In the Role of Brie Hutchens by Nicole Melleby

In the Role of Brie Hutchens… by Nicole Melleby

Introducing Brie Hutchens: soap opera super fan, aspiring actor, and so-so student at her small Catholic school. Brie has big plans for eighth grade. She’s going to be the star of the school play and convince her parents to let her go to the performing arts high school. But when Brie’s mom walks in on her accidentally looking at some possibly inappropriate photos of her favorite actress, Brie panics and blurts out that she’s been chosen to crown the Mary statue during her school’s May Crowning ceremony. Brie’s mom is distracted with pride—but Brie’s in big trouble: she has not been chosen. Worse, Brie has almost no chance to get the job, which always goes to a top student.

Desperate to make her lie become truth, Brie turns to Kennedy, the girl everyone expects to crown Mary. But sometimes just looking at Kennedy gives Brie butterflies. Juggling her confusing feelings with the rapidly approaching May Crowning, not to mention her hilarious non-star turn in the school play, Brie navigates truth and lies, expectations and identity, and how to—finally—make her mother really see her as she is. 

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Queermisia
  • Coming out themes
  • Car accident (minor)

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.

But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia & internalised homomisia
  • Self-immolation & self-mutilation
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Forced drug use
  • Addiction & withdrawl
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Execution by immolation
  • Torture
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The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff

The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff

1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents amid the horrors of the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers.

Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living a life of relative ease with her stepmother, who has developed close alliances with the occupying Germans. Scorned by her friends and longing for her fiancé, who has gone off to war, Ella wanders Kraków restlessly. While on an errand in the market, she catches a glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl hiding… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism
  • Homomisia
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Pregnancy
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Chronic illness
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Drowning
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From Little Tokyo, with Love by Sarah Kuhn

From Little Tokyo, with Love by Sarah Kuhn

If Rika’s life seems like the beginning of a familiar fairy tale–being an orphan with two bossy cousins and working away in her aunts’ business–she would be the first to reject that foolish notion. After all, she loves her family (even if her cousins were named after Disney characters), and with her biracial background, amazing judo skills and red-hot temper, she doesn’t quite fit the princess mold.

All that changes the instant she locks eyes with Grace Kimura, America’s reigning rom-com sweetheart, during the Nikkei Week Festival. From there, Rika embarks on a madcap adventure of hope and happiness–searching for clues about her long-lost mother, exploring Little Tokyo’s hidden treasures with a cute actor, and maybe…finally finding a sense of belonging… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Homomisia
  • Panic attack
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Providence by Caroline Kepnes

Providence by Caroline Kepnes

rowing up as best friends in small-town New Hampshire, Jon and Chloe are the only ones who truly understand each other, though they can never find the words to tell one another the depth of their feelings. When Jon is finally ready to confess his feelings, he’s suddenly kidnapped by his substitute teacher who is obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft and has a plot to save humanity.

Mourning the disappearance of Jon and facing the reality he may never return, Chloe tries to navigate the rites of entering young adulthood and “fit in” with the popular crowd, but thoughts of Jon are never far away… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language (r slur)
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Intimate partner abuse
  • Medical experimentation
  • Comas
  • Cancer
  • Heart attack
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Kidnapping
  • Human trafficking mentioned
  • Animal death
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V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd

Set in an imagined future England that has given itself over to fascism, this groundbreaking story captures both the suffocating nature of life in an authoritarian police state and the redemptive power of the human spirit which rebels against it.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Antisemitism
  • Paedophilia
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Domestic violence & abuse
  • Recreational drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Medical experimentation
  • Dead bodies
  • Dismemberment
  • Torture
  • Imprisonment
  • Concentration camps
  • Riots
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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.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia
  • Misgendering
  • Physical & verbal parental abuse
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Graphic surgery & field surgery
  • Poverty themes
  • Homelessness
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Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall

Rosaline Palmer has always lived by the rules—well, except for when she dropped out of college to raise her daughter, Amelie. Now, she’s teetering on the edge of financial disaster. But where there’s a whisk there’s a way . . . and Rosaline has just landed a spot on the nation’s most beloved baking show.

Winning the prize money would give her daughter the life she deserves. However, more than collapsing trifles stand between Rosaline and sweet, sweet victory.  Suave Alain Pope knows all the right moves to sweep her off her feet, but it’s shy electrician Harry Dobson who makes Rosaline question her long-held beliefs—about herself, her family, and her desires. Rosaline fears falling for Harry is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Bimisia
  • Classism
  • Anxiety
  • Attempted sexual assault
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Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins

Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins

Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins book cover

What would you do if you had to spend the next 15 days with your lifelong crush?

Felipe gets it — he’s fat. Not chubby. Not big-boned. Fat. And he doesn’t need anyone to remind him, which is, of course, what everyone does. That’s why he’s been waiting for this moment ever since the school year began: school break. Finally, he’ll be able to spend some time far away from school and the classmates who tease him incessantly. His plans include catching up on his favorite TV shows, finishing his to-be-read pile, and watching YouTube tutorials on skills he’ll never actually put into practice.

But things get a little out of hand when Felipe’s mom informs him that Caio, the neighbor kid from apartment 57, will be spending the next 15 days with them while his parents are on vacation. Felipe is distraught because A) he’s had a crush on Caio since, well, forever, and B) Felipe has a list of body image insecurities and absolutely NO idea how he’s going to entertain his neighbor for two full weeks.

Suddenly, the days ahead of him that once promised rest and relaxation (not to mention some epic Netflix bingeing) end up bringing a whirlwind of feelings, forcing Felipe to dive head-first into every unresolved issue he has had with himself — but maybe, just maybe, he’ll manage to win over Caio, too.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Body shaming
  • Fatmisia
  • Homomisia and homomisic language
  • Bullying
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The Ship We Built by Lexie Bean

The Ship We Built by Lexie Bean

The Ship We Built by Lexie Bean book cover

“Sometimes I have trouble filling out tests when the name part feels like a test too. . . . When I write letters, I love that you have to read all of my thoughts and stories before I say any name at all. You have to make it to the very end to know.”

Rowan has too many secrets to write down in the pages of a diary. And if he did, he wouldn’t want anyone he knows to discover them. He understands who he is and what he likes, but it’s not safe for others to know. Now, the kids at school say he’s too different to spend time with. He’s not the “right kind” of girl, and he’s not the “right kind” of boy. His mom ignores him. And at night, his dad hurts him in ways he’s not ready to talk about yet.

But Rowan discovers another way to share his secrets: letters. Letters he attaches to balloons and releases into the universe, hoping someone new will read them and understand. But when he befriends a classmate who knows what it’s like to be lonely and scared, even at home, Rowan realizes that there might already be a person he can trust right by his side.

Tender and wise, The Ship We Built is about the bravery it takes to stand up for yourself–even to those you love–and the power of finding someone who treasures you for everything you are.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia and transmisic language
  • Misgendering and deadnaming
  • Paedophilia
  • Child sexual assault and grooming
  • Bullying
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