Tag Archives: Pregnancy

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of pregnancy.

See also Childbirth and Involuntary pregnancy for pregnancy from rape, incest or the nonconsensual manipulation of birth control methods.

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is Kingston’s disturbing and fiercely beautiful account of growing up Chinese-American in California. The young Kingston lives in two worlds: the America to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother’s “talk stories.” Her mother tells her traditional tales of strong, wily women warriors – tales that clash puzzlingly with the real oppression of women. Kingston learns to fill in the mystifying spaces in her mother’s stories with stories of her own, engaging her family’s past and her own present with anger, imagination, and dazzling passion.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Cheating
  • Suicide by drowning
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking
  • Pregnancy
  • Murder
  • Sword violence
  • Animal death

Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

Achilles has fled her home and her vicious Myrmidon clan to live as a woman with the kallai, the transgender priestesses of Great Mother Aphrodite. When Odysseus comes to recruit the “prince” Achilles for a war against the Hittites, she prepares to die rather than fight as a man. However, her divine mother, Athena, intervenes, transforming her body into the woman’s body she always longed for, and promises her everything: glory, power, fame, victory in war, and, most importantly, a child born of her own body. Reunited with her beloved cousin, Patroklos, and his brilliant wife, the sorceress Meryapi, Achilles sets out to war with a… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Homophobia
  • Transphobia, deadnaming & misgendering
  • Rape mentioned
  • Infidelity
  • Self-sacrifice
  • Pregnancy & childbirth
  • Blood depiction & blood-drinking
  • Ritualistic cannibalism
  • Murder
  • Immolation
  • Drowning
  • Physical assault
  • Animal sacrifice

The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams

It’s 1995, and fourteen-year-old Tati is determined to uncover the identity of her father. But her mother, Nadia, keeps her secrets close, while her grandmother Gladys remains silent about the family’s past, including why she left Land’s End, Alabama, in 1953. As Tati digs deeper, she uncovers a legacy of family secrets, where every generation of Dupree women has posed more questions than answers. From Jubi in 1917, whose attempt to pass for white ends when she gives birth to Ruby; to Ruby’s fiery lust for Sampson in 1934 that leads to a baby of her own; to the night… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Infidelity
  • Miscarriage & unexpected pregnancy
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & intergenerational trauma (theme)

We Don’t Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry

In the wake of her grandmother’s passing, Sydney Singleton finds a hidden photograph of a little girl who looks more like Sydney than her own sister, or mother. She soon discovers the mystery girl in the photograph is her aunt, Carol, who was one of six local North Carolina Black girls to go missing in the 1960s. For the last several decades, not a soul has talked about Carol or what really happened to her. With her grandmother gone and Sydney looking to start a family of her own, she is determined to unravel the truth behind her long-lost aunt and the sinister silence surround… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infertility & IVF treatments (protagonist)

Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins

Laila desperately wants to become a mother, but each of her previous pregnancies has ended in heartbreak. This time has to be different, so she turns to the Melancons, an old and powerful Harlem family known for their caul, a precious layer of skin that is the secret source of their healing power. When a deal for Laila to acquire a piece of caul falls through, she is heartbroken, but when the child is stillborn, she is overcome with grief and rage. What she doesn’t know is that a baby will soon be delivered in her family–by her niece, Amara, an ambitious college student–and delivered.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & police brutality
  • Graphic miscarriage & teen pregnancy
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Animal attack

The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie

Chaos. Fury. Destruction. The Great Change is upon us… Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry, and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds. With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & misogyny
  • Incest
  • Substance addiction & drug abuse
  • Pregnancy
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire
  • War themes
  • Animal death

Rally by Devney Perry

Pregnant. Homeless. Broke. Not what I’d expected for my senior year in college. Neither was Rush Ramsey. We met the day I went camping and got stranded on the side of a gravel road. I didn’t believe in white knights who freed damsels in distress. Life had taught me that if something bad could happen, it probably would. The only person who would save me was me. But Rush Ramsey rescued me that day. He was sweet and kind and charming. He made a dark, starry night a little less lonely. I should have realized it was too good to be true. That an incredible night of passion would… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parent with terminal illness
  • Unplanned pregnancy

Fallen Jester by Devney Perry

Leo Winter loves his life. He works when he needs money. He rides when he craves freedom. He frequents the local bar when he wants a good time. The Tin Gypsies might be a memory, but the bachelor life he lived with his motorcycle club still suits him fine. So when a one-night stand surprises him at a family barbecue and claims she’s pregnant with his child, he’s certain he’s died and gone to hell. Cassandra Cline took one night off from her structured life. One. And now her wild fling with the local bad boy has turned her life sideways. Her dreams and academic career are circling the drain, and none of it would have…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Drugging recounted
  • Kidnapping recounted
  • Pregnancy

Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry

The gods sent monsters to the five kingdoms to remind mortals they must kneel. I’ve spent my life kneeling―to their will and to my father’s. As a princess, my only duty is to wear the crown and obey the king. I was never meant to rule. Never meant to fight. And I was never supposed to be the daughter who sealed an ancient treaty with her own blood. But that changed the fateful day I stepped into my father’s throne room. The day a legendary monster hunter sailed to our shores. The day a prince ruined my life. Now I’m crossing treacherous lands beside a warrior who despises me as… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicidal ideation & mentions of suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Infertility, stillbirths & pregnancy mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction, including forced medical experimentation, hospitalisation, & dismemberment
  • Death of a partner during childbirth mentioned
  • Poisoning mentioned
  • Fire
  • Animal death

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

Nothing interferes with Shane Hollander’s game—definitely not the sexy rival he loves to hate. Pro hockey star Shane Hollander isn’t just crazy talented, he’s got a spotless reputation. Hockey is his life. Now that he’s captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, he won’t let anything jeopardize that, especially the sexy Russian whose hard body keeps him awake at night. Boston Bears captain Ilya Rozanov is everything Shane’s not. The self-proclaimed king of the ice, he’s as cocky as he is talented. No one can beat him—except Shane. They’ve made a career on their legendary rivalry… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & homophobic slurs, including discussions of anti-queer legislation & culture in Russia
  • Parent with Alzheimer’s Disease (off-page but discussed)
  • Smoking
  • Pregnancy mentioned (secondary character)
  • Hospitalisation for concussion & suspected spinal cord injury
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from suicide recounted