I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive.

Instead, Malala’s miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Death of children
  • Torture
  • War themes
  • Animal death
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The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

You’ve long set your heart against it, Axl, I know. But it’s time now to think on it anew. There’s a journey we must go on, and no more delay…

The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Memory loss
  • War themes
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The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • PhysicaAntisemitism
  • Rape
  • Pregnancy from rape
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Serious physical injury of a sibling
  • Cancer
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Concentration camps
  • War themes
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Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia
  • Deadnaming
  • Racism
  • Parental physical abuse
  • War themes
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Within These Walls by Robyn Bavati

Within These Walls by Robyn Bavati

Whatever is coming, we’ll face it together, as a family. As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay.

For Miri and her family, life in Warsaw is full of simple joys. The smell of freshly baked challah, the promise of summer holidays, and Fridays when everyone comes together to celebrate the Sabbath. But when the Germans march into Warsaw with their campaign of hatred against the Jews, Miri and her family must move to the ghetto. One by one her family are taken from her, and Miri finds herself alone. Can she survive, and will she even want to?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • War themes & the Holocaust

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story.

As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Drugging
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a father mentioned
  • Murder
  • Torture mentioned
  • Poisoning
  • Kidnapping
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes
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The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett

The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett

The troublemaker. The overachiever. The cheer captain. The dead girl. Like every high school in America, Jefferson-Lorne High contains all of the above.

After the shocking murder of senior Emma Baines, three of her classmates are at the top of the suspect list: Claude, the notorious partier; Avery, the head cheerleader; and Gwen, the would-be valedictorian.

Everyone has a label, whether they like it or not–and Emma was always known as a good girl. But appearances are never what they seem. And the truth behind what really happened to Emma may just be lying in plain sight. As long-buried secrets come to light, the clock is ticking to find Emma’s killer–before another good girl goes down.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted coerced marriage
  • Staged suicide
  • Emesis
  • Murder mentioned
  • Poisoning
  • Drowning
  • War themes
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The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett

The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett

When Ekata’s brother is finally named heir, there will be nothing to keep her at home in Kylma Above with her murderous family. Not her books or science experiments, not her family’s icy castle atop a frozen lake, not even the tantalizingly close Kylma Below, a mesmerizing underwater kingdom that provides her family with magic. But just as escape is within reach, her parents and twelve siblings fall under a strange sleeping sickness.

In the space of a single night, Ekata inherits the title of duke, her brother’s warrior bride, and ever-encroaching challengers from without—and within—her own ministry. Nothing has prepared Ekata for diplomacy, for war, for love…or for a crown she has never wanted.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted coerced marriage
  • Staged suicide
  • Emesis
  • Murder mentioned
  • Poisoning
  • Drowning
  • War themes
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We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett

We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett

Seventeen-year-old Revna is a factory worker, manufacturing war machines for the Union of the North. When she’s caught using illegal magic, she fears being branded a traitor and imprisoned. Meanwhile, on the front lines, Linné defied her father, a Union general, and disguised herself as a boy to join the army. They’re both offered a reprieve from punishment if they use their magic in a special women’s military flight unit and undertake terrifying, deadly missions under cover of darkness. Revna and Linné can hardly stand to be in the same cockpit, but if they can’t fly together, and if they can’t find a way to fly well, the enemy’s superior firepower will destroy them–if they don’t destroy each other first.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Sexual harassment
  • Death of a friend
  • Airplane crash
  • Explosion
  • Blackmail
  • Incarceration of a parent
  • War themes
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Slightly Love by Mary Balogh

Slightly Love by Mary Balogh

Anne Jewell is a teacher at Miss Martin’s School for Girls, a genteel academy in Regency England. Now she must confront the disturbing tragedy that gave her a beautiful son but locked her heart away for forever. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Disfigurmisia
  • Rape recounted
  • Pregnancy from rape
  • Phantom limb pain
  • Torture recounted
  • War mentioned
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