Surgery – Page 10 – Trigger Warning Database

Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Aspiring choreographer Sophie Orenstein would do anything for Peter Rosenthal-Porter, who’s been on the kidney transplant list as long as she’s known him. Peter, a gifted pianist, is everything to Sophie: best friend, musical collaborator, secret crush. When she learns she’s a match, donating a kidney is an easy, obvious choice. She can’t help wondering if after the transplant, he’ll love her back the way she’s always wanted.

But Peter’s life post-transplant isn’t what either of them expected. Though he once had feelings for Sophie, too, he’s now drawn to Chase, the guitarist in a band that happens to be looking for a keyboardist… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Antisemitism
Pregnancy
Surgery (organ transplant)
Chronic pain
Death of a parent to cancer discussed

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Odd-mannered, obsessive, withdrawn, Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, as they accuse, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remained of her world, save for stories told around the cookfire.

Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, the Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster, who they consider to be less than human… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Misogyny
Homomisia
Transmisia & misgendering
Racism & racial slurs
Slavery
Graphic rape
Sexual assault mentioned
Child sexual abuse implied
Suicide & attempted suicide
Self harm
Abortion
Forced sterilization
Medical procedures, including graphic surgery & amputation
Needles
Death of a child
Death of a parent
Police brutality
Torture
Lynching
Fire
Captivity

When My Heart Joins the Thousand by AJ Steiger

When My Heart Joins the Thousand by A.J. Steiger

Alvie Fitz doesn’t fit in, and she doesn’t care. She’s spent years swallowing meds and bad advice from doctors and social workers. Adjust, adapt. Pretend to be normal. It sounds so easy. If she can make it to her eighteenth birthday without any major mishaps, she’ll be legally emancipated. Free. But if she fails, she’ll become a ward of the state and be sent back to the group home.

All she wants is to be left alone to spend time with her friend, Chance, the one-winged hawk at the zoo where she works. She can bide her time with him until her emancipation. Humans are overrated anyway… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist slurs
Homomisia & homomisic slurs
Parental abuse
Anxiety & panic attacks
Depression
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Suicide mentioned & recounted
Suicidal ideation
Alcohol consumption
Blood depiction & physical injuries
Surgery
Emesis
Hospitalisation
Cancer mentioned
Death of a parent mentioned
Police brutality
Drowning recounted
Bullying
Attempted murder of an autistic child by a parent
Poverty themes & homelessness

Everything I Thought I Knew by Shannon Takaoka

Everything I Thought I Knew by Shannon Takaoka

Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste.

Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves—which is strange, because she wasn’t interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn’t hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.)

And that’s not all that’s strange. There’s also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn’t recognize.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Nightmares
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use
Surgery (organ transplant)
Motorcycle accident

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis

Lynn knows every threat to her pond: drought, a snowless winter, coyotes, and, most importantly, people looking for a drink. She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty, or doesn’t leave at all.

Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. Having a life means dedicating it to survival, and the constant work of gathering wood and water. Having a pond requires the fortitude to protect it, something…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Rape & attempted rape recounted
Forced sex work, off-page
Child abuse
Intimate partner violence recounted
Suicide, on-page
Suicidal ideation
Pregnancy & childbirth, on-page
Stillbirth, on-page
Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
Graphic physical injuries & illness, including cholera, seizures, and fever
Field surgery
Syringes and needles
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother & father
Death of a brother
Murder & attempted murder
Gun & knife violence
Torture
Kidnapping & hostage situation
Blackmail
Fire
Drought
Death from starvation & dehydration
Death from exposure
Military deployment recounted
Animal death & death of a pet, on-page
Animal cruelty
Hunting & animal dead bodies

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

The Prince & the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride―or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia―the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion!

Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances―one of only two people who know the truth: sometimes this boy wears dresses. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. Forever. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect a friend?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Forced coming out
Queermisia
Ableism
Alcohol consumption
Surgery mentioned

Stargazing by Jen Wang

Stargazing by Jen Wang

When Moon’s family moves in next door to Christine’s, Moon goes from unlikely friend to best friend―maybe even the perfect friend. The girls share their favorite music videos, paint their toenails when Christine’s strict parents aren’t around, and make plans to enter the school talent show together. Moon even tells Christine her deepest secret: that she sometimes has visions of celestial beings who speak to her from the stars. Who reassure her that earth isn’t where she really belongs.

But when they’re least expecting it, catastrophe strikes. After relying on Moon for everything, can Christine find it in herself to be the friend Moon needs?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Colourism
Sexism
Hallucinations & delusions
Hospital
Brain tumour
Surgery
Death of a father
Bullying

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

There are no more monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. With doting parents and a best friend named Redemption, Jam has grown up with this lesson all her life. But when she meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colours and claws, who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and a drop of Jam’s blood, she must reconsider what she’s been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption’s house. Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth, and the answer to the question — How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableist language
Coming out themes mentioned
Child sexual abuse (central theme, not on-page or described)
Child abuse
Surgery mentioned
Hormone replacement therapy mentioned

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother.

The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, certain details… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Misogyny
Fatmisia
Racism & racial slurs
Sexual harassment
Sexual assault, on-page
Rape, on-page
Cheating recounted
Child abuse & neglect mentioned
Substance addiction discussed
Nightmares
Suicide by a gunshot to the head, on-page
Alcohol consumption
Drug use & abuse (theme)
Overdose mentioned
Teen pregnancy recounted
Grandparent recovering from a stroke
Physical injuries, including nerve damage & chronic shoulder injury
Hospitalisation for internalised bleeding & liver damage
Surgery mentioned
Emesis
Grief & loss depiction
Death of an uncle
Death of a father
Murder of a friend & teenager by gun violence, on-page
Car accident, on- & off-page
Bullying

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

It has a dark past – one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.

Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.

What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Dubious consent to sex work discussed*
Blood & gore depiction
Physical injuries
Surgery for coerced body modifications
Murder & attempted murder
Mass murder recounted
Gun violence
Explosion mentioned
Kidnapping
Attempted plane crash
Mind control discussed

*Note: Android sex workers have a limited or no ability to override their mind control-like regulating system and therefore are unable to truly consent.