Rape – Page 130 – Trigger Warning Database

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to Mister, a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister’s letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial slurs
Cultural appropriation, specifically Native American culture
Domestic violence
Physical, verbal & emotional abuse, including gaslighting
Rape, statutory rape & rape of a child
Incest (father-daughter)
Pregnancy, result of rape & incest
Forced estrangement
Cheating
Self-harm
Disordered eating (bingeing)
Alcohol consumption
Female genital mutilation mentioned
Emesis
Lynching recounted
Murder
Gun violence mentioned
Death of a mother
Death of an infant

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

The Strange & Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.

In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration.

That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Death of a queer character
Graphic rape
Emotional abuse
Alcoholism
Suicide
Stalking
Animal abuse

The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton

The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton

When Rona Blackburn landed on Anathema Island more than a century ago, her otherworldly skills might have benefited friendlier neighbors. Guilt and fear instead led the island’s original eight settlers to burn “the witch” out of her home. So Rona cursed them.

Fast-forward one hundred–some years: All Nor Blackburn wants is to live an unremarkable teenage life. She has reason to hope: First, her supernatural powers, if they can be called that, are unexceptional. Second, her love life is nonexistent, which means she might escape the other perverse side effect of the matriarch’s backfiring curse, too. But then a mysterious book comes out, promising to cast any spell for the right price. Nor senses a storm coming and is pretty sure she’ll be smack in the eye of it.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child abuse
Rape
PTSD
Suicide
Self-harm
Blood & gore depiction

Lover Awakened by JR Ward

Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward

A former blood slave, the vampire Zsadist still bears the scars from a past filled with suffering and humiliation. Renowned for his unquenchable fury and sinister deeds, he is a savage feared by humans and vampires alike. Anger is his only companion, and terror is his only passion—until he rescues a beautiful aristocrat from the evil Lessening Society.

Bella is instantly entranced by the seething power Zsadist possesses. But even as their desire for one another begins to overtake them both, Zsadist’s thirst for vengeance against Bella’s tormentors drives him to the brink of madness. Now, Bella must help her lover overcome the wounds of his tortured past, and find a future with her…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Misogyny
Slavery & sex slavery
Rape
Domestic violence recounted
Nonconsensual drugging
Pregnancy
Blood depiction, including blood-drinking
Kidnapping & captivity
Torture
Murder
Gun violence
Whipping
Bullying

Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson

Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson

Growing up poor in rural Georgia, Bree Cabbat was warned by her single mother that the world was a dark and scary place. Having married into a family with wealth and connections, Bree now has all a woman could ever dream of: a loving lawyer husband, two talented teenage daughters, a new baby boy, a gorgeous home, and every opportunity in the world.

Until the day she awakens and sees an old gray-haired woman peering into her bedroom window who vanishes as quickly as she appears. She spies the old woman again, in the parking lot of her daughters’ private school . . . just minutes before Bree’s infant son, asleep in his car seat only a few feet away, vanishes. There is a note left in his place, warning her that she is being is being watched; if she wants her baby back, she must not call the police or deviate in any way from the instructions that will follow.

To get her baby back, Bree must complete one small—but critical—task. It seems harmless enough, but her action comes with a devastating price, making her complicit in a tangled web of tragedy and shocking secrets that could destroy everything she loves.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Slut shaming
Rape
Incest
Nonconsensual pornography
Substance addiction
Overdose
Poisoning
Infanticide, attempted and threats of infanticide, central theme
Drugging of infants
Drowning of an infant
Bombs
Gun violence
Kidnapping and child abduction
Blackmail

Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield

Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield

It’s 1788 and Alice Payne is the notorious highway robber, the Holy Ghost. Aided by her trusty automaton, Laverna, the Holy Ghost is feared by all who own a heavy purse. It’s 1889 and Major Prudence Zuniga is once again attempting to change history―to save history―but seventy attempts later she’s still no closer to her goal. But in 2020 the Farmers and the Guides are locked in battle; time is their battleground, and the world is their prize. Only something new can change the course of the war. Or someone new. Little did they know, but they’ve all been waiting until Alice Payne arrives.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Period-typical misogyny
Sexual assault of a minor & statutory rape mentioned*
Depression mentioned
Suicide, suicidal ideation & suicide pacts discussed
Minor blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
Gun violence
War themes, including refugee experiences & displacement

*Context : Mentions of sex between a seventeen-year-old girl and an adult man.

The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

At the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there. But for Mavi—a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that took her mother—it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to Argentina’s elite girls.

Mavi tries to embrace the strangeness of the imposing house—despite warnings not to roam at night, threats from an enigmatic young man, and rumors of mysterious Others. But one of Mavi’s ten students is missing, and when students and teachers alike begin to behave as if possessed, the forces haunting this unholy cliff will no longer be ignored.

One of these spirits holds a secret that could unravel Mavi’s existence. In order to survive she must solve a cosmic mystery—and then fight for her life.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Paedophilia
Child abuse
Miscarriage
Gore depiction
Cannibalism

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town. Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under. Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into. Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableist language
Misogyny & slut-shaming
Persecution for witchcraft
Dubious consent scenes & sexual assault (non-consensual kiss) (on-page)
Suicide & self-sacrifice (on-page, discussed)
Alcohol consumption
Injury & gore depiction including dead bodies
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a brother
Death of a father & husband
Death of a fiancé
Murder & kidnapping
Drowning (multiple scenes, on-page & recounted)
Fire

Context : The protagonist lies to her love interest about her identity and they have sex (on-page).

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves–now protective, now hedonistic–move into control, Ada’s life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author’s realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Sexual abuse
Eating disorder/s
Suicide
Self-harm
Substance abuse

Angelfall by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel. Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism
Misogyny & slut-shaming
Sexual harassment & sex work, implied
Parental abandonment recounted
Parent with paranoid schizophrenia with mentions of delusions and hallucinations
Nightmares
Alcohol consumption
Graphic blood and injury depiction, including dead bodies and body parts, cannibalism, dismemberment, scars, human experimentation, and nonconsensual body modification (theme)
Death of children discussed
Murder and attempted murder
Knife & gun violence
Physical assault
Torture
Poisoning
Kidnapping & captivity
War themes
Animal attack