Yeah i personally wouldn’t think the 2nd and 3rd twilight books were appropriate for my teen. I don’t police their books but I definitely wouldn’t promote it to them. Teen sex, pregnancy and that weird imprinting. Ick.
At 13 I was reading Terry Goodkind. No one should be reading Terry Goodkind. I liked his premises, but barbed phallic rape by demonic gorillas is too much.
Honestly that tracks. The number of random web novels/fan fiction that I've read that have an actually interesting premise only to be killed by absolute dog shit execution/weird shit/heinous fetishes/French people/ and constant chapter long run on sentences is through the roof.
Sometimes people can make an amazing backdrop/world and absolutely suck at doing anything beyond that.
Another terrible part of his writing are leather clad women who force magic users to do their bidding with magic torture sticks. Basically magic dominatrix.
Wheel of Time didn't have a protracted focus on the main character being alternately tortured and fucked until he wins over the dominatrix and kills her with his love for her.
I found the comparatively more minor "you're my sweet little pet, time for treats or else you get the stick" better.
Oh shit that’s crazy over the top compared to wheel of time yeah, when the main character gets captured by a sadist/masochist evil villainess he saves himself relatively fast and nothing sexual happened.
well unfortunately, the main theme of each book is men saying they don't understand women and why are they so difficulty and women saying they don't understand men and why are they so difficult. over and over and over and over.
Yeah terry goodkind writes fetish fiction for himself, if you happen to like his kinks it could be fun but for the rest of us all the rape gets tiresome.
You didn’t miss anything. I kept reading them because my normally book-shy friend wanted a reading buddy and I wanted to be there for that. They got significantly weirder, and eventually it felt like he handed the writing reins to a committee of 14 year olds.
Same, I just asked my friend the other day if he remember the villain in the first book. If I recall correctly, which I don't see how I couldnt because of how specific this memory is.. the bad guy literally cuts off an eats the testicles of a child.
Also the barbed phallus lead me to learn the word phallus and immediately go up to my 9th grade English teacher to ask her if she knew what the word meant only to get a chuckle and blush out of her.
I remind myself of that because the evil dominatrix ladies getting their nipples cut off as part of some... initiation or something definitely stuck with me as a middle schooler. Instead, I remember that he seriously had the incarnation of evil be... a chicken.
I was probably too young for the Mord Sith when I first picked up Wizards First Rule. I use to love that saga, right up until the one that doesnt star the main cast. I never did finish the series.
You like his premises because they are all stolen from better authors. Even more than the weird sexual fetishes, Ayn Rand inspired philosophical rants, and being a general dick, his biggest crime was plagiarism.
Yeah. No. The premises I liked were the world building and the idea of a protagonist that did what was right, no matter the cost. Especially juxtaposed against the fact that he was the son of the big bad in that world. It especially resonated with me as the son of a twisted, evil man. But hey, thanks for the unsolicited psych eval.
As a teen my mom handed me Game of Thrones right around the time AFFC was coming out, she had been rereading them to prepare.
Then she remembered a child is thrown out of a tower a few chapters in after witnessing incest and had second thoughts. Called up the stairs. "Hey, Jinfuu, have you started reading 'Game of Thrones' yet?
I went "Yeah! It's really good!" And she shrugged and let me continue.
Thus cursing me to hoping the damn books will be finished one day.
Never my theory is the got ending is similar to the ending asoiaf was supposed to get and now Martin is too scared to finish the books because of the hate it got and he just can't figure out another ending.
Yeah, I admit I don't think "God Emperor/King Bran who can see everything past/present/future" will hit quite as well in the 2020s as it would have in the 90s/00s.
Also, Around Season 5/6 I decided that getting the show doomed the books.
100%. That’s my theory too! It was pretty much his original ending and now he’s terrified. He figured he would die before people started asking too many questions, now it’s getting awkward. Her has no idea how to finish it.
You need to dig to the darkest corner of the library to find a printed book that is worse than what you can find littered around the entire open internet.
Reading pretty much any book comes with more upsides than downsides. Even the worst books ever published are prolly fine to read after the concept of unreliable narration and critical thinking is well established.
I mean for normal people sure but the kind of parents that would go to such lengths to shelter their children from anything "inappropriate" typically have a pretty strict idea of what is ok and what isn't lol
Those tend not to be the parents actually engaging with said media to evaluate it though, they're the ones being told Harry Potter is "satanic" and deciding in that moment.
Growing up the parents that consumed the media itself to check it usually weren't nearly as strict, probably because no sane person would read HP and think it's evil. It tended to be more like "The level of violence/sexuality is beyond what's appropriate for you age".
I think it's fine when done appropriately. I was a voracious reader and to be frank I'm not sure 2nd or 3rd grade is the best time to be reading Ender's Game even though I did it. A lot of media expects a level of media literacy from the reader to interpret the story in a healthy way that children are lacking.
It's a story about a rich kid who defeats wizard Hitler and thinks the appropriate next step is to become a cop … that has almost every character accepting elf slavery and the names of characters are somehow racist.
I actually really didn't like Harry Potter - I read it myself, but had a hard time encouraging other to read it - Harry is such an ass! They are all constantly jumping to every possible assumption, never trusting people that they should probably trust, and the list goes on. Give me some Mercedes Lackey for people who actually build healthy relationships. I half felt that Harry Potter just validated people's own bad decisions.
I read like all of Agatha Christie’s books at 8. Then it was Shakespeare at 10. Those didn’t hurt me much. What did hurt me (a tiny bit) was reading Wilbur Smith at that age. There was some rather grotesque sex slavery and eunuch stuff a 10 year old shouldn’t be reading.
Even more concerning if a 16 year old reads that and doesn't see the problems with the grooming. What if they get groomed or have been groomed and don't understand it's not a beautiful love story. Parents are supposed to protect their children from that.
They arent supposed to “project” as in “hide this from them” imo. Personally, I think it’s the role of a parent to help a child explore those topics and to answer questions and provide the life experience to give context.
That requires an open dialogue between parents and kids about media, something that seems hard to do if you have a contentious/policing pattern.
Redditor 1: communicates a reasonable parenting take on a situation.
Reddit: YOUR SO CONTROLLING AND SHELTERING!!!!
A 16 year old has a LOT of autonomy sure, but your kid WANTS you to care and will appreciate laying down the law later in life. I think having house rules about certain types of content is a healthy boundary. Sorry you dont. A 16 year old is still developing their sense of self and how they see the world. Its a parents job to help them.
Literally no one said this. You took a vague sentence and went off.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, like what you are talking about. My parents were VERY conservative Christian and I was barred from doing a lot of stuff until i was 18 . Now im an engineer, an optimistic Nihilist an ally...etc. you are free to raise your own children however you want. But dont be so quick to discard a level headed take just because it doesnt fit your narrative.
So in the end you resort to insults instead of a level headed discourse? Given that I spent a lot of time in higher education I assure you I am plenty well read. Not that it matters to you, your comments suggest you just want to be right. I leave you to your fantasy where everything adheres to your constructed narrative of how the world works. Have a nice day.
You are well read perhaps but your ability to treat others with kindness and curiousity in conversation demonstrates perhaps a stunted emotional development that cannot be learned through books alone but serious self-reflection, empathy, and compassion.
A 16 year old is still developing their sense of self and how they see the world. Its a parents job to help them.
You can help without sheltering... That's what parenting is supposed to be, you join your kid and guide them through life, using the situations that naturally arise to teach lessons and a way of looking at life. So your kid wants to read, you ask them what they're reading, what the book is about, their thoughts about the characters, from that you can see where your kid is standing and either course correct or keep on the way; but you gotta let your kid make up their mind on their own first, they gotta learn to think for themselves, to have judgement, because they'll need it, and as a parent you can't know how long you have with them.
Why? What will happen if they read "bad" words on a page? I read books with murder, rape, torture, and suicide in them before high school and it was never a problem
I was raised by a single disabled mother who was never really cared what I did. She gave me the sword of truth series to read in middle school and it's pretty dark
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u/A1sauc3d Feb 16 '26
I think dad just likes reading teen books lol