Tag Archives: Queerphobia

This Pact Is Not Ours by Zachary Sergi

The summer before college Luca Piccone returns to Copper Cove, the idyllic campsite he and his closest friends have visited every year since they were kids. To Luca, Copper Cove is like the setting of the fantasy movies he loves, a sanctuary, protected from the dangers of the outside world, where nothing goes wrong and everything stays the same. But this year things are changing. Desperate to make this summer the best one yet, Luca tries to ignore the freshly torn rifts within his tight friend group, the pangs of unrequited love, the anxiety attacks he thought he’d left back at school, and the shadows at the edge of the forest… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Forced outing, recounted & off-page
  • Panic attacks
  • Suicide
  • Murder
  • Fire

VenCo by Cherie Dimaline

Lucky St. James, a Métis millennial living with her cantankerous but loving grandmother Stella, is barely hanging on when she discovers she will be evicted from their tiny Toronto apartment. Then, one night, something strange and irresistible calls out to Lucky. Burrowing through a wall, she finds a silver spoon etched with a crooked-nosed witch and the word SALEM, humming with otherworldly energy. Hundreds of miles away in Salem, Myrna Good has been looking for Lucky. Myrna works for VenCo, a front company fueled by vast resources of dark money.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia & deadnaming
  • Coming out scene
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Dementia
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Smoking
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Home invasion

Home Plate by Christina Lee

My final baseball season with the Easton U Pirates feels bittersweet. I’d like to go out on a high note, graduate, and focus on the family business. But a certain pitcher is making senior year a challenge. Not only because Maclain is stubborn as hell, but because he makes me feel things I never have about another guy. With each snarky comment and hard-won grin, he reveals a little more of himself, and before I know it, I’m in over my head. I’ll be graduating college this year, which also means the end of baseball, a sport I’ve played my entire life. It feels like a significant chapter is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalised homomisia
  • Death of a parent from cancer, off-page

Horseman by Christina Henry

Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows about the Horseman, but no one really believes in him. Not even Ben Van Brunt’s grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. Brom says that’s just legend, the village gossips talking. Twenty years after those storied events, the village is a quiet place. Fourteen-year-old Ben loves to play “Sleepy Hollow boys,” reenacting the events Brom once lived through. But then Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the woods near the village, and the sinister discovery makes Ben question everything the adult… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia & misgendering
  • Attempted rape
  • Domestic abuse mentioned
  • Kidnapping

Master Class by Christina Dalcher

Every child’s potential is regularly determined by a standardized measurement: their quotient (Q). Score high enough, and attend a top tier school with a golden future. Score too low, and it’s off to a federal boarding school with limited prospects afterwards. The purpose? An improved society where education costs drop, teachers focus on the more promising students, and parents are happy. Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state’s elite schools. When her nine-year-old daughter bombs a monthly test and her Q score drops to a disastrously low level, she is immedia… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Homomisia
  • Ableism
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Abortion
  • Eugenices
  • The Holocaust mentioned
  • Bullying

Femlandia by Christina Dalcher

Miranda Reynolds always thought she would rather die than live in Femlandia. But that was before the country sank into total economic collapse and her husband walked out in the harshest, most permanent way, leaving her and her sixteen-year-old daughter with nothing. The streets are full of looting, robbing, and killing, and Miranda and Emma no longer have much choice—either starve and risk getting murdered, or find safety. And so they set off to Femlandia, the women-only colony Miranda’s mother, Win Somers, established decades ago. Although Win is no longer in the spotlight, her protégé Jen Jones has taken Femland… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia
  • Misogyny & misandry (theme)
  • Suicide
  • Pregnancy
  • Death of a mother

Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

Clay: Marymount girls are good girls. We’re chaste, we’re untouched, and even if we weren’t, no one would know, because we keep our mouths shut. Not that I have anything to share anyway. I never let guys go too far. I’m behaved. Beautiful, smart, talented, popular, my skirt’s always pressed, and I never have a hair out of place. I own the hallways, walking tall on Monday and dropping to my knees like the good Catholic girl I am on Sunday. That’s me. Always in control. Or so they think. The truth is that it’s easy for me to resist them, because what I truly want, they can never be. Something soft and smooth. Someone dangerous and wild…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalized homomisia
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Intimate partner violence mentioned
  • Revenge porn*
  • Staff-student relationship*
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother from suicide recounted
  • Death of a father from a heart attack recounted
  • Death of a brother from leukaemia
  • Bullying

*Context : The protagonist filmed a secondary character during a sexual experience and uploaded the video to the internet. A school employee has a ‘consensual ‘ sexual relationship with an underage student.

At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson

Tommy and Ozzie have been best friends since the second grade, and boyfriends since eighth. They spent countless days dreaming of escaping their small town—and then Tommy vanished. More accurately, he ceased to exist, erased from the minds and memories of everyone who knew him. Everyone except Ozzie. Ozzie doesn’t know how to navigate life without Tommy, and soon he suspects that something else is going on: that the universe is shrinking. When Ozzie is paired up with the reclusive and secretive Calvin for a physics project, it’s hard for him to deny the feelings developing between them, even if he still loves… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Child abuse
  • Statutory rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Self-harm
  • Depression
  • Explosion
  • Plane crash

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn’t sure he wants to. After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & slurs
  • Outing
  • Sexual assault & attempted rape
  • Alcoholism
  • Grandparent with Alzheimer’s Disease
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Miscarriage
  • Nonconsensual medical procedures and experimentation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a boyfriend from suicide recounted
  • Bullying & cyberbullying

The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary

Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend’s wedding in the north of Scotland. The playlist is all planned and the snacks are packed. But, not long after setting off, a car slams into the back of theirs. The driver is none other than Addie’s ex, Dylan, who she’s avoided since their traumatic break-up two years earlier. Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, and they’ve totalled their car, so Addie has no choice but to offer them a ride. The car is soon jam-packed full of luggage and secrets, and with three hundred miles ahead of them… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Sexual assault
  • Emotional parental abuse
  • Depression
  • Alcohol & drug abuse
  • Minor physical injury (sprained wrist)
  • Emesis
  • Car accident
  • Stalking