of my car and demands I move into his spare room. Yeah, he’s as bossy as ever. He still acts like he’s allergic to laughter. But he also pampers me after a long night out, remembers my favorite lunch…and insists on making it for me when I forget to eat. The more he grumpily dotes on me, the more I remember how good… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Divorce recounted
  • Verbal child abuse recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of drug use
  • Surgery recounted
  • Death of a grandparent mentioned
  • Eviction (on-page)

Samira Surfs by Rukhsanna Guidroz

Samira thinks of her life as before and after: before the burning and violence in Burma (now Myanmar), when she and her best friend would play in the fields, and after, when her family was forced to flee. There’s before the uncertain journey to Bangladesh by river, and after, when the river swallowed her nana and nani whole. And now, months after rebuilding a life in Bangladesh with her mama, baba, and brother, Khaled, there’s before Samira saw the surfer girls, and after, when she decides she’ll become one. With Khaled’s help… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a grandparent
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Refugee experiences
  • Poverty

The Safe Place by Anna Downes

Emily Proudman has been offered the chance of a lifetime – leave her messy London life, move to a beautiful estate in France and help her boss’s wife take care of their daughter. It seems like the perfect opportunity to start again. But once there, Emily soon starts to suspect that her charismatic new employers aren’t telling her the whole truth. That there are even dangerous secrets hidden beneath the glamorous facade. Why have the family been moved to this isolated house so far from home? Why does her boss’s daughter refuse to speak or be touched?… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Foster care experiences mentioned
  • Child abuse, including one slap scene, faking a child’s chronic illness, and forcing them to live in isolation (etc.)
  • Discussions of childhood trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (c-PTSD)
  • Parent with dementia
  • Panic attacks
  • Self-harm (on-page)
  • Suicide by jumping (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse and implied drug abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a daughter recounted
  • Minor blood & injury depiction and emesis
  • Attempted murder by gun violence
  • Kidnapping and captivity of a child
  • Stalking
  • Financial difficulties discussed

Sacrifice by K.M. Shea

Rakel, once feared and exiled for possessing magic, is now hailed a hero. Leading resistance forces against the Chosen—an army of magic users that invaded her homeland—she is granted everything she has longed for: acceptance, a home, and the love of her friends. But the battle for her country has just begun. The Chosen’s powerful leader, Tenebris Malus, has come north to aid his army. His troops pillage the villages and cities they cannot hold, and Rakel’s brother—the King—refuses to rule. Most troubling of all, Rakel—who has…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abusive relationship
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Poverty
  • War themes