Tag Archives: Suicidal Ideation

Poisoning Ivy by Carly Claire

The mountain was always my safe place… until it wasn’t. It was my refuge from the cold loneliness of the city, from my parent’s loveless marriage, from their anger and chaos. Even when they left me with my creepy uncle, I looked forward to summers at the cabin, especially after I met them. The reapers. Killian, Monty, and Theo. They were my friends, the secret I kept to make my life tolerable. And then one summer, their friendship turned into something sinister. Their hatred kept me alive, fed a part of me that needed it. I thought it turned into something more, but then… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Sex trafficking mentioned (off-page)
  • Child physical & sexual abuse and neglect (implied)
  • Rape & dubious consent (‘dubcon’), including forced voyeurism and gun play
  • Depression & suicidal ideation
  • Domestic abuse
  • Pregnancy discussed
  • Mutilation
  • Murder
  • Home invasion

Leo by Mia Sheridan

Evie and Leo met in foster care as children and formed a bond of friendship. As they grew, their bond turned to love, and they vowed to make a life together when they turned 18 and were no longer a part of the system. When Leo unexpectedly gets adopted as a teen and moves to another city, he promises Evie that he will contact her as soon as he gets there and come back for her in a few short years. She never hears from him again. Now eight years later, in spite of the odds, Evie has made a life for herself. She has a job. She has friends. She’s content. Then a man shows up out of the blue, claiming that her long lost love, Leo,… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia recounted
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Experiences in the foster care system recounted
  • Car accident

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & racism
  • Substance addiction & drug abuse
  • Dementia discussed
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Animal abuse & death (on-page)

The Winners by Fredrik Backman

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobic slurs
  • Child abuse & neglect mentioned
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Abusive relationship recounted
  • Rape mentioned & recounted
  • Suicide, suicidal ideation & self-harm mentioned
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use including overdose
  • Death of a child (off-page)
  • Murder by gun violence
  • Fatal car acciedne tmentioned
  • Animal death (dog)

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Foster care discussed
  • Rape & sexual assault mentioned
  • Domestic abuse
  • Attempted suicide, suicidal ideation & self-harm
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Depression
  • Alcoholism
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Bullying

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight

Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s—now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox—lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents’ secret, just as she’s falling in love for the first time…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Depression & suicidal ideation
  • Infertility & miscarriages

We Could Be Rats by Emily R. Austin

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society. But Sigrid’s detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She’s haunted by the pains of her past—from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Substance addiction & drug abuse
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation

The Collective by Alison Gaylin

Camille Gardner is a grieving—and angry—mother who, five years after her daughter’s death, is still obsessed with the privileged young man she believes to be responsible. When her rash actions attract the attention of a secret group of women—the collective—Camille is drawn into a dark web where these mothers share their wildly different stories of loss as well as their desire for justice in a world where privilege denies accountability and perpetrators emerge unscathed. Fueled by mutual rage, these women orchestrate their own brand of justice through precise, anonymous, complexly plotted and perfectly executed revenge killings.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a daughter
  • Murder

Our Last Echoes by Kate Alice Marshall

Sophia’s first memory is of drowning. She remembers the darkness of the water and the briny taste as it fills her throat. She remembers the cold shock of going under. She remembers her mother pulling her to safety before disappearing forever. But Sophia has never been in the ocean. And her mother died years ago in a hospital. Or so she has been told her whole life. A series of clues have led Sophia to the island of Bitter Rock, Alaska, where she talked her way into a summer internship at the Landon Avian Research Center, the same center her mother worked at right before she died. There, she meets the disarmingly… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Memory loss
  • Panic attack
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Body horror
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Drowning
  • Animal death

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes. For decades afterward, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault of a child
  • Infidelity
  • Hoarding
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation recounted (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Attempted murder of a child recounted
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Blackmail