The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the ‘phony’ aspects of society, and the ‘phonies’ themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Queermisia & queermisic slurs
  • Suicide recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use (smoking)
  • Emesis
  • Gun violence
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Emma by Jane Austen

Emma by Jane Austen

Beautiful, clever, rich – and single – Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen’s most flawless work. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antiziganism (g slur)
  • Alcohol consumption
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus–three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Rape
  • Substance addiction mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Animal death
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Adequate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden

Adequate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden

Adaquate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden book cover

Each new school year brings familiar challenges to Brae Hill Valley, a struggling high school in one the biggest cities in Texas. But the teachers also face plenty of personal challenges and this year, they may finally spill over into the classroom.

English teacher Lena Wright, a spoken-word poet, can never seem to truly connect with her students. Hernan D. Hernandez is confident in front of his biology classes, but tongue-tied around the woman he most wants to impress. Down the hall, math teacher Maybelline Galang focuses on the numbers as she struggles to parent her daughter, while Coach Ray hustles his troubled football team toward another winning season. Recording it all is idealistic second-year history teacher Kaytee Mahoney, whose anonymous blog gains new readers by the day as it drifts ever further from her in-class reality. And this year, a new superintendent is determined to leave his own mark on the school—even if that means shutting the whole place down.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny and sexism
  • Classim
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Slut-shaming
  • Body-shaming
  • Victim blaming
  • Child sexual assault
  • Statutory rape
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Verbal abuse
  • Workplace harassment
  • Estrangement
  • Anxiety attacks
  • Depression
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Abortion
  • Physical injuries
  • Poverty themes
  • White supremacy
  • Blackmail
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris

The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris

The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris book cover

Sixteen-year-old Alex Rufus is trying his best. He tries to be the best employee he can be at the local ice cream shop; the best boyfriend he can be to his amazing girlfriend, Talia; the best protector he can be over his little brother, Isaiah. But as much as Alex tries, he often comes up short.

It’s hard to for him to be present when every time he touches an object or person, Alex sees into its future. When he touches a scoop, he has a vision of him using it to scoop ice cream. When he touches his car, he sees it years from now, totaled and underwater. When he touches Talia, he sees them at the precipice of breaking up, and that terrifies him. Alex feels these visions are a curse, distracting him, making him anxious and unable to live an ordinary life.

And when Alex touches a photo that gives him a vision of his brother’s imminent death, everything changes.

With Alex now in a race against time, death, and circumstances, he and Isaiah must grapple with their past, their future, and what it means to be a young Black man in America in the present.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Self-harm
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • Anti-black violence
  • Slavery
  • Inter-generational trauma
  • Poverty
  • Police brutality
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid book cover

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. When she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Bimisia
  • Homomisia
  • Lesbomisia
  • Forced outing
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape & statutory rape
  • Sexual assault & harassment
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Cheating
  • Alcoholism, secondary character
  • Drug use
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Abortion
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Physical injury
  • Hospitalisation
  • Terminal breast cancer
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a partner
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of parents in a car accident
  • Blackmail
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there’s only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she’s determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god–and she’s decided Jess is going to help her do it.

Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she’ll also need to regain control of her body and destiny. If she fails, the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Misogyny
  • Racism
  • Attempted rape
  • Physical abuse mentioned
  • Anxiety
  • Cancer & remission mentioned
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi

How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi 

Eighteen-year-old Amir Azadi always knew coming out to his Muslim family would be messy–he just didn’t think it would end in an airport interrogation room. But when faced with a failed relationship, bullies, and blackmail, running away to Rome is his only option. Right?

Soon, late nights with new friends and dates in the Sistine Chapel start to feel like second nature… until his old life comes knocking on his door. Now, Amir has to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth to a U.S. Customs officer, or risk losing his hard-won freedom.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial profiling
  • Islamophobia
  • Homomisia
  • Coming out themes, including threatened outing
  • Blackmail
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins

People Kil People by Ellen Hopkins

A gun is sold in the classifieds after killing a spouse, bought by a teenager for needed protection. But which was it? Each has the incentive to pick up a gun, to fire it. Was it Rand or Cami, married teenagers with a young son? Was it Silas or Ashlyn, members of a white supremacist youth organization? Daniel, who fears retaliation because of his race, who possessively clings to Grace, the love of his life? Or Noelle, who lost everything after a devastating accident, and has sunk quietly into depression?

One tense week brings all six people into close contact in a town wrought with political and personal tensions. Someone will fire. And someone will die. But who?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & white supremacy
  • Rape & attempted rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Depression
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Teen pregnancy
  • Murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Gun violence (theme)
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Hopkins

The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Hopkins

For as long as she can remember, it’s been just Ariel and Dad. Ariel’s mom disappeared when she was a baby. Dad says home is wherever the two of them are, but Ariel is now seventeen and after years of new apartments, new schools, and new faces, all she wants is to put down some roots. Complicating things are Monica and Gabe, both of whom have stirred a different kind of desire.

Maya’s a teenager who’s run from an abusive mother right into the arms of an older man she thinks she can trust. But now she’s isolated with a baby on the way, and life’s getting more complicated than Maya ever could have imagined… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Queermisia
  • Racism
  • Physical & verbal child abuse
  • Emotional child abuse & gaslighting
  • Child neglect & abandonment
  • Death of a father
  • Kidnapping
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com