I wrote a review for my Goodreads friends a while ago about a YA book with some disturbing elements. I bought the book, so I wasn’t under any obligation to review it, but I did, because I would have been grateful to have read such a review before I bought the book. I’m not publishing the review here or telling you the name of the book, but I do want to discuss the issues it raises. Here’s a quote from my review. There was a very disturbing element in this book, the combination of sexual advances and pain infliction by figures of authority on young girls. It was a minor element, but sex and violence together are a combination that I am particularly sensitive to, especially sexual sadism and especially in YA books. It gave a bad taste to the whole book – disturbingly creepy. My seventeen-year-old daughter was horrified when I described the two scenes and said that she wouldn’t want to read that. Ahhh, we’ve opened a can of worms here, haven’t we? My understanding of the YA genre is … [Read more...]