Start with high-confidence violence & trauma books, then narrow by subgenre or adjacent topics.
Nine
Zach Hines
We Can Be Heroes
Kyrie McCauley
Monster
Walter Dean Myers
The Outsiders
S. E. Hinton
No Dawn Without Darkness
Dayna Lorentz
The Serpent King
Jeff Zentner
To the Bone
Alena Bruzas
Monument 14
Emmy Laybourne
We Are the Ants
Shaun David Hutchinson
This Is Where It Ends
Marieke Nijkamp