Poverty & Financial Difficulties – Page 12

When My Heart Joins the Thousand by AJ Steiger

When My Heart Joins the Thousand by A.J. Steiger

Alvie Fitz doesn’t fit in, and she doesn’t care. She’s spent years swallowing meds and bad advice from doctors and social workers. Adjust, adapt. Pretend to be normal. It sounds so easy. If she can make it to her eighteenth birthday without any major mishaps, she’ll be legally emancipated. Free. But if she fails, she’ll become a ward of the state and be sent back to the group home.

All she wants is to be left alone to spend time with her friend, Chance, the one-winged hawk at the zoo where she works. She can bide her time with him until her emancipation. Humans are overrated anyway… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist slurs
Homomisia & homomisic slurs
Parental abuse
Anxiety & panic attacks
Depression
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Suicide mentioned & recounted
Suicidal ideation
Alcohol consumption
Blood depiction & physical injuries
Surgery
Emesis
Hospitalisation
Cancer mentioned
Death of a parent mentioned
Police brutality
Drowning recounted
Bullying
Attempted murder of an autistic child by a parent
Poverty themes & homelessness

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Sexism (theme)
Forced servitude
Parental abandonment
Alcohol consumption mentioned
Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
Physical injuries
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother & father
Death of a friend
Animal death & dead bodies
Animal injury
Animal attack
Hunting
Poverty themes, including threat of eviction

Jackpot by Nic Stone

Jackpot by Nic Stone

Meet Rico: high school senior and afternoon-shift cashier at the Gas ‘n’ Go, who after school and work races home to take care of her younger brother. Every. Single. Day. When Rico sells a jackpot-winning lotto ticket, she thinks maybe her luck will finally change, but only if she–with some assistance from her popular and wildly rich classmate Zan–can find the ticket holder who hasn’t claimed the prize. But what happens when have and have-nots collide? Will this investigative duo unite…or divide?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial profiling
Alcoholism mentioned
Panic attacks mentioned
Hospitalisation of a family members
Financial struggles & poverty themes

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

The emperor’s reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire’s many islands.

Lin is the emperor’s daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.

Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright – and save her people.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Human trafficking
Physical parental abuse
Child sexual abuse mentioned
Amnesia (memory loss)
Blood & gore depiction
Body horror
Medical experimentation
Death of a child
Death of a brother
Death of a mother & father
Death of a wife
Murder & attempted murder
Physical assault
Imprisonment
Drowning
Earthquakes
Disappearance of a loved one
Child homelessness & poverty recounted
Rebellion themes & regicide
Animal attack
Animal injury & illness
Animal abuse

The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly by Jamie Pacton

The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly by Jamie Pacton

Working as a wench ― i.e. waitress ― at a cheesy medieval-themed restaurant in the Chicago suburbs, Kit Sweetly dreams of being a knight like her brother. She has the moves, is capable on a horse, and desperately needs the raise that comes with knighthood, so she can help her mom pay the mortgage and hold a spot at her dream college.

Company policy allows only guys to be knights. So when Kit takes her brother’s place and reveals her identity at the end of the show, she rockets into internet fame and a whole lot of trouble with the management. But the Girl Knight won’t go down without a fight. As other wenches join her quest, a protest forms. In a joust before Castle executives, they’ll prove that gender restrictions should stay medieval―if they don’t get fired first.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Emotional abuse
Alcohol consumption
Drug abuse
Poverty themes

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Fifteen-year-old Aki Simon has a theory. Aki already knows she’s bisexual—even if, until now, it’s mostly been in the hypothetical sense. Aki has dated only guys so far, and her best friend, Lori, is the only person who knows she likes girls, too.

Actually, Aki’s theory is that she’s got only one shot at living an interesting life—and that means it’s time for her to actually do something. So when Aki and Lori set off on a church youth-group trip to a small Mexican town for the summer and Aki meets Christa it seems her theory is prime for the testing.

But it’s not going to be easy. For one thing, how exactly do two girls have sex, anyway? And more important, how can you tell if you’re in love?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Racism
Lesbomisia
Bimisia
Poverty themes
Death of a relative in combat

Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie

Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie

Bone Criers have a sacred duty. They alone can keep the dead from preying on the living. But their power to ferry the spirits of the dead into goddess Elara’s Night Heavens or Tyrus’s Underworld comes from sacrifice. The gods demand a promise of dedication. And that promise comes at the cost of the Bone Criers’ one true love.

Ailesse has been prepared since birth to become the matriarch of the Bone Criers, a mysterious famille of women who use strengths drawn from animal bones to ferry dead souls. But first she must complete her rite of passage and kill the boy she’s also destined to love.

Bastien’s father was slain by a Bone Crier and he’s been seeking revenge ever since. Yet when he finally captures one, his vengeance will have to wait. Ailesse’s ritual has begun and now their fates are entwined—in life and in death.

Sabine has never had the stomach for the Bone Criers’ work. But when her best friend Ailesse is taken captive, Sabine will do whatever it takes to save her, even if it means defying their traditions—and their matriarch—to break the bond between Ailesse and Bastien. Before they all die.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child abandonment
Pregnancy discussed
Blood and gore depiction
Dead bodies
Grief depiction
Death themes
Death of a father, on-page
Death of a mother, on-page
Murder
Attempted murder
Knife violence
Torture
Strangulation
Kidnapping
Captivty
Near-drowning incident
Graphic animal death
Graphic animal dead bodies and dismemberment
Hunting
Poverty themes
Child homelessness

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

The Mermaid, the Witch & the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, as the pirates prepare to sell their unsuspecting passengers into slavery, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is en route to a dreaded arranged marriage with her own casket in tow. Flora doesn’t expect to be taken under Evelyn’s wing, and Evelyn doesn’t expect to find such a deep bond with the pirate Florian.

Soon the unlikely pair set in motion a wild escape that will free a captured mermaid (coveted for her blood, which causes men to have visions and lose memories) and involve the mysterious Pirate Supreme, an opportunistic witch, and the all-encompassing Sea itself.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Slavery & human trafficking
Misogyny
Rape & sexual assault mentioned
Child abuse & neglect
Forced arranged marriage
Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
Starvation
Blood depiction & physical injury
Emesis
Murder
Graphic torture (on-page)
Whipping
Hanging mentioned
Imprisonment
Poverty themes
Homelessness
War & colonialism themes
Animal abuse & death

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person—but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money.

Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the centre of it.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Sex work discussed
Child abuse recounted
Disownment & familial estrangement
Cheating
Anxiety & panic attacks
PTSD
Alcohol consumption
Alcohol abuse recounted
Dubious consent to medication
Teen pregnancy
Miscarriage & abortion mentioned
Infertility mentioned
Emesis
Hospital
Minor blood & gore depiction and physical injuries
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother & father
Death of a grandmother
Death of a sister
Murder & attempted murder
Strangulation
Car accident
Disappearance of a loved one
Blackmail
Captivity recounted
Poverty themes & eviction

What Momma Left Me by Renée Watson

What Momma Left Me by Renée Watson

How is it that unsavory raw ingredients come together to form a delicious cake? What is it about life that when you take all the hard stuff and rough stuff and add in a lot of love, you still just might have a wonderful life?

For Serenity, these questions rise up early when her father kills her mother, and leaves her and her brother Danny to live with their kind but strict grandparents. Despite the difficulties of a new school, a new church, and a new neighborhood, Serenity gains strength from the family around her, the new friends she finds, and her own careful optimism.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Domestic violence
Sexual assault mentioned
Suicide mentioned
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother recounted
Gun violence
Poverty themes