I just finished reading The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time Indian. I have to say, this is my kind of book. Five stars all the way. It is written for the young adult audience, filled with wisdom and heartbreak along with side splitting laugh-out-loud scenes and oh yah, did I mention it’s banned from school libraries in several states?
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to have stumbled on that fact while hungrily googling for more information on author Sherman Alexie. There is one chapter about the main characters love of private time in the bathroom, and the f-bomb is dropped a few times, but unlike another YA contemporary I just read, I felt like these scenes made the book more real. They added depth, they are truth and they make you think twice about your own life. The other book, which shall remain nameless, struck me as just trying too hard to be cool. Sure there are plenty of kids who use bad language for fun or to seem tough, whatever. We are adults writing about kids. We have control over how we write them and a really good writer can write that stuff in and have feel real, not like some 40 year old trying to sound like he knows what it’s like to be a teenager nowadays.
Do teenagers even use the word nowadays nowadays? (<– Ha! That’s a good one huh?)
So you’ve probably guessed that I’m fairly conservative about the content I read. I’m not a fan of anything your Grandmother would die of shock over. But I’m also not a pansy. I like to read fiction in it’s truest form. (Does that even make sense?) I don’t like a book loaded with the F bomb, but I also don’t want to read a book that holds my hand while we skip through flowers and discuss how disappointing it is that Timmy asked another girl to the senior formal. SNOOZE.
How do you find your literary moral compass? Do you think books should have ratings? I used to think the whole idea was ridiculous, until I read a few things that I felt should seriously be rated G for GARBAGE. (Shock value is not a good litmus test for literature kids.) I don’t like wasting my time on something I’m not interested in and I don’t like stumbling into a book full of crap I don’t like. So I’m a PG-13 kind of girl, occasionally R, never NC-17. (That’s my confession for the day. Feeling in-the-know? Inspired to become a priest or bishop now? I’d like to hear about that.)
So hit me up. Either here or on twitter @leighstatham. Let me know what you think about book ratings and book bannings. I’m open to knew ideas. Just don’t drop an F bomb on me. A girl has to have a line some where eh? That’s my line.. for now 
