The Mismatch by Sara Jafari

The Mismatch by Sara Jafari

For a young woman who just wants to get her first kiss out of the way, a rugby player seems like the perfect mismatch. But a kiss is never just a kiss. . . .

Now that Soraya Nazari has graduated from university, she thinks it’s time she get some of the life experience that she feels she’s still lacking, partly due to her upbringing–and Magnus Evans seems like the perfect way to get it.

Whereas she’s the somewhat timid, artistic daughter of Iranian immigrants, Magnus is the quintessential British lad. Because they have so little in common, Soraya knows there’s no way she could ever fall for him, so what’s the harm in having a little fun as she navigates her postgrad life? … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Cheating
  • Attempted rape & date rape
  • Physical & emotional parental abuse
  • Parent with a substance addiction
  • Parent with depression & suicidal ideation
  • Attempted kidnapping
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The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman

The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman

Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose, he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic, but he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him.

Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, and a new Fillory–but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child sexual abuse mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Dead bodies
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The Magician King by Lev Grossman

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Quentin and his friends are now the kings and queens of Fillory, but the days and nights of royal luxury are starting to pall. After a morning hunt takes a sinister turn, Quentin and his old friend Julia charter a magical sailing ship and set out on an errand to the wild outer reaches of their kingdom. Their pleasure cruise becomes an adventure when the two are unceremoniously dumped back into the last place Quentin ever wants to see: his parent’s house in Chesterton, Massachusetts. And only the black, twisted magic that Julia learned on the streets can save them.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia
  • Graphic rape, on-page
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self harm
  • Blood-letting
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Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Yeongdo, Korea 1911. A club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then a Christian minister offers a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man he barely knows to a hostile country where she has no friends and no home, Sunja’s salvation is just the beginning of her story.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Physical & emotional abuse
  • Suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Starvation
  • Death of a parent
  • Colonialism
  • Korean War & World War two

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

He says he loves you. So…why does he do that?

You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:

• The early warning signs of abuse
• The nature of abusive thinking
• Myths about abusers
• Ten abusive personality types
• The role of drugs and alcohol
• What you can fix, and what you can’t
• And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism & misogyny
  • Body shaming & fatmisia
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Slut-shaming
  • Victim blaming
  • Sex worker shaming & slurs
  • Rape, including by coercion
  • Sexual abuse
  • Sexual harassment
  • Abusive relationships
  • Age-gap relationships, including adult-minor
  • Cheating, including grey-area cheating
  • Child abuse, including sexual abuse
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Dubious consent scenarios
  • Emotional abuse
  • Paedophilia & grooming
  • Parental abuse & neglect
  • Physical abuse
  • Verbal abuse
  • Mental illness
  • Substance addiction, including alcoholism
  • Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Intrusive thoughts
  • Physical assault
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Recreational drug use
  • Medical treatment & procedures
  • Death of a parent or guardian
  • Gun violence
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Poverty themes
  • Blackmail
  • Bullying
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Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Sexism & misogyny
  • Victim blaming
  • Sexual harassment
  • Workplace harassment
  • Abuse, neglect & abandonment
  • Abusive relationships
  • Verbal abuse
  • Intimate partner abuse & violence
  • Estrangement & disownment
  • Child abuse
  • Mental illness
  • Intrusive thoughts
  • Addiction
  • Depression
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Medical treatment & procedures
  • Terminal illness
  • Cancer
  • Heart disease & heart attack
  • Physical injuries & wounds
  • Amputation/Loss of limb
  • Hospital & hospitalisation
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sibling
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Physical assault
  • Stalking
  • Car accident
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Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde by Jeff Guinn

Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde by Jeff Guinn

Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde by Jeff Guinn

In Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, bestselling author Jeff Guinn combines exhaustive research with surprising, newly discovered material to tell the real tale of two kids from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more important, fame. Their timing could not have been better — the Barrow Gang pulled its first heist in 1932 when most Americans, reeling from the Great Depression, were desperate for escapist entertainment. Thanks to newsreels, true crime magazines, and new-fangled wire services that transmitted scandalous photos of Bonnie smoking a cigar to every newspaper in the nation, the Barrow Gang members almost instantly became household names on a par with Charles Lindbergh, Jack Dempsey, and Babe Ruth. In the minds of the public, they were cool, calculating bandits who robbed banks and killed cops with equal impunity.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Sexism & misogyny
  • Adult-minor relationships
  • Sexual abuse
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Forced marriage
  • Child abuse
  • Estrangement
  • Abusive relationship
  • Intimate partner abuse & violence
  • Parental abuse & abandonment
  • Physical abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcoholism
  • Infertility themes
  • Medical treatment & procedures
  • Chronic illness & pain
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sibling
  • Dead bodies & body parts
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Flogging & whipping
  • Gun violence
  • Mugging
  • Home invasion
  • Kidnapping
  • Hostage situation
  • Imprisonment
  • Hazing
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Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

Stay Gold by Toby McSmith

Pony just wants to fly under the radar during senior year. Tired from all the attention he got at his old school after coming out as transgender, he’s looking for a fresh start at Hillcrest High. But it’s hard to live your best life when the threat of exposure lurks down every hallway and in every bathroom.

Georgia is beginning to think there’s more to life than cheerleading. She plans on keeping a low profile until graduation…which is why she promised herself that dating was officially a no-go this year.

Then, on the very first day of school, the new guy and the cheerleader lock eyes. How is Pony supposed to stay stealth when he wants to get close to a girl like Georgia? How is Georgia supposed to keep her promise when sparks start flying with a boy like Pony?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Acemisia
  • Homomisia
  • Lesbomisia, including slurs and internalised
  • Transmisia, including slurs and internalised
  • Deadnaming
  • Misgendering
  • Graphic assault against trans character, including physical assault
  • Parental abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Forced and pressured outing
  • Hate crime
  • Bullying
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The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Anna Fox lives alone, a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother and their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antiziganism
  • Depression
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Agoraphobia
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Prescription drug abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child & husband in a car accident recounted
  • Murder
  • Stalking
  • Animal death mentioned
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American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Sex work
  • Cheating
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Murder
  • Imprisonment
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