Ratings, Content Advisory, and Books I Want to Read

I come to this post today a little irritated, and a bit incredulous. Literary agent Nathan Bransford had a recent blog post about whether or not books should be content-rated, like movies and video games are. The biggest bit of contention seems to be in Young Adult, but really, people are very, very opinionated on both sides of this argument. Some say that parents (and librarians, and teachers, etc.) should be able to instantly assess whether or not a book is appropriate for their children. Others say that parents should be on top of the parenting, either reading the things their children are reading, or looking up reviews, or even *gasp* talking to their children about what they're reading. Read some of the comments on that post for an idea.

As both an avid reader and a writer, I'm against this. First off, who is deciding these ratings? Are you really trusting someone else to know what's best for your child, instead of you, as the parent? What, exactly, gets flagged? Someone early in the comments mentioned that they wouldn't want their child reading something that mentioned a "gay couple, or a child visiting their parent in jail". That's an extreme amount of sheltering right there, for starters. Children do not live in a bubble. Also, if we're using ratings in the way that we do for movies, then that sends up all kinds of flags. How heavily-rated are certain triggers? Violence, sex, drugs, profanity? There can be an awful lot of violence in a PG-13 movie. Drugs can be glorified, or treated quite the opposite.

If this were to happen, how would it affect writers? Would they shy away from certain subjects, worried that their novel will be flagged, and potentially kept from readers? Would they try to "bump up" a rating? Shouldn't this be something agents and publishers worry about when putting a book out there--where along the spectrum it falls? That's why books are edited before publication. I wouldn't want to have to worry about this, and think twice about including something I thought should be part of the story, because I'm worried some parent who didn't bother to read a review (let alone the book) will automatically nix my book in the list of things their child could read, and form their own opinions on.

As a child, I read anything I could get my hands on. I still do. My parents trusted my judgment, figuring that I could discern books worthy of my time and attention. I read things that would have been WAY over what a ratings system would have said I could read (Stephen King's Firestarter at age seven comes first to mind, followed by Pet Sematary at age eight). They didn't scar me any. I didn't pick up things full of graphic sex or drugs before I could deal with them. There's a limit to what a person's mind will process, especially with kids. Sometimes it goes right over the head. It's quite different to seeing a scene in vivid color on a screen, complete with Dolby Digital surround sound. Besides, if you start flagging certain books, not only does it raise the possibility that it'll end up in banned-book territory (and let's not forget the AmazonFail thing not all that long ago), but it'll only entice some younger audiences to get ahold of a copy ("this book is flagged for sex? Alright!"). Besides, if you don't like some of the things presented in a story, what on earth says you have to keep reading?

I've been reading a lot of fan fiction lately. Most of this has content advisory. Things like "graphic sex, same-sex pairings, character death, angst, rape, profanity"... It's a common practice in fanfic. So little fanfic is PG-13 or below (I know it exists, but most of what I see is rated R or NC-17). I don't have so much of a problem with this. Mostly because if a book is published as Young Adult, I'm going to assume it's okay for the vast majority of young adults (I know, I'm silly like that). Also, things like rape and graphic sex are different from characters just making out. Fanfic is written by people of all sorts of persuasians (er... I may or may not be considering writing my first bit of fanfic, though it's not like I even have an OTP for this particular fandom). If there weren't the copyright issues, and fanfic had the option to follow the traditional routes of publishing, not a lot of it would pass that wasn't published by a house that didn't specifically deal in romance or erotic content. Some of it would, of course, but it'd be held to the same standard of any other bit of literature.

So, those are my general thoughts on the matter. I'd love to hear yours.

In other news, I've found a number of books that I really need to read. Thirty-eight, in fact, were added to my To Read list in the last few days alone. On the top of that list is probably Ash, by Malinda Lo, followed by Sarah Beth Durst's Ice and Seanan McGuire's Rosemary and Rue. I need to get a library card, and soon. If I can get any of these soon, expect a review. That reminds me. I have a review of Stiff done, but it's hand-written. I'll type that up and get it posted soon.