A fictional drug called jurda parem is central to the story, and several characters, both major and minor, are shown using it throughout. The second book dives deeper into themes of addiction and overcoming it.
Inej was kidnapped and trafficked at around 14-15 years old, and she was forced to work at a pleasure house (unwilling prostitution) for around a year (no explicit scenes from memory, but there are mentions of what she had to do there, and it is gathered that the men visiting her were all likely adults).
The reader does not read about the burning, and no named character is being burned, but multiple characters know about others being burned, talk about it, or find remains of pires.
Main storyline revolves around a heist to "retrieve" a person but does not go through. Actual kidnapping of a main character right at the end of the book.
characters' bodies are controlled by external forces several times in the book, though no external entity ever enters their body it may still be triggering
There is a live action theater in the book called "Komedie Brute" where characters are dressed up in masks. The "madman" character is described to be dressed in a grotesque fashion - however the description is brief.
Yes there is. When the main characters are disguised as prisoners they are forced through a freezing communal shower before going into the prison itself.
A character spits on another, the spit is wiped off with a handkerchief and said handkerchief is then stuffed into an empty eye socket of the first character.
SPOILERS
one of the main characters' parents is discovered in the second book to have been living in a mental institution after being placed there without their consent and without it being necessary (someone else wanted to get rid of them). the main character enters the institution while unbeknownst to them that it is one and that their parent is there.
Not specifically, but Nina eats a lot and after a certain event ends up losing her appetite and not eating properly for a few weeks, which is commented on by other characters and treated as a concern.
a main character has leg problems and needs a cane to walk. there are a few instances where ableist language is used on them i think but one that i remember better is a time in the first book, while in a cell, when a character calls them a word in their native language that the mc understands before the characters tries to translate thinking that "he needn't have bothered" since the mc knew that word in enough languages to understand what they were called
It does not have a very happy ending, but there is a second book following. [Spoilers] none of the main characters die in this book, but near the end of the second. One of the main characters gets kidnapped, though (but saved in the second).