Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people… In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance – and Papi’s secrets – the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes
  • Sexual harassment
  • Sexual assault of a minor recounted & attempted rape of a minor (on-page)
  • Sex-trafficking & coerced sex work of a minor discussed
  • Infidelity
  • Pregnancy discussed, and premature childbirth scene & resuscitation of a newborn
  • Emesis
  • Cancer mentioned (minor secondary character)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from dengue fever recounted
  • Death of a father & husband in a plane crash (of-page, theme)
  • Death of a sister mentioned
  • Stalking
  • Poverty themes

Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

American-born seventeen-year-old Maya Aziz is torn between worlds. There’s the proper one her parents expect for their good Indian daughter: attending a college close to their suburban Chicago home, and being paired off with an older Muslim boy her mom deems “suitable.” And then there is the world of her dreams: going to film school and living in New York City—and maybe (just maybe) pursuing a boy she’s known from afar since grade school, a boy who’s finally falling into her orbit at school. There’s also the real world, beyond Maya’s control. In the aftermath of a horrific crime perpetrated hundreds of miles… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & Islamophobia
  • Hate crime (physical assault)
  • Disownment
  • Suicide bombing mentioned
  • Hospitalisation for physical injuries due to physical assault
  • Bullying

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa

On the eve of Angolan independence an agoraphobic woman named Ludo bricks herself into her apartment for 30 years, living off vegetables and the pigeons she lures in with diamonds, burning her furniture and books to stay alive and writing her story on the apartment’s walls. Almost as if we’re eavesdropping, the history of Angola unfolds through the stories of those she sees from her window. As the country goes through various political upheavals from colony to socialist republic to civil war to peace and capitalism, the world outside seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of someone on a balcony, or a man fleeing his pursuers.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Agoraphobia
  • Burns
  • Rape & pregnancy from rape
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Torture mentioned
  • War themes