Poverty & Financial Difficulties – Page 13

Runtime by SB Divya

Runtime by S.B. Divya

The Minerva Sierra Challenge is a grueling spectacle, the cyborg’s Tour de France. Rich thrill-seekers with corporate sponsorships, extensive support teams, and top-of-the-line exoskeletal and internal augmentations pit themselves against the elements in a day-long race across the Sierra Nevada.

Marmeg Guinto doesn’t have funding, and she doesn’t have support. She cobbled her gear together from parts she found in rich people’s garbage and spent the money her mother wanted her to use for nursing school to enter the race. But the Minerva Challenge is the only chance she has at a better life for herself and her younger brothers, and she’s ready to risk it all.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Transmisia
Misgendering
Physical & verbal parental abuse
Blood & gore depiction
Physical injuries
Graphic surgery & field surgery
Poverty themes
Homelessness

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Becoming by Michelle Obama

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
Terminal cancer
Death of a parent
Death of a friend
Gun violence & mass shootings discussed
War themes mentioned
Poverty themes

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she’s afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she’s not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol’s cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can’t prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Classism
Forced sex work
Child abuse
Substance addiction
Trauma & nightmares
Alcohol consumption & abuse
Blood & gore depiction
Graphic physical injuries, including burns
Needles
Starvation & dehydration
Emesis (off-page)
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a child recounted
Death of a father & husband recounted
Death of a friend (on-page)
Murder & attempted murder
Knife violence and stabbing
Gun violence
Explosions
Drowning
Whipping mentioned
Blackmail
War & rebellion themes, including riots
Animal death
Hunting
Poverty themes

Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria

Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria

In the city of Eldra, people are ruled by ancient prophecies. For centuries, the high council has stayed in power by virtue of the prophecies of the elder seers. After the last infallible prophecy came to pass, growing unrest led to murders and an eventual rebellion that raged for more than a decade.

In the present day, Cassa, the orphaned daughter of rebels, is determined to fight back against the high council, which governs Eldra from behind the walls of the citadel. Her only allies are no-nonsense Alys, easygoing Evander, and perpetually underestimated Newt, and Cassa struggles to come to terms with the legacy of rebellion her dead parents have left her — and the fear that she may be inadequate to shoulder the burden. But by the time Cassa and her friends uncover the mystery of the final infallible prophecy, it may be too late to save the city — or themselves.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Physical & emotional child abuse
Anxiety & panic attacks
Memory loss
Suicide (on-page)
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother & father recounted
Death of a friend
Physical injuries depiction
Medical experimentation
Murder & attempted murder
Gun violence
Knife violence & stabbing
Fire recounted
Blackmail
Poisoning
Poverty themes

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