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!

Review: Dare You To, by Katie McGarry

Release date: June 7, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin UK
Format: Paperback, 352 pages

Goodreads description:
Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. "Dance with me, Beth."

"No." I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again....

"I dare you..."

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all...


The following review is based on a copy I got from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.


Review:
From the moment I finished Pushing the Limits (read my review here), I knew that I wanted to read anything else Katie McGarry writes. I itched to get my hands on Dare You To as soon as I read the sneak peek in the back of my ARC. And I wasn’t disappointed! Once more Katie McGarry delivers an achingly realistic tale with complex characters.

I was a little thrown going into the story because I expected it to be that of Beth and Isaiah, and I was a tad reluctant to really take to Ryan. He’s not the type of guy I usually like, but he also ended up being a very different person from what I’d first expected. Trust me: once you see things from Beth’s point of view, you’ll realize why she and Isaiah wouldn’t work.

Beth doesn’t have many prospects in life, to a large part because she keeps being dragged down by her alcoholic mother. She’s the one to juggle the bills, to try to keep them somehow afloat, and to drag her mom home from the bar. But after a confrontation with her mother’s violent boyfriend ends at the police station, she is picked up by the man she least expected – her father’s brother, Scott, who is now her legal guardian and loses no time in taking her away from her ‘home’ and friends in the city out to his small town. Her relationship with Scott is weighed down by past issues and by his quasi-hero status in town for his success in baseball.

Baseball is what connects Scott to Ryan, whose father pushes him towards a professional career in the sport instead of going to college. When I first ‘met’ Ryan, I thought he was your usual cocky jock, used to getting whatever he wants when he wants it. The dares he and his friends challenge each other with range from hilarious to retarded, and his motto of ‘I don’t lose’ annoyed me in the beginning. However, I learned to respect him and his passion for the sport. He was very different to what I expected and behaved in a respectful way towards other people – he’s a good guy with many more talents than just baseball, even though it takes him a while to admit that to himself and act on it. Much of his arc focuses on his relationship to his overbearing father (whom I wanted to throttle) and how much he is willing to sacrifice in order to please him.

When Beth and Ryan meet, sparks fly. Sometimes they’re angry sparks, sometimes they’re steamy sparks, but the chemistry between them is undeniable. What starts as a dare eventually becomes more than either of them would have expected, and I loved seeing them struggle against their emotions, challenge each other, and eventually learn to trust one another despite the many obstacles people put in the way of their relationship. Especially Beth is constantly jerked from one side to the other as she realizes she has a chance at a new life, at hope for a future, but can’t let go of her past and doesn’t want to forsake her friends and her mother. Though from the outside, Beth and Ryan’s home lives look like opposites, both their families are rotten at the core.

In my opinion, Dare You To was well-paced, with a good balance between more action-focused and dramatic scenes as well as calmer moments where McGarry’s skill at character development is given room to unfold itself. I alternately hurt, raged, and occasionally turned into a puddle of goo (I will never look at rain water in the same way). The story is never boring but I also never felt like I was being breathlessly hurried along. The characters’ conflicting emotions and Beth’s traumatic past need time to unravel and become real to the reader. Yet despite the many dark themes in the novel, there were also lighter, more humorous moments, usually in the dialogue between Beth and various other people.

Dare You To is a story of hope, guilt, rising above oneself and one’s station, sticking up for what and who you love, and about how much you’re willing to give up for your family. The novel is highly emotional but McGarry’s no-nonsense prose leaves no space for cheap drama. For those of you who want more of Echo and Noah - they have short guest appearances but the focus is clearly on Beth, Ryan, and to an extent Isaiah (who will get his own novel).

My one sort-of-complaint is that though the emotions were very well-crafted and believable, somehow the story didn’t impact me quite as much as Pushing the Limits did. It made me tear up, but I never cried. I was satisfied but missed that feeling of catharsis. That might just be me though, or the overall state of mind I was in. I definitely enjoyed how well-crafted the story was and how the various layers and issues played into one another!

If you like contemporaries dealing with tough but realistic topics and romance between strong characters, you will enjoy this one! I’d recommend it to the more mature YA readers though because of language, drug abuse, and sexually charged situations.

Have you guys read Pushing the Limits? Are you excited about Dare You To? What's your take on this story or on others dealing with similar issues? If you've read both of Katie McGarry's books, which one did you like better? Let me know in the comments :)

Just-Finished-Review: The Sea of Tranquility, by Katja Millay

Release date: June 4, 2013
Publisher: Atria Books
Format: Paperback, 448 pages

Goodreads description:
I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

Full of rage and without a purpose, former pianist Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone discovering her past and to make the boy who took everything from her pay.

All 17 year-old Josh Bennett wants is to build furniture and be left alone, and everyone allows it because it’s easier to pretend he doesn’t exist. When your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, a hot mess of a girl who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. The more he gets to know her, the more of a mystery she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he may ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a slow-building, character-driven romance about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

Please Note: This book contains mature content including profanity, drug/alcohol use, and sexual situations/language.

Amazon     Barnes&Noble     Book Depository

The following review is based on a copy I got from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.


Review:
The Sea of Tranquility is one of those books everyone tells you to read because of how amazing it is. You go in expecting it to be great… but you have no way of knowing just how painfully real, how delicate, how brutal, how deeply affecting a story you are about to be swept into. I think there is no way to read this book and not be in some way changed by it. I know that the characters and what they faced will stay with me for a very long time, and that my mind and heart are the richer for it.

The most amazing thing about this book are the characters. I have never met two fictional people like Nastya and Josh. I know that many contemporary YA and NA books focus on characters that are in some way ‘broken’, but any that I’ve read of so far pale in comparison. Josh and Nastya are not just a series of traits or letters on a page, they become people. There is nothing shallow, nothing fabricated or melodramatic about them. They are complex, and strong, and shattered, and no longer believe that anything will ever be okay. And once you start to learn about what they’ve been through, you can’t blame them. My heart broke for their pain, their grief, their anger.

The story is told alternately from Nastya and Josh’s point of view, and I loved the chance to see into both of their heads! Their voices are so strong and basically leapt off the page from the very beginning. Nastya enters a new school in a new town where she now lives with her aunt after leaving her family behind. She has not spoken a word in over a year. She wants to be left alone. Josh already is alone, because everyone gives him a berth and no one knows how to deal with him. He doesn’t talk much either and never asks Nastya any questions, which is part of why they start spending time together after a chance-encounter.

I loved seeing them grow closer. There was nothing rushed, nothing forced about it. No talk of love after only weeks of knowing one another. I even would have been content if there’d been no romance at all, because the connection between them and their interactions were enough – which is not to say I didn’t root for the two of them to become a couple!

The minor characters are also amazing. There is so much more to them than I initially expected, especially Drew, Josh’s only friend who also grows close to Nastya. I never imagined him to have as much depth but it made me like him a lot more.

Another character I really liked is Clay, a talented artist. I generally love how important creative expression (or lack thereof) is in the story! It’s not just something cool to add to the people, it’s part of who they are and how they view and deal with the world around them.

Despite how bleak and painful the story may sound at this point, it also made me laugh quite a lot! The dialogue is awesome, both the spoken conversations and the things Nastya and Josh think but don’t say out loud. Both have a no-nonsense attitude and call things how they are. I also really like how openly the book treats questions of sexuality, drinking, and being confronted with things you aren’t ready for.

The pace is slow-building in the beginning, but I never wanted it to move faster because it never bored or bothered me. This isn’t an action-focused story, it’s about the inner journey of the characters and their changes. It needs time to grow, or it would not be believable. There are peaks of high emotion and drama, but never anything annoying or over the top. Katja Millay is also wonderful at spreading out information without ever revealing too much. Despite seeing into both Josh and Nastya’s heads, it’s a long time before there is any clarity to what precisely happened to her, and the reveal, once it comes, was very different from how I expected it to go down!

I don’t really know what else to say because I don’t want to give anything away, and the beauty and power of The Sea of Tranquility is in the details. In the things that go unsaid. In events for which there are no adequate words. This is a story about hope and despair, about choices, about hoping for second chances but not daring to, about anger and hatred and the wish for revenge. About fear, and how it might be overcome. About healing. About wondering whether one even deserves to heal, or be happy. It’s about how our expectations shape the world, and about how nothing is ever simple or black-and-white. It’s angsty. It’s powerful. It’s so compelling you will not want to put it down. It will make you feel the full range of emotions without being tear-jerky, without you feeling manipulated into feeling anything. It’s a story I will re-read because I know there are so many hints I will pick up on that I could not know about the first time around. I would not change a single word in it. I don’t have the right words to talk about it. So do yourself a favor and just go read it – it will be time well spent!

I only just finished reading this book and maybe I should have waited a bit longer with writing the review to better digest the story. There are a lot of things I haven't touched on in the review. But I just needed to voice my thoughts somehow! Have any of your read it yet? What did you think? Or if you haven't, what intrigues you about it? I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments :)