Thursday, September 22, 2011

Thursday Thoughts

And....I'm back. I'm not doing much of anything so I haven't really had much to say. My mom pointed out something to me earlier today that I thought would make a great Thursday Thoughts. It's been a long time since I've done a Thursday Thoughts. Welcome back, Mer. Welcome back.

My mom pointed out to me today that it's Banned Book day. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it lead into a conversation about a book I just read. I recently read "Tweak" by Nic Sheff. I had read his dad's book, "Beautiful Boy" earlier this year and wanted to read the other side of the story. Basically, it's Nic's personal telling of his drug addiction. It was a good book. Not as good as his dad's but a good book nonetheless. Here's my problem with it, though. It is very detailed and descriptive about his drug use and sex life, and use some very bad language. Normally, this wouldn't bother me in a book. Hell, I talk that way myself. But what bothered me was I picked this book up in the library in the teen section. This book is definitely not appropriate for teenagers. I even complained to the library about it. They wanted me to fill out an online book report that they would consider, etc. I didn't do it. This book shouldn't be banned, but it certainly shouldn't be in the teenage section either.

So, what book do you consider controversial? Should it be banned? Why?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm glad to say they that despite living in a relatively conservative area, our books are safe. I've been to 2 back-to-school nights this week. At the one, we learned our daughter will be reading Huck Finn, and though I know it's been banned in some places, I've got zero concerns. At the other one, our son made sure to tell us to pick up a book at the book fair called Lockdown (which actually looks pretty good). The funny part is that the big headline on the back cover was GO TO HELL! Keep in mind, this was the middle school bookfair! Cracked me up. I bought the book. :) Books don't scare me.

Here's what scares me: same middle school event during the science presentation, one parent asked if evolution were going to taught as if it were definitely factual. Yeah, that scared me.

Unknown said...

That still make hard bound books? Who knew? Going to have to tell that to my Kindle app!!

Jason Bodak said...

I've never read a book that I thought should be banned (though I've read some that were written and/or plotted so badly that I thought they should probably be banned for sucking), but I've read a few that I thought were pretty controversial. "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis, and "Exquisite Corpse" by Poppy Z. Brite. Both books are about serial killers, and it's the killers themselves who narrate the books, so you get a first-hand tour of their deranged minds. I felt pretty dirty after reading each of them.