The Vines by Shelley Nolden

In the shadows of New York City lies forbidden North Brother Island, where the remains of a shuttered hospital hide the haunting memories of century-old quarantines and human experiments. The ruins conceal the scarred and beautiful Cora, imprisoned by contagions and the doctors who torment her. When Finn, a young urban explorer, arrives on the island and glimpses an enigmatic beauty through the foliage, intrigue turns to obsession as he seeks to uncover her past—and his own family’s dark secrets. By unraveling these mysteries, will he be able to save Cora? Will Cora meet the same tragic ending as the thousands who’ve already perished on the island?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexist and racist language
  • Nazism
  • Rape
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Overdose
  • Cancer
  • Nonconsensual human & animal experimentation

This Time It’s Real by Ann Liang

When seventeen-year-old Eliza Lin’s essay about meeting the love of her life unexpectedly goes viral, her entire life changes overnight. Now she has the approval of her classmates at her new international school in Beijing, a career-launching internship opportunity at her favorite magazine…and a massive secret to keep.

Eliza made her essay up. She’s never been in a relationship before, let alone in love. All good writing is lying, right?.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Hospitalisation for physical injury recounted
  • Bullying

Seven Devils by L. R. Lam and Elizabeth May

When Eris faked her death, she thought she had left her old life as the heir to the galaxy’s most ruthless empire behind. But her recruitment by the Novantaen Resistance, an organization opposed to the empire’s voracious expansion, throws her right back into the fray.

Eris has been assigned a new mission: to infiltrate a spaceship ferrying deadly cargo and return the intelligence gathered to the Resistance. But her partner for the mission, mechanic and hotshot pilot Cloelia, bears an old grudge against Eris… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Forced sex work recounted
  • Emotional & physical abuse
  • Death of a child
  • Dismemberment & loss of limb
  • Surgery
  • Death of a parent
  • Torture mentioned
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pull apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Suicide
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of both parents in a car accident
  • Bombing
  • Workplace mass shooting
  • Bullying

Full Moon Over Freedom by Angelina M. Lopez

Gillian Armstead-Bancroft—Pride of the East Side and once-perfect bruja, wife, and mother—is going to spend her summer getting good at being bad. The first time she left Freedom, Kansas, behind, she did it by doing everything right. This time, she’ll hide from the large Mexican American family welcoming her home and work in secret to break the curse that’s erased her magical life. Only by doing it all wrong can Gillian get herself and her two children away from the ghosts of her hometown by summer’s end. Nicky Mendoza is an answer to her prayers. He was the practical solution to the problem of her virginity when they… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism and internalised racism
  • Emotional, verbal and financial intimate partner abuse, on- & off-page
  • Divorce
  • Parent with alcoholism discussed
  • Death of a relative from an overdose recounted
  • Animal attack recounted

After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez

Guapo pobrecito her grandmother calls him. The “poor handsome man.” Professor Jeremiah Post, the poor handsome man, is in fact standing in the way of Alejandra “Alex” Torres turning Loretta’s, her grandmother’s bar, into a viable business. The hot brainiac who sleeps in one of the upstairs tenant rooms already has all of her Mexican American family’s admiration; she won’t let him have the bar and building she needs to resurrect her career, too. Alex blowing into town has rocked Jeremiah to his mild-mannered core, but the large, boisterous Torres clan is everything he never had. He doesn’t believe Alex has the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Racism, on-page
  • Emotional & verbal parental abuse
  • Familial estrangement
  • Parent in recovery for alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Death of a grandfather recounted
  • Bullying recounted
  • Animal cruelty mentioned

Ace by Angela Chen

What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through the world not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about consent, about compromise, about the structures of society? This exceedingly accessible guide to asexuality shows that the issues that aces face—confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships—are conflicts that all of us need to address as we move through the world. Through interviews, cultural criticism and memoir, ACE invites all readers to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism mentioned
  • Amisia
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Rape discussed
  • Forced sterilization mentioned
  • Domestic terrorism mentioned

Anna K: A Love Story by Jenny Lee

Meet Anna K. At seventeen, she is at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society (even if she prefers the company of her horses and Newfoundland dogs); she has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W.; and she has always made her Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna’s brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather a sexting scandal; Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, is struggling to recalibrate to normal life after an injury derails her ice dancing career; and Steven’s best friend, Dustin, is madly (and one-sidedly) in love with Kimmie… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Fatmisia
  • Homomisia
  • Slut shaming
  • Cheating
  • Revenge porn
  • Depression
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self harm mentioned
  • Dieting & weight discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Overdose
  • Miscarriage & abortion mentioned
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Fatal train accident
  • Car accident
  • Animal death (horse & dog)

If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

Alice Sun has always felt invisible at her elite Beijing international boarding school, where she’s the only scholarship student among China’s most rich and influential teens. But then she starts uncontrollably turning invisible—actually invisible.

When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Hate crime mentioned
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Threats of revenge porn
  • Child abuse, off-page
  • Knife violence
  • Kidnapping

The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper

Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, DC, in an abusive family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn’t move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Child Abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Abortion
  • Cancer
  • Death of a child