Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

Jude never thought she’d be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her hometown start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives.

At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud. The American movies that Jude has always loved haven’t quite prepared her for starting school in the US—and her new label of “Middle Eastern,” an identity she’s never known before. But this life also brings unexpected surprises—there are new friends, a whole new family, and a school musical that Jude might just try out for. Maybe America, too, is a place where Jude can be seen as she really is. 

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Islamophobia
  • Hate crimes
  • Pregnancy
  • Blood depiction
  • War themes
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Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel M. Moniz book cover

Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story in Milk Blood Heat delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another.

A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter—whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.

Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat forms an ouroboros of stories that bewitch with their truth.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Parental abandonment
  • Adult-minor relationship between a teacher and student
  • Paedophilia, implied
  • Parental sexual abuse, implied
  • Abortion, mentioned
  • Pregnancy
  • Terminal cancer
  • Physical assault
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Suicide
  • Strangulation
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a father
  • Death from a fall
  • Drowning
  • Graphic near-drowning
  • Robbery
  • Cannibalism, implied
  • Hanging, mentioned
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The Conductors by Nicole Glover

The Conductors by Nicole Glover

The Conductors by Nicole Glover book cover

As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Hetty Rhodes helped usher dozens of people north with her wits and magic. Now that the Civil War is over, Hetty and her husband Benjy have settled in Philadelphia, solving murders and mysteries that the white authorities won’t touch. When they find one of their friends slain in an alley, Hetty and Benjy bury the body and set off to find answers. But the secrets and intricate lies of the elites of Black Philadelphia only serve to dredge up more questions. To solve this mystery, they will have to face ugly truths all around them, including the ones about each other.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery & human trafficking
  • Racism & colourism
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Infertility, miscarriage & mentions of pregnancy
  • Physical injury, including burns & scars
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Death of a mother & father, friend, husband, sister & son
  • Disappearance of a sister
  • Torture
  • Knife violence
  • Fire
  • Kidnapping
  • Incarceration & captivity mentioned
  • Hanging/lynching (implied)

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley book cover

As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. After Daunis witnesses a shocking murder that thrusts her into a criminal investigation, she agrees to go undercover. But the deceptions—and dea… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism, misogyny & fatphobia
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Sexual harassment
  • Rape of a minor & sexual assault (on-page)
  • Cheating recounted
  • Child abuse & neglect mentioned
  • Substance addiction discussed
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide by gunshot to the head (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use & abuse (theme) with mentions of overdose
  • Teen pregnancy recounted
  • Grandparent recovering from a stroke
  • Physical injuries, including nerve damage & chronic shoulder injury
  • Hospitalisation for internalised bleeding & liver damage with mentions of surgery
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an uncle & father
  • Murder of a friend & teenager by gun violence (on-page)
  • Car accident (on- & off-page)
  • Bullying

Some Places More Than Others by Renée Watson

Some Places More Than Others by Renée Watson

All Amara wants is to visit her father’s family in Harlem. Her wish comes true when her dad decides to bring her along on a business trip. She can’t wait to finally meet her extended family and stay in the brownstone where her dad grew up. Plus, she wants to visit every landmark from the Apollo to Langston Hughes’s home.

But her family, and even the city, is not quite what Amara thought. Her dad doesn’t speak to her grandpa, and the crowded streets can be suffocating as well as inspiring. But as she learns more and more about Harlem—and her father’s history—Amara realizes how, in some ways more than others, she can connect with this other home and family.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Pregnancy
  • Miscarriage recounted
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The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir

The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir

Esther Ann Hicks—Essie—is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality television phenomenon. She’s grown up in the spotlight, both idolized and despised for her family’s fire-and-brimstone brand of faith. When Essie’s mother, Celia, discovers that Essie is pregnant, she arranges an emergency meeting with the show’s producers: Do they sneak Essie out of the country for an abortion? Do they pass the child off as Celia’s? Or do they try to arrange a marriage—and a ratings-blockbuster wedding?

Meanwhile, Essie is quietly pairing herself up with Roarke Richards, a senior at her school with a secret of his own to protect. As the newly formed couple attempt to sell their fabricated love story to the media—through exclusive interviews with an infamously conservative reporter named Liberty Bell—Essie finds she has questions of her own: What was the real reason for her older sister leaving home? Who can she trust with the truth about her family? And how much is she willing to sacrifice to win her own freedom? 

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia mentioned
  • Racism mentioned
  • Child sexual assault
  • Incest
  • Teen pregnancy
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The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers studies the rich like her own personal science experiment, and after years of observation she’s pretty sure they’re only good for one thing—spending money on useless stuff, like the porcelain dolls in her mother’s shop. So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, it only takes one glance for Caymen to figure out he’s oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and that he’s one of the first people who actually gets her, she’s smart enough to know his… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Teen pregnancy recounted
  • Disownment

Bright We Burn by Kiersten White

Bright We Burn by Kiersten White

Haunted by the sacrifices he made in Constantinople, Radu is called back to the new capital. Mehmed is building an empire, becoming the sultan his people need. But Mehmed has a secret: as emperor, he is more powerful than ever . . . and desperately lonely. Does this mean Radu can finally have more with Mehmed . . . and would he even want it?

Lada’s rule of absolute justice has created a Wallachia free of crime. But Lada won’t rest until everyone knows that her country’s borders are inviolable. Determined to send a message of defiance, she has the bodies of Mehmed’s peace envoy delivered to him, leaving Radu and Mehmed with no choice. If Lada is allowed to continue, only death will prosper. They must go to war against the girl prince.

But Mehmed knows that he loves her. He understands her. She must lose to him so he can keep her safe. Radu alone fears that they are underestimating his sister’s indomitable will. Only by destroying everything that came before–including her relationships–can Lada truly build the country she wants.

Claim the throne. Demand the crown. Rule the world.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Pregnancy & implied childbirth
  • Murder
  • War themes, including graphic battle scenes
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Nailbiter Vol. 2: Bloody Hands by Joshua Williamson & Mike Henderson

Nailbiter, Vol. 2: Bloody Hands by Joshua Williamson & Mike Henderson

Army interrogator Nicholas Finch is hot on the trail for why sixteen of the world’s worst serial killers are all from the same small town, but his path to answers is lettered with deadly intentions. There are dark forces that don’t want the secrets of Buckaroo and it’s murderous past to be revealed. And the Nailbiter himself has to deal with being thrown in the spotlight again!

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Cheating
  • Pregnancy & childbirth (secondary character)
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Hospital
  • Death of a son
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & Stabbing
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire recounted
  • Attempted drowning
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Giant Days, Vol 3 by John Allison, Lissa Treiman & Max Sarin

Giant Days, Vol 3 by John Allison, Lissa Treiman & Max Sarin

Giant Days, Vol 3 by John Allison, Lissa Trieman and Max Sarin book cover

Best friends Susan, Esther, and Daisy are rounding out their first semester at university. The girls, along with their male hall-mates Ed and McGraw, find that college is more than academics and bad microwavable meals. Add some pub-hopping, hookups, breakups, and political scandal and this might just be the most eventful first semester ever.

Collecting issues 9-12 of the critically acclaimed series, Giant Days, vol. 3 gives us another comedic slice of life from creator John Allison (Bad Machinery, Scary Go Round), and fantastic newcomer, Max Sarin.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Anxiety
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use, specifically smoking
  • Teenage pregnancy, recounted
  • Dead bodies
  • Scalpels
  • Fire
  • Bullying, specifically the spreading of rumours
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