(no subject)
My exams are all over now. Had my psychology exam today. So now I have the rest of the week off and then I'm starting the A2 course on Monday for about three weeks. Boo. It's the silliest thing. As if we're not going to forget it all over the holidays. I'm going to Blackpool on Friday though, which should be fun. I have quite a bit to say now, so I'm going to be using bullet points.
I also don't really think that this has been very well researched, and it's doing that thing that really irritates me where somebody goes 'I've seen two or three crappy books for teens therefore all books are crappy'. It probably also doesn't help that from her description: 'Shine' seems pretty interesting.
Looking at the comments on bookfails, most people seem to agree that the article is stupid, and a lot of people are bringing up the issue of banning books or restricting them for teens and children. Obviously as a sixteen year old girl myself, I have a pretty strong opinion on the matter and I hate the idea that anybody would think they would know what I could and could not handle as a reader. I'm not even sure my mum would know. Libraries, college and book publishers certainly wouldn't know and I hate the idea of them trying to control what I read. Speaking of Junk, when I tried to take it out on the library at first the machine wouldn't let me take it out. When I asked the library assistant about it she said 'it may be because it's from the adult section'. I have no idea whether that was the reason or whether the machine was fucking up, but the fact that that was even a possibility pissed me off. I have an adult library card, I have to pay fines, I should be able to take out whatever book I fucking please.
It's daft anyway, because like anything else if I or another teenager really wanted to read a book there would be a way to do it.
Another point raised was that parents should talk about the issues in the book with their child/teen. Which...I feel a bit odd about. It's not that I don't get on with my mum and dad but discussing what I read with them in great detail feels weird. I haven't really shared my reading with them since they stopped reading me bedtime stories at seven. What books I read has always been personal to me, and that's kind of what I enjoy about it. Obviously it's a different story for an eleven year old, but my one experience of this was a few years ago when another library assistant said a book was quite mature. Later mum talked to me about it and asked me whether I had read any books with sex in them. I lied and said I hadn't, because I didn't want to be having that conversation with her.
I do agree with the stuff about rating books. And books should be made clearer what age range they are for. The number of times I've seen books like How I Live Now in the children's section (like, next to Enid Blyton and Jacqueline Wilson) is ridiculous.
- I still really need a job. I'm seeing Arcade Fire in August and I still need to pay Ham back for the tickets for that and Blackpool. It doesn't help that I keep buying things off amazon and now I could really do with some new flip flops but I'm really fussy about flip flops. I don't like ones with things in between the toes unless they're nice fabric or really soft rubber. I was thinking about trying Havaianas but I'm not sure I can excuse paying £20 for flip flops when I'm only going to use them during one month. Generally I hate talking about money because I know I have it so much better than other people do, but a little more money would be nice. :-)
- I'm ridiculously behind with Doctor Who. I don't know what happened,I missed a couple of episodes because of rl, then I was too busy with college during the week to catch up. So I've not seen the final few episodes yet. :-( I'm going to get caught up over these next few days, hopefully.
- I am really enjoying Scott and Bailey, however (and yes I did catch that Who episode :-D). I was cautious about it initially, because Identity looked so good and turned out to be pretty bad, but this is pretty good so far.
- Apart from that, I've pretty much just been revising, rewatching Skins and reading Naomily fanfic.
I also don't really think that this has been very well researched, and it's doing that thing that really irritates me where somebody goes 'I've seen two or three crappy books for teens therefore all books are crappy'. It probably also doesn't help that from her description: 'Shine' seems pretty interesting.
Looking at the comments on bookfails, most people seem to agree that the article is stupid, and a lot of people are bringing up the issue of banning books or restricting them for teens and children. Obviously as a sixteen year old girl myself, I have a pretty strong opinion on the matter and I hate the idea that anybody would think they would know what I could and could not handle as a reader. I'm not even sure my mum would know. Libraries, college and book publishers certainly wouldn't know and I hate the idea of them trying to control what I read. Speaking of Junk, when I tried to take it out on the library at first the machine wouldn't let me take it out. When I asked the library assistant about it she said 'it may be because it's from the adult section'. I have no idea whether that was the reason or whether the machine was fucking up, but the fact that that was even a possibility pissed me off. I have an adult library card, I have to pay fines, I should be able to take out whatever book I fucking please.
It's daft anyway, because like anything else if I or another teenager really wanted to read a book there would be a way to do it.
Another point raised was that parents should talk about the issues in the book with their child/teen. Which...I feel a bit odd about. It's not that I don't get on with my mum and dad but discussing what I read with them in great detail feels weird. I haven't really shared my reading with them since they stopped reading me bedtime stories at seven. What books I read has always been personal to me, and that's kind of what I enjoy about it. Obviously it's a different story for an eleven year old, but my one experience of this was a few years ago when another library assistant said a book was quite mature. Later mum talked to me about it and asked me whether I had read any books with sex in them. I lied and said I hadn't, because I didn't want to be having that conversation with her.
I do agree with the stuff about rating books. And books should be made clearer what age range they are for. The number of times I've seen books like How I Live Now in the children's section (like, next to Enid Blyton and Jacqueline Wilson) is ridiculous.