Racism – Page 103 – Trigger Warning Database

The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When a recent arrival from Virginia tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial slurs
White supremacy & the Klu Klux Klan
Slavery
Rape & sexual assault
Paedophilia
Domestic violence
PTSD
Suicide & attempted suicide
Sterilization
Murder
Lynching
Whipping

Going Off Script by Jen Wilde

Going Off Script by Jen Wilde

Seventeen-year-old Bex is thrilled when she gets an internship on her favorite tv show, Silver Falls. Unfortunately, the internship isn’t quite what she expected… instead of sitting in a crowded writer’s room volleying ideas back and forth, Production Interns are stuck picking up the coffee.

Determined to prove her worth as a writer, Bex drafts her own script and shares it with the head writer―who promptly reworks it and passes it off as his own! Bex is understandably furious, yet…maybe this is just how the industry works? But when they rewrite her proudly lesbian character as straight, that’s the last straw! It’s time for Bex and her crush to fight back.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
Misogyny
Classism
Lesbomisia
Homomisia
Misgendering recounted
Coming out themes
Parental abandonment mentioned
Anxiety
Alcohol consumption
Emesis
Bullying
Poverty themes

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona

Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City — until she’s suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the new Ms. Marvel? Teenager? Muslim? Inhuman? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm! When Kamala discovers the dangers of her newfound powers, she unlocks a secret behind them, as well. Is Kamala ready to wield these immense new gifts? Or will the weight of the legacy before her be too much to bear? Kamala has no idea, either. But she’s comin’ for you, Jersey!

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
Islamophobia
Alcohol consumption
Gun violence
Near-drowning incident
Bullying

The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters

The Steep & Thorny Way by Cat Winters

A thrilling reimagining of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, The Steep and Thorny Way tells the story of a murder most foul and the mighty power of love in a state gone terribly rotten.

1920s Oregon is not a welcoming place for Hanalee Denney, the daughter of a white woman and an African American man. She has almost no rights by law, and the Ku Klux Klan breeds fear and hatred in even Hanalee’s oldest friendships. Plus, her father, Hank, died a year ago, hit by a drunk-driving teenager. Now the killer is out of jail and back in town, and he’s claiming that Hanalee’s father’s death wasn’t an accident at all. Instead, he says that Hank was poisoned by the doctor who looked after him—who just so happens to be Hanalee’s new stepfather.

In order to get the answers she needs, Hanalee will have to ask a “haint” wandering the roads at night—her father himself.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
White supremacy & the Klu Klux Klan (KKK)
Homomisia
Death of a parent recounted
Lynchings
Car accident

Dear Justyce by Nic Stone

Dear Justyce by Nic Stone

Shortly after teenager Quan enters a not guilty plea for the shooting death of a police officer, he is placed in a holding cell to await trial. Through a series of flashbacks and letters to Justyce, the protagonist of Dear Martin, Quan’s story unravels. From a troubled childhood and bad timing to a coerced confession and prejudiced police work, Nic Stone’s newest novel takes an unflinching look at the flawed practices and ideologies that discriminate against African American boys and minorities in the American justice system.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism (theme)
Domestic violence
Child abuse
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Anxiety & panic attacks
Nightmares
Sibling with cancer (leukemia) mentioned
Food scarcity
Police brutality & racial profiling
Murder
Gun violence
Poverty themes
Incarceration (theme)

The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan

The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan

Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali tries her hardest to live up to her conservative Muslim parents’ expectations, but lately she’s finding that harder and harder to do. She rolls her eyes instead of screaming when they blatantly favor her brother and she dresses conservatively at home, saving her crop tops and makeup for parties her parents don’t know about. Luckily, only a few more months stand between her carefully monitored life in Seattle and her new life at Caltech, where she can pursue her dream of becoming an engineer.

But when her parents catch her kissing her girlfriend Ariana, all of Rukhsana’s plans fall apart. Her parents are devastated; being gay may as well be a death sentence in the Bengali community. They immediately whisk Rukhsana off to Bangladesh, where she is thrown headfirst into a world of arranged marriages and tradition. Only through reading her grandmother’s old diary is Rukhsana able to gain some much needed perspective.

Rukhsana realizes she must find the courage to fight for her love, but can she do so without losing everyone and everything in her life?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Racism
Colourism
Conversion therapy
Islamophobia
Rape
Sexual assault
Domestic abuse
Verbal abuse, towards queer characters
Physical abuse, towards queer characters

First in Line by Annabeth Albert

First in Line by Annabeth Albert

Ethaniel’s first few days at college are challenging and are complicated by a sudden attraction to Nesto. Will he find the courage to be his true self?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Coming out themes
Homomisia
Conversion therapy, mentioned
Racist language
Miscarriage, mentioned

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Nobody said being the daughter of an army general was easy. But when her dad sends a teenage subordinate to babysit her while he’s away… That’s taking it a step too far. Cade, as beautiful as he is deadly, watches Kori with more than just interest. He looks at her like he knows her very soul. And when he saves her from a seemingly random attack, well, that’s when things get weird. Turns out, Kori’s dad isn’t just an army general—he’s the head of a secret government project that has invented a way to travel between parallel dimensions. Dimensions where there are infinite Koris, infinite… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Fatphobia, racist slur & ableist language
Paedophilia, sexual assault & threats of rape
Child sex trafficking
Child abuse recounted
Alcoholism
Panic attacks recounted & nightmares
Alcohol consumption & abuse
Blood, gore & graphic injury depiction, including terminal cancer & emesis
Minor grief depiction
Death of a mother, brother & cousin
Murder & attempted murder
Torture
Gun violence
Physical assault
Kidnapping & captivity
Animal murder & torture recounted and death of a pet

The Dead Queens Club by Hannah Capin

The Dead Queens Club by Hannah Capin

What do a future ambassador, an overly ambitious Francophile, a hospital-volunteering Girl Scout, the new girl from Cleveland, the junior cheer captain, and the vice president of the debate club have in common? It sounds like the ridiculously long lead-up to an astoundingly absurd punchline, right? Except it’s not. Well, unless my life is the joke, which is kind of starting to look like a possibility given how beyond soap opera it’s been since I moved to Lancaster. But anyway, here’s your answer: we’ve all had the questionable privilege of going out with Lancaster High School’s de facto king. Otherwise known as my best friend. Otherwise known as the reason I’ve already helped steal a car, a jet ski, and one hundred spray-painted water bottles when it’s not even Christmas break yet. Otherwise known as Henry. Jersey number 8.

Meet Cleves. Girlfriend number four and the narrator of The Dead Queens Club, a young adult retelling of Henry VIII and his six wives. Cleves is the only girlfriend to come out of her relationship with Henry unscathed—but most breakups are messy, right? And sometimes tragic accidents happen…twice…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
Misogyny and sexism
Ableism
Slut-shaming
Victim blaming
Body shaming
Sexual assault, recounted
Revenge pornography
Cheating
Gaslighting
Abusive relationship/s
Alcohol consumption
Death of a mother, mentioned
Murder
Gun violence
Building collapse
Fire
Stalking

The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners by Libba Bray

SOMETHING DARK AND EVIL HAS AWAKENED… Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie worries her uncle will discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer. As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho is hiding a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Racism
White supremacy, including the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
Slut-shaming
Rape
Domestic violence
Child abuse
Assisted suicide of a disabled character
Alcohol consumption
Drug use
Abortion
Blood and gore depiction
Medical treatment
Death of a sibling
Death of a parent
Murder
Cults
Animal cruelty
Animal sacrifice