Saturday, October 26, 2013

Discussion: 'clean' books?

So... I hope I'm not stepping on too many toes here. But Kelly from Effortlessly Reading recently made a post about cussing on your blog (even words like 'damn' or 'hell') and that got me thinking about YA and what kind of content is acceptable, not just on blogs but in the books themselves.

Sometimes I see books advertised as 'clean' fiction or clean YA, or blogs as clean or family friendly. And somehow that rubs me the wrong way. I suppose 'clean' here refers mostly to issues related to sex, language, or drug abuse and the like. I don't know what exactly it includes because I was never all that interested.
On the one hand, I get it. There are quite a lot of bloggers who are mums and don't want their kids to stumble across a certain type of content in books or on the internet, so to them 'clean' signals 'safe', I suppose. While I understand the sentiment of wanting to 'protect' your children, I can't help associating the label 'clean' with 'fake'.



It makes me think of stories featuring teens or people in general that just don't seem real. People cuss. People drink. People have sex, also some (though by far not all) teens. It's simply a fact of life. People cuss when they get angry. People do stupid things. There are teens in terrible, abusive situations (alcoholic/abusive parents or boyfriends, peer pressure, groups that aren't good for them) and the idea that their stories, their voices and lives, are somehow unclean and shameful makes me really angry. It's like they are not worthy of being heard or understood. It's people looking away because something is ugly and incongruent with the way they want to look at the world.

I think these books especially are really important! The world isn't white picket fences and happy families. There are teens in horrible and abusive types of situations, and they should have the possibility of finding people like themselves in books and maybe gaining hope by reading about these characters' struggles and feeling like they're not alone. I'm thinking of books like Pushing the Limits or Eleanor and Park as well as a lot of Ellen Hopkins' or Laurie Halse Anderson's work.

I'm not saying there should be loads of drug use and explicit sex scenes in YA, but sometimes the author's agenda is just so obvious when there are lengthy/preachy contrived discussions between teens in the books about how it's better to wait or how some girls are so slutty (because it's okay when guys do the same thing, right? *eyeroll*). Sometimes there are also religious overtones, and that's just something that I personally have a problem with. I don't mind reading about a character who is a believer, but please don't try to moralize me or convert me or otherwise shove your beliefs down my throat.

I also don't think that by trying to keep your kids away from 'unclean' books, you are protecting them. The idea that kids don't come into contact with these issues in real life and at school is an illusion. And if they really are that sheltered, I think it would be important to at least have read about those things in novels. One day, these kids will enter the real world woefully unprepared.

I could go on a bit longer about this subject and open a bunch of new cans of worms, but I think I'll leave it at this.
What do you think about the topic of 'clean' books? Have you read any that were advertised this way? What was your experience? Am I being unjust or prejudiced? Am I misunderstanding the agenda? I'd really love to get some opinions here!

11 comments:

  1. Interesting topic. I agree that many "clean" books can feel a bit preachy and contrived. Many even feel like they would be a better fit for Middle Grade because it just isn't realistic for YA. I don't mind books who have some people who don't cuss or who are religious because that is believable as well, but like you said, as long as it does not come across preachy.

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    1. I'm not saying all people in all books have to cuss or not be religious, but I just don't think it's realistic to have, for instance, a teenage guy who is supposed to be a bit of a badass but he never cusses, or only in forms like 'dang' or 'heck'.
      I agree, in Middle Grade it's more important not to have too much cussing, but I think by the time kids hit 14 or so it's a bit late for that...
      Thanks for taking the time to comment!

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  2. I'm a Christian and preachy YA books still annoy me. I read books to see the world as it is, not as how I wish it would be. It's unrealistic to have characters who don't cuss, or talk to each other constantly about their morality. Sure there are people who don't cuss, and don't do anything bad, but where is a storyline without conflict? No one wants to read a book about a bunch of goody goodies that sit around in their little holy huddles and are terrified of the world. If a character is a non-cussing Christian, good for them, but the author shouldn't ignore the rest of the world or try to preach to their readers.

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    1. Exactly! I also wonder where the storyline goes?
      It's the transparent agenda of the author that annoys me. It's fine to have a character who doesn't cuss etc. on principle but then I think the reasons for that also need to be addressed and he/she maybe be challenged on it. What makes me mad is if other people who are not on such a moral high horse are then shown in a negative, inferior light or have terrible things happen to them (as 'punishment').

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  3. I like clean adult stories, I find them less preachy than clean YA stories. By clean, I mean no explicit sex or hard-core profanity. There can still be violence or sexiness, but I don't need it in my face.

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    1. I agree, as long as it's realistic I don't need to 'see' everything that's going on. If there are a lot of sex scenes in a book, it can actually get repetitive and boring. And I mean sometimes it's also just that the focus is elsewhere, which can be a good thing!

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  4. The word "clean" is always a turn off. Maybe I'm an immature teenager, but I hate the idea of someone (mostly older people) looking at a book and deciding I can't handle it. Lots of people swear, and when it comes to graphic stuff, we all watch TV. Pretending teens are foreign to this stuff is ridiculous. To be honest, I feel more comfortable with books with swearing just because it's something I relate with if the situation goes out of hand.

    Oh, and I think just about everybody except some parents hate preachy.

    Great post!

    -P.E.

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    1. Exactly! The idea of someone deciding that someone else can't handle a particular thing/situation always makes me mad. It's very patronizing. Teens and kids can understand and deal with far more than some adults think, and at some points you have to find your limits and that's not possible without testing (and sometimes crossing) them. Thanks for commenting :)

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  5. I definitely agree with you! I don't like when a book is labeled as clean (mainly because usually clean is accompanied by "christian" and I am not a big fan of that). Besides I feel like if a book has been labeled clean, it means that there was a group of adults going over it and "censoring" what they thought teenagers shouldn't read about and don't think that is right.
    I am not saying that in a sentence with 10 words, 9 of them should be cuss words or that there should be highly descriptive sex scenes (the ones that would put 50 Shades to shame) just for the sake of it, but it is true that teenagers cuss (I have been hearing my friends cuss ever since we were 12) and some (most) do have sex so it seems silly that adults think they can't handle it.

    For example, there is a book called "A Lua de Joana" (which means Joana's Moon) that I read when I was about 10 or 11 that deals with drug addiction and overdoses and pretty much everyone in Portugal has read that book at the age of 10. The thing is that it is an extremely important book, I remember reading it and being shocked but the message of the book never really left me...Thinking back, I guess this book could be considered maybe a bit preachy (don't do drugs, you'll get addicted and die) but I think that for middle grade kids is not that bad...

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    1. Yes, 'clean' does have an air of censoring doesn't it? Like all the honest grit has been taken out. I'm also not saying that there has to be cussing all the time, but somtimes taking it out is just not realistic. Lots of people cuss. As a kid, I always wanted to learn new cuss words (also in other languages).
      I think in the German/Swiss region we have a similar book to A Lua de Joana! It's called 'Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo' (We kids from the Zoo train station). It's about the drug scene in Berlin in the 1990s, with a 15-year-old (around that age anyway) falling in with a bad crowd, doing heroine, prostituting herself etc. It was written by her when she was older, and it packs a huge punch! We watched the movie in school and parts of it were so gross and horrible, I knew I would never do drugs. Which I guess is why they showed it. But yeah, I was 13 or 14. They obviously thought we could handle that.
      Then again, I think us Europeans are generally less concerned about sex than about violence? I feel like that's the case with movies at least.

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  6. I think you cited some very convincing points for why we need un-"clean" books out there, particularly for teenagers. However, I think many of those same points apply to the need for "clean" YA stories.

    While I, too, am not a fan of stories that feel fake or overly preachy (be it for a religious, political or social agenda), as a teen, and even now, I looked for reviews that gave me a sense of how much language/violence/sex a book contained. The amounts of these elements did not necessarily mean I wouldn't read the book, but I liked to make informed decisions; and, like most teens, I was looking for stories that reflected my experience and stories that interested me. Cussing, drinking and sex wasn't part of my life or the friends I hung out with; it made me uncomfortable and I knew I was less likely to enjoy a book with lots of it. Like most readers, I was looking for books I would like. I believe there are other readers out there who felt/feel the same way.

    Whatever the case, the use of the label is helpful to both sets of people. It lets you and those who share your perspective know that inside lies a story you probably won't like, and it lets someone else, parent or kid, know he/she probably will enjoy it (or at least not run into content he/she is not ready for or just not interested in). Like any other genre or subgenre, everyone has a preference. The beauty of choice and having a diverse literature market, right? :)

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