Tag Archives: Racism

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of racism.

See also White supremacy, Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and Antiziganism.

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

Finally Seen by Kelly Yang

My sister got to grow up with my parents. Me? I grew up with postcards from my parents. When ten-year-old Lina Gao steps off the plane in Los Angeles, it’s her first time in America and the first time seeing her parents and her little sister in five years! She’s been waiting for this moment every day while she lived with her grandmother in Beijing, getting teased by kids at school who called her ‘left behind girl.’ Finally, her parents are ready for her to join their fabulous life in America! Except, it’s not exactly like in. School’s a lot harder than she thought. When she mispronounces some words in English on the first day, she decide… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism

Songs of Irie by Asha Shanti Bromfield

It’s 1976 and Jamaica is on fire. The country is on the eve of important elections and the warring political parties have made the divisions between the poor and the wealthy even wider. And Irie and Jilly come from very different backgrounds: Irie is from the heart of Kingston, where fighting in the streets is common. Jilly is from the hills, where mansions nestled within lush gardens remain safe behind gates. But the two bond through a shared love of Reggae music, spending time together at Irie’s father’s record store, listening to so-called rebel music that opens Jilly’s mind to a sound and a way of thinking she’s never heard… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & colourism
  • Homomisia
  • Colonialism
  • Drugging
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion (bombing)
  • Kidnapping

If I Have to Be Haunted by Miranda Sun

Cara Tang doesn’t want to be haunted. Look, the dead have issues, and Cara has enough of her own. Her overbearing mother insists she be the “perfect” Chinese American daughter—which means suppressing her ghost-speaking powers—and she keeps getting into fights with Zacharias Coleson, the local golden boy whose smirk makes her want to set things on fire. Then she stumbles across Zach’s dead body in the woods. He’s even more infuriating as a ghost, but Cara’s the only one who can see him—and save him. Agreeing to resurrect him puts her at odds with her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Cannibalism

An Echo in the City by K.X. Song

Sixteen-year-old Phoenix knows her parents have invested thousands of dollars to help her leave Hong Kong and get an elite Ivy League education. They think America means big status, big dreams, and big bank accounts. But Phoenix doesn’t want big; she just wants home. The trouble is, she doesn’t know where that is … until the Hong Kong protest movement unfolds, and she learns the city she’s come to love is in danger of disappearing. Seventeen-year-old Kai sees himself as an artist, not a filial son, and certainly not a cop. But when his mother dies, he’s forced to leave… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Sexual harassment
  • Police brutality

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

Sally cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say. But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally’s life will be thrown into chaos once again

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Rape & sexual assault
  • Child abuse

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

They left Earth to save humanity. They’ll have to save themselves first. It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect. Asuka already felt like an impostor before the explosion. She was the last picked for the mission, she struggled during training back on Earth, and she was chosen to represent Japan…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Miscarriage & fertility issues
  • Death of a child
  • Terrorism

Mister Magic by Kiersten White

Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. But just as generations of cultishly devoted fans still cling to the lessons they learned from the show, the cast, known as the Circle of Friends, have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. The friendship. The feeling of belonging. And the protection of Mister Magic. But with no surviving video of the show, no evidence of who directed or produced it, and no records of who—or what—the beloved host actually was, memories… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Homomisia
  • Child abuse
  • Conversion therapy mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Body horror
  • Death of a child
  • Kidnapping