Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma is about a brother and sister that fall in love. It is a beautiful, heartbreaking story that left me crying in a corner for at least half an hour. I also threw the book against a wall and my husband thought something awful had happened to me. This book wrecked me. Do I agree with the content? No. I don't think siblings should fall in love with each other, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. The setting for this story, their circumstances... gah, you'd just have to read it to fully understand what I'm trying to say.
There are a lot of people screaming about how they'd never read something about incest, yet they love Game of Thrones. Aren't two of the main characters sleeping together and popping out babies even though they're brother and sister? Why is one different from the other?
Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young (read my review here) contains a lot of animal sacrifices, which really bothered me. I don't like animal cruelty, and I've also been a vegan for over six years. Does that make this a bad book? No. I loved this book and the story. It was unique and brilliant, but those instances made me uncomfortable. I cringed and wished they weren't included in the story, but I can see how they were relevant to the time period the author was trying to convey. It was part of their culture.
King by T.M. Frazier was a book that made me sick to my stomach, and one that I refused to continue reading. The main character rapes a girl and then lets his friend take her away to be raped again (for more detailed information you can see my review here), and that completely ruined the book for me. It wasn't something I could read about and move on from, because I feel like that behavior should be condemned in every capacity. However, this is a book beloved by many. Are there certain topics that are okay to read about even if they make us a little uneasy? Where is the line? What makes it a yes or a no?
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas was amazing (read my review here), but I wanted to include it because of a few of the comments I've seen regarding this book. A lot of people don't want to read this because they feel as though it's demonizing white people. "Reverse racism" is a term I've heard more than once in relation to this book. I felt like Angie Thomas told a story that needed to be heard. Black Lives Matter and people are not getting the recognition they deserve. Should you read this if the topic of racism makes you uncomfortable? What about it's relevance to today's society?
Here So Far Away by Hadley Dyer (read my review here) is another book I really enjoyed, but received a lot of conflicting comments over. There is a relationship within the story that has a pretty big age difference. This fact alone is keeping a lot of people from even trying the book, and they have no idea what the circumstances are surrounding the two people involved. I thought Hadley Dyer handled a delicate situation incredibly well and created something lovey and thought-provoking. What would you do if you found yourself in their situation? What if you were a parent? Is there anything that would make this okay?
There are a lot of things that can happen within a book that will make people avoid it like the plague. What topics do you stay away from? Why? Do you think we should read books that make us uncomfortable if they provide a different perspective? Books that we wouldn't normally read might be the most enlightening. I've learned a lot from books that put me in situations I would never find myself in. They make me think. They make me question what I know. They make me want to learn and grow and find out more about myself and the world we live in.
Do you think that we should read books that unsettle us in some way? What are your thoughts?
