Refugee Experiences – Trigger Warning Database

Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow by Siobhan Curham

Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow by Siobhan Curham

Fourteen-year-old Stevie lives in Lewes with her beloved vinyl collection, her mum … and her mum’s depression. When Stevie’s mum’s disability benefits are cut, Stevie and her mother are plunged into a life of poverty. But irrepressible Stevie is determined not to be beaten and she takes inspiration from the lyrics of her father’s 1980s record collection and dreams of a life as a musician. Then she meets Hafiz, a talented footballer and a Syrian refugee. Hafiz’s parents gave their life savings to buy Hafiz a safe passage to Europe; his journey has been anything but easy. Then… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Parent with depression
Death of a father
Refugee experiences

When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi

When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi

Mahmoud’s passion for his wife Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she’s ever known. But their happy, middle-class world—a life of education, work, and comfort—implodes when their country is engulfed in war, and the Taliban rises to power. In Kabul, we meet Fereiba, a schoolteacher who puts her troubled childhood behind her when she finds love in an arranged marriage. But Fereiba’s comfortable life implodes when the Taliban rises to power and her family becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime. Forced to flee with her three child… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Arranged marriage
Displacement & refugee experiences

The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon

The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon

Subhi is a refugee. Born in an Australian permanent detention centre after his mother fled the violence of a distant homeland, life behind the fences is all he has ever known. But as he grows, his imagination gets bigger too, until it is bursting at the limits of his world. The night sea brings him gifts, the faraway whales sing to him, and the birds tell their stories. The most vivid story of all, however, is the one that arrives one night in the form of Jimmie, a scruffy, impatient girl who appears from the other side of the wires and brings a notebook written by the mother she lost… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Self-harm
Murder
Hunger strike
Refugee experiences

Perfect Gravity by Vivien Jackson

Perfect Gravity by Vivien Jackson

Kellen Hockley usually keeps quiet about his past, but once upon a time, he loved a girl named Angela. He hasn’t seen her in a decade, but now he has to break the news to her that his team of rogue treasure hunters accidentally killed her husband. He’s had better days. It’s not the news that’s delivered to Angela Neko that breaks her apart–it’s the rumbly, Texas drawl delivering it. She can’t believe she’s hearing Kellen’s voice again. But there’s no time for distractions. When Angela’s own life is threatened, yielding up all of her lies and secrets, she and Kellen must figure out how to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Domestic violence
Attempted murder
Bombing
Refugee experiences

The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee

The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee

As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of the millions trapped by a secretive and brutal totalitarian regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Human trafficking
Forced sex work
Suicide mentioned
Famine & starvation
Executions
Imprisonment
Fire
Refugee experience
Death of a pet

Twilight of the Elves by Zack Loran Clark and Nick Eliopulos

Twilight of the Elves by Zack Loran Clark and Nick Eliopulos

Zed, Brock, and their friends may have saved Freestone from destruction, but the fight against the Dangers is far from over. No one knows what to expect next from the dark power that forced the elves to abandon their city. And the influx of elf refugees in Freestone strains resources and brews resentment among the townspeople. Things have shifted between best friends Zed and Brock, as well, with their friendship crumbling under the weight of the secrets they’re keeping from each other… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Dead body
Sword violence
Refugee experiences discussed

The Year the Maps Changed by Danielle Binks

The Year the Maps Changed by Danielle Binks

Fred’s family is a mess. Fred’s mother died when she was six and she’s been raised by her Pop and adoptive father, Luca, ever since. But now Pop is at the Rye Rehabilitation Centre recovering from a fall; Luca’s girlfriend, Anika, has moved in; and Fred’s just found out that Anika and Luca are having a baby of their own. More and more it feels like a land-grab for family and Fred is the one being left off the map.

But even as the world feels like it’s spinning out of control, a crisis from the other side of… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Death of a parent recounted
Stillbirth
Blood depiction
Refugee experiences

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit, and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Rape
Drug use
Child soldiers
Poverty
Refugee experiences

No Land to Light On by Yara Zgheib

No Land to Light On by Yara Zgheib

Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple flying high on a whirlwind love, dreaming up a life in the country that brought them together. She had come to Boston years before chasing dreams of a bigger life; he’d landed there as a sponsored refugee from a bloody civil war. Now, they are giddily awaiting the birth of their son, a boy whose native language would be freedom and belonging.

When Sama is five months pregnant, Hadi’s father dies suddenly in Jordan, the night before his visa appointment at the embassy. Hadi flies back for the funeral, promising his wife that he’ll only be gone for a few days. On the day his flight is due to arrive in Boston, Sama… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Pregnancy & childbirth
Death of a father
Imprisonment recounted
Refugee experiences

The Vela by Various

The Vela by Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon & S.L. Huang

In the fading light of a dying star, a soldier for hire searches for a missing refugee ship and uncovers a universe-shattering secret.

Asala Sikou is used to looking after number one while crisis reigns in her dying planetary system. But when she’s hired to find a missing refugee ship, she discovers that this is no ordinary rescue mission, and she must play a role in deciding the fate of the whole universe.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Genocide
Refugee crisis