Tag Archives: Racism

This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan

Soledad Barnes has her life all planned out. Because, of course, she does. She plans everything. She designs everything. She fixes everything. She’s a domestic goddess who’s never met a party she couldn’t host or a charge she couldn’t lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrette for that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goes poof in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion. But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abeism
  • Racism & colourism
  • Infidelity mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Secondary character with cancer
  • Hospitalisation of a son for a seizure & concussion
  • Death of a parent from cervical cancer recounted (off-page)
  • Incarceration of a spouse for embezzlement

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity, and he dreams of the day he’ll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania. But when Alter’s best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World’s Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov’s dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit, and thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past. A boy who means more to Alter than… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Antisemitism
  • Hate crime
  • Rape & paedophilia recounted
  • Sexual assault
  • Nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction and body horror
  • Hospitalisation & emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Drowning & consensual near-drowning
  • Fire & immolation

Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa

In a twenty-four-hour span, Rafael Alvarez led North Amistad High School’s Mariachi Alma de la Frontera to their eleventh consecutive first-place win in the Mariachi Extravaganza de Nacional; and met, made out with, and almost hooked up with one of the cutest guys he’s ever met. Now eight months later, Rafie’s ready for one final win. What he didn’t plan for is his family moving to San Antonio before his senior year, forcing him to leave behind his group while dealing with the loss of the most important person in his life—his beloved abuelo. Another hitch in his plan: The Selena Quintanilla-Perez Academy’s Mariachi… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia & homophobia
  • Racism

Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore

New York City, 1922. Nicolás Caraveo, a 17-year-old transgender boy from Minnesota, has no interest in the city’s glamor. Going to New York is all about establishing himself as a young professional, which could set up his future—and his life as a man—and benefit his family. Nick rents a small house in West Egg from his 18-year-old cousin, Daisy Fabrega, who lives in fashionable East Egg near her wealthy fiancé, Tom—and Nick is shocked to find that his cousin now goes by Daisy Fay, has erased all signs of her Latina heritage, and now passes seamlessly as white. Nick’s neighbour in West Egg is a mysterious young man… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical racism & colourism
  • Period-typical transphobia & homophobia
  • Period-typical sexism
  • Coming out themes
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & gambling
  • Emesis
  • Gun violence
  • Boating accident
  • Mentions of soldier’s military experiences in WW2

Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian

2019. Moud is an out gay teen living in Los Angeles with his distant father, Saeed. When Moud gets the news that his grandfather in Iran is dying, he accompanies his dad to Tehran, where the revelation of family secrets will force Moud into a new understanding of his history, his culture, and himself. 1978. Saeed is an engineering student with a promising future ahead of him in Tehran. But when his parents discover his involvement in the country’s burgeoning revolution, they send him to safety in America, a country Saeed despises. And even worse—he’s forced to live with the American grandmother he never knew existed… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Racism & colourism
  • Suicide (off-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a grandfather from cancer
  • Police brutality & abuse of force*

*Context: The military uses force and gun violence against unarmed protestors.

The Things We Didn’t Know by Elba Iris Pérez

Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old when her mother whisks her and her brother, Pablo, away from Woronoco, the tiny Massachusetts factory town that is the only home they’ve known. With no plan and no money, she leaves them with family in the mountainside villages of Puerto Rico and promises to return. Months later, when Andrea and Pablo are brought back to Massachusetts, they find their hometown significantly changed. As they navigate the rifts between their family’s values and all-American culture and face the harsh realities of growing up, they must embrace both the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Racism
  • Cheating
  • Domestic violence & child abuse
  • Parental abandonment
  • Vietnam War
  • Colonisation

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang

San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace. His patronage offers… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Drug use
  • Forced institutionalisation
  • Chronic migraines
  • Death of parents mentioned
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • Earthquake (1906 San Francisco)

Dominoes by Phoebe Mcintosh

Dominoes opens in London, twenty-nine days before the wedding of a young couple. Layla is a mixed-race woman–with a Black, Jamaican mother and a white father she’s never met–and Andy is a white man of Scottish descent. When they first meet at a party, they can’t believe how instant their chemistry is, and how quickly their relationship unfolds. But the commonalities between the two outweigh their differences; funnily enough, they even share a last name: McKinnon. Layla’s best friend, Sera, isn’t so sure-about Andy, or the fact that her best frien… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & discussions of police brutality

Memory Piece by Lisa Ko

In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity. By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community acti… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Sexism
  • Cheating
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Police brutality

How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

The García sisters and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming USA., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home–and not at home–in America.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Paedophilia (one of the protagonist is lured to a car where an adult man exposes himself and masturbates in the front seat while talking to her)
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation for an eating disorder (anorexia)
  • Physical injury (broken arm)
  • Cuban Missile Crisis discussed
  • Animal hunting mentioned