Select language, opens an overlay
  • General Recommendations
  • Staff-Created List

Tough Topics

Fiction about young adults navigating tough situations. Trigger Warning: these books contain topics such as suicide and suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, bullying, rape and sexual abuse. Instead of a plot summary I've listed the topics these novels are focused on

Region of Waterloo Library

21 items

  • Eating disorders, mental health, disabilities, fitting in.
    Book, 2016New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2016] — YA FIC Niven
  • Relationships, Immigrant Families, Poverty
    Book, 2013New York : St. Martin's Griffin, 2013. — YA FIC Rowel
  • Drug addiction (graphic novel)
    Graphic Novel, 2018New York, NY : Graphix, [2018] — YA 741.5973 Kro
  • Mental Health, Depression, Suicide
    Book, 2016New York, NY : Arthur A. Levine Books, 2016. — YA FIC Stork
  • Death, Suicide, relationships
    Book, 2008New York : Speak, 2008, c2005. — YA FIC Green
  • Bullying, dysfunctional families
    Book, 2008New York : Speak, 2008, c2007.
  • Eating disorders, mental health, and coping with life threatening illness
    Book, 2021New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2021] — YA FIC Choi
  • Bullying, suicide
    Book, 2013New York ; Toronto : Simon & Schuster Children's Pub., 2013, c2012. — YA FIC Davis
  • Eating disorders, grief, death
    Book, 2014New York : HarperTeen, [2014] — YA FIC Hasto
  • Bullying, suicide
    Book, 2015New York : Feiwel and Friends, 2015. — YA FIC Prell
  • Eating disorders
    Book, 2013New York : HarperCollins Publishers, c2013.
  • Eating disorders, friendship
    Book, 2014Chicago : Albert Whitman & Co., 2014. — YA FIC Shaha
  • Rape, self esteem,
    Book, 2016Toronto, ON : Second Story Press, [2016] — YA FIC Goobi
  • Drug addiction, peer pressure.
    Book, 2009Toronto : Annick Press, c2009. — YA FIC McCaf
  • Rape, drug addiction, family relationships
    Book, 2016Toronto : Dundurn, [2016] — YA FIC Nelso
  • Rape, sexual assault,
    Book, 2015New York, NY : HarperTeen, [2015] — YA FIC Hartz
  • Death, Illness, loss of a loved one, suicide, and grief.
    Book, 2017New York, NY : Philomel Books, [2017] — YA FIC Belas
  • Rape, bullying, religion, and family relationships.
    Book, 2018New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2018. — YA FIC Bhath