That’s Not What Happened by Kody Keplinger

That’s Not What Happened by Kody Keplinger

It’s been three years since the Virgil County High School Massacre. Three years since my best friend, Sarah, was killed in a bathroom stall during the mass shooting. Everyone knows Sarah’s story–that she died proclaiming her faith. But it’s not true. I know because I was with her when she died. I didn’t say anything then, and people got hurt because of it. Now Sarah’s parents are publishing a book about her, so this might be my last chance to set the record straight . . . but I’m not the only survivor with a story to tell about what did–and didn’t–happen that day. Except Sarah’s… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Alcoholism mentioned
  • Substance addiction mentioned
  • Overdose mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • School shooting
  • Bullying

This Won’t End Well by Camille Pagán

This Won’t End Well by Camille Pagán

No new people: that’s Annie Mercer’s vow. It’s bad enough that her boss sabotaged her chemistry career and her best friend tried to cure her with crystals. But after her fiancé, Jon, asks for space while he’s gallivanting around Paris, Annie decides she needs space too – form everyone. Yet when Harper moves in next door, Annie can’t help but train a watchful eye on the glamorous but fragile woman. And if keeping Harper safer requires teaming up with Mo, a maddeningly optimistic amateur detective, who is she to mind her own business?… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Domestic abuse
  • Hoarding Disorder
  • Depression
  • Mass shooting

Notreadytodie by Cate Carlyle

#Notreadytodie by Cate Carlyle

A killer stalks the hallways Ginny’s life suddenly comes to a screeching halt one fateful Monday when a shooter shows up at Southwestern High School during first period. In lockdown with both the homeroom sub and her secret crush Owen badly wounded, Ginny finds herself teamed up with Kayla, one of the “Barbies.” Together, they must try to keep their classmates alive amid terror and pain. A teacher is fatally wounded As the chaos continues, Ginny is plagued with questions. Has she judged Kayla too harshly? Will she ever have the chance to ask Own to prom? Will the… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Self-harm recounted
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • School shooting (theme)

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

Jake Livingston is one of the only Black kids at St. Clair Prep, one of the others being his infinitely more popular older brother. It’s hard enough fitting in but to make matters worse and definitely more complicated, Jake can see the dead. In fact he sees the dead around him all the time. Most are harmless. Stuck in their death loops as they relive their deaths over and over again, they don’t interact often with people. But then Jake meets Sawyer. A troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school last year before taking his own life. Now a powerful, vengeful ghost, he has plans for his afterlife–plans that include Jake… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Coming out themes
  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Racism
  • Attempted sexual assault of a child by an uncle, on-page
  • Parental abandonment & neglect
  • Physical, verbal & emotional child abuse
  • Domestic violence recounted, off-page
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Hospitalisation for attempted suicide recounted
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic body horror
  • Emesis
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • School shooting
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Car accident
  • Loss of autonomy (ghost possession)
  • Animal death (insects)
  • Animal abuse & torture (insects)
  • Bullying
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Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Five months ago, Valerie Leftman’s boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets. Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year. Haunted by the memory of the boyfriend she still loves and navigating rocky relationships with her family, former friends, and the girl whose life she… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Depression
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • School shooting, on-page
  • Bullying

Thoughts & Prayers by Bryan Bliss

Thoughts & Prayers by Bryan Bliss

Claire, Eleanor, and Brezzen have little in common. Except for the fact that a year ago, they all hid under the same staircase and heard the shots that took the lives of some of their classmates and a teacher. Now, each one copes with the trauma as best as they can as the world around them keeps moving. Thoughts and Prayers is a story about gun violence, but more importantly it is the story of what happens after the reporters leave and the news cycle moves on to the next tragedy. It is the story of three unforgettable teens who feel forgotten.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • School shooting (theme)
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How Maya Got Fierce by Sona Charaipotra

How Maya Got Fierce by Sona Charaipotra

Ever since she was little, farmer’s daughter Maya Gera has known what her future holds. The heiress to a mini garlic empire in the heart of Gilroy, California, she’s meant to be a good Indian girl — which means agriculture school, an MBA, and settling down with a suitable Sikh boy. The heiress to a mini garlic empire in the heart of Gilroy, California, she’s meant to be a good Indian girl — which means agriculture school, an MBA, and settling down with a suitable Sikh boy…Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Mass shooting recounted
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favours, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Suicide
  • Childhood cancer
  • Death of a parent
  • Workplace shooting
  • Car accident
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This Is Where It Ends by Sally Malcolm

This Is Where It Ends by Sally Malcolm

Everyone has a reason to fear the boy with the gun. In 54 minutes, four students must confront their greatest hopes, and darkest fears, as they come face-to-face with the boy with the gun.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape recounted
  • Parental abuse
  • Suicide
  • School shooting (theme)
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Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts

Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts

It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Three teenage friends waited for the movie to start. A boy flirted with the girl selling sunglasses. Mothers and children shopped together, and the manager at the video-game store tended to customers. Then the shooters arrived.

The chaos and carnage lasted only eight minutes before the killers were taken down. But for those who lived through it, the effects would last forever. In the years that followed, one would dedicate himself to a law enforcement career. Another would close herself off, trying to bury the memory of huddling in a ladies’ room, hopelessly clutching her cell phone–until she finally found a way to pour her emotions into her art.

But one person wasn’t satisfied with the… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Active shooter scene in a mall, on-page