Tag Archives: Torture

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of torture, including psychological torture and non-consensual sensory deprivation.

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected. When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Body dysmorphia
  • Rape
  • Graphic self-harm including burning and cutting
  • Dismemberment of hands and fingers, eye trauma, and mutilation like cutting out tongues
  • Murder
  • Torture including whipping, skinning and mentions of foot binding and boiling someone alive
  • Drowning

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected. When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering
  • Slavery mentioned
  • Depression
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Plague
  • Nonconsensual castration recounted
  • Emesis mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Death of children
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Torture, off-page
  • Bombings
  • War themes
  • Animal injury
  • Animal death

King of Wrath by Ana Huang

Ruthless. Meticulous. Arrogant. Dante Russo thrives on control, both personally and professionally. The billionaire CEO never planned to marry—until the threat of blackmail forces him into an engagement with a woman he barely knows. Vivian Lau, jewelry heiress and daughter of his newest enemy. It doesn’t matter how beautiful or charming she is. He’ll do everything in his power to destroy the evidence and their betrothal. There’s only one problem: now that he has her…he can’t bring himself to let her go… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment & neglect
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Gambling
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Blackmail
  • Car accident mentioned

The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg and Malcolm Jones III

A wizard attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. Fearful for his safety, the wizard kept him imprisoned in a glass bottle for decades. After his escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On the way, Morpheus encounters Lucifer and demons from Hell, the Justice League, and John Constantine, the Hellblazer.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Death of a child
  • Torture
  • Imprisonment

A Soul to Revive by Opal Reyne

All Emerie ever wanted was redemption. When a monster comes to Zagros Fortress, Emerie is tasked with capturing him. She never would have gone through with it had she known their treatment of him would be inhumane, nor can she stand by and allow it to continue. Unfortunately, agreeing to help him in his goal may not have been the wisest choice. Along the way, he manages to charm her, and what she once found frightening becomes utterly titillating instead. All Ingram ever wanted was revenge. After a traumatic event, Ingram does something foolish… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infertility (theme)
  • Attempted suicide
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Torture, off-page

Dangerous by Shannon Hale

Maisie ‘Danger’ Brown needs excitement. When she wins a harmless-sounding competition to go to astronaut boot camp, that’s exactly what she gets . . . But she never imagined it would feature stumbling into a terrifying plot that kills her friends and might just kill her too. Now there’s no going back. Maisie has to live by her middle name if she wants to survive – and she’ll need to be equally courageous to untangle the romance in her life too. 

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableist language & slurs
  • Death of a friend
  • Torture
  • Drowning
  • Bullying

Transmuted by Eve Harms

Her doctor is giving her the body of his dreams… and her nightmares. Isa is a micro-celebrity who rarely shows her face, and can’t wait to have it expertly ripped off and rearranged to look more feminine. When a successful fundraiser makes her gender affirming surgery possible, she’s overjoyed—until she has to give up all her money to save her dying father. Crushed by gender dysphoria and the pressure of disappointing her fans who paid for a new face, she answers a sketchy ad seeking transgender women for a free, experimental feminization treatment. The grotesquely flawless Dr. Skurm has gruesome methods, but he… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Internalised fat-shaming
  • Transmisia including deadnaming
  • Medical treatment
  • Body horror & mutilation
  • Torture

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún, Vol. 3 by Nagabe

Shiva’s aunt has come to the Outside to bring her home, with several soldiers in tow. Alarmed at this show of force, Teacher tries to protect Shiva, but to no avail. Meanwhile, chaos threatens to engulf the small hamlet on the Inside. Where does Shiva truly belong?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abandonment
  • Mass murder
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture, implied
  • Arrow violence
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Fire

The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

The future is blue. Endless blue…except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown. Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she’s the only one who knows it. She’s the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it’s full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time. But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Torture

Cry of Metal and Bone by L Penelope

Six weeks after the fall of the Mantle, centuries-old enemies Elsira and Lagrimar struggle to unite. The will of the goddess is that the two nations become one, but while the war may be over, peace is still elusive. As desperate Lagrimari flee their barren land for a chance at a better life in Elsira, a dangerous faction opposed to the unification rises. When a shadowy group with ties to the Elsiran government takes responsibility for the attack and promises more, an unlikely crew is assembled to investigate. Among them are Lizvette Nirall, a disgraced socialite seeking redemption for past mistakes, and Tai Summerhawk, a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Verbal & emotional child abuse
  • Self-injury for magic & bloodletting
  • Parent with gambling addiction
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical injury & illness
  • Emesis
  • Medical experimentation
  • Attempted assassination by poisoning
  • Torture
  • Terrorism (bombing of a religious institution)
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)