Aibu to suggest alternative books to 12 year old DD when she asks to read something I believe is unsuitable for her age?

[Bettyberryburst]

My DD (aged just turned 12) is an avid reader and came home from school asking to read A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. My first thought was that she is an author known for adult books. Apparently her English teacher used a quote from her book for a lesson and DD asked for the title. Her friend has read it and A Good Girls Guide to Murder, which DD is also asking to read. Am I being unreasonable to think DD should read some more romance/consent books before reading about sexual assault? Or am I being totally naive and it would be beneficial for DD to read about it to understand it and why it is wrong?

Weirdly I am ok with the murder/violence aspect as this feels so far away from day to day life for us. Swearing does not bother me one bit. She has read the Divergent series, The Hunger Games and Maze Runner books, fantasy is usually her favourite genre. I'm not totally against her starting on some young adult fiction but some of it feels too much for her. Am I being OTT to vet what DD reads or should she be allowed free reign now she is at secondary school?

Any recommendations also appreciated!

This thread is wild. What’s wrong with erotic elements in literature? Pre-teens are probably starting to show and interest, and why shouldn’t they? Better by far than watching porn, which they probably have already.

I agree with this 100%. We let DD read everything and anything. No restrictions.

Which one? I started with Temeraire (Napoleonic Wars but with dragons) then loved Uprooted and Spinning Silver, and recently reread her Scholomance trilogy which is not just great world building with a sort of US high school vibe - very dark and funny - but also very satisfying in the way everything ties up in the third book.

Contrast with a YA series, the Black Witch by Laurie Forest, which is basically about prejudice and resisting the rise of fascism but with magic and werewolves. The first and second book are great but it should have stopped there, as the author kind of loses her grip on plot and characterisation in the third book in her interest in the heroine’s love life.

Anyway, I’m waffling but there’s a lot more to fantasy than ‘fairy porn’ 🤣

I would say you can read them but not yet so pick something else

Sounds like she can easily find other books and she knows what she enjoys.

I would sugar coat it with you are a long time adult and can read these and many others but enjoy being 12 for now.

I read Tess of the D’Urbervilles when I was about 12 and that’s pretty explicit with the sexual assault. It didn’t traumatise me. I think many 12 year olds would be able to handle these more mature themes, but you know your daughter best.

I do think there’s a difference between sex as a plot point and gratuitous erotica. I also remember reading a book that had a (very mild by today’s standards) sex scene around the age of 13 and thinking it was thrilling, I still remember some of it word for word, but the sheer volume of it across the ACOTAR series and the more gratuitous and graphic nature of it, designed more for titillation, would give me pause for a pre-teen (and I work in publishing, am a former book editor, so very much of a ‘read all the books’ kind of person usually. But I have read that series and would feel a bit uncomfortable with the volume of graphic sexual content that is essentially just to be erotic, with a child who isn’t even a teenager yet).

I think the one thing I would draw the line at is violent or extreme sex presented as normal eg choking & other porn style practices. There’s too much of this around already. Sexual assault presented as such is different- horrible to read but at least it’s clear it’s horrible.

I also read Flowers in the Attic, and Emmanuelle, at this age and am not scarred.

I was about that age when I first picked up an adult book, maybe a little bit younger. We were on holiday and my older sister had bought it with her. I'd finished all the books I bought with me, so then started on hers.
My reading was never policed or monitored in any way, so I was left to it.
As it happens, the book I picked up was about a girl in South Africa, during apartheid times, who was black but white passing. Something I knew nothing about. It was quite violent and had some sex scenes. It was an unfortunate choice in hindsight, and it scared me a bit.
But it resulted in me self-censoring for another couple of years after that, going back to young adult fiction. I was probably 13-14 before I next picked up another adult book, and was a lot more cautious in what I selected.

Even now though, I'm still on the side of letting kids read whatever they pick up. If they encounter something above their maturity level, it'll either go over their heads, or they'll put it down, or they'll just self-censor like I did.
I think I'd let your DD read ACOTAR if she wants, and preface it with "if you want to discuss any of it with me, or have questions, I'm happy to talk about it."

This thread is wild. What’s wrong with erotic elements in literature? Pre-teens are probably starting to show and interest, and why shouldn’t they? Better by far than watching porn, which they probably have already.

Some of you never read Judy Blume's Forever and it shows 😁

For a human being, sure. That character isn't a human being, though.

Let her read a mix, not all romance based.

Has she read things like Inkheart and other Cornelia Funke fantasy books? The Hive series? Any Malorie Blackman? Louis Sacher (Holes, Small Steps etc)

How about Nancy Drew - there are loads of them - some much more contemporary than the originals, and she is a positive role model.

Online suggestions include The Queen's Thief by Megan Whalen and The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce as wholesome fantasy series for teens.

I find it sad that your assumption is that all pre teens are watching porn and starting to have erotic interest.

I have two pre-teens. One is in a group that have zero interest in romance, and an accidental brush with erotica would make them wince. But they would happily read scary horror. The other is in a group that would actively seek it romance and be unphased by erotica, but horror would give them nightmares.

I don't censor or prohibit books. But we are a reading family, so I will talk to them about their choices, tell them if I think the content will make them uncomfortable and make suggestions that I think they will enjoy and will extend their reading interests.

Its just parenting

The volume of erotic elements across the ACOTAR series is actually tiny. It's relatively explicit, especially in the most recent book, but it's really not that plentiful across the whole series. The actual plot across the series is much more about political scheming and war to be honest. It's a fantasy series with some romantic subplots but the romance isn't the main plot line at all.

If ACOTAR had been written by a man, it would have been marketed simply as fantasy, not as 'romantasy'.

To address the OP's actual question, if I had a 12-year-old I'd let them read whatever they wanted. I'm pretty sure a 12-year-old knows what sex is, and I'm also pretty sure that a 12-year-old can understand the difference between a relationship dynamic in a book and what a relationship is in real life. ACOTAR is absolutely the kind of thing I'd have been reading at 12, if it had been around then. Equally, at 12 I wasn't relying on my parents to provide me with reading matter. I just went to the library every week and picked out what I wanted. My parents never supervised or censored my choices.

IIRC ACOTAR is relatively tame, but later books are much more explicit. There is quite a heavy theme of abuse and coersive control, as well as complex adult relationships. I started reading romance quite young but it was very much fluffy with a dash of third act peril then someone rides in to save the day.
If you haven't already the best thing you can do is read it yourself or listen to the audio book to make the best judgement. You know your kid and their levels of maturity.
At a similar age I really enjoyed Alison Croggon's Books of Pellinor series. It's a sort of YA epic fantasy with several long books.

I didn’t say they are all watching porn, but some of them are. Depending on what stats you look at, up to half of children have been exposed to porn by the age of 13. It may be sad, but it’s the real world, I’m afraid. And it depends on the child, but many 12 year olds are going through puberty and with that comes all the hormone stuff. Perfectly normal. By all means suggest reading to them based on their individual interests, but I personally don’t find censoring books to be a great way to deal with teens and pre-teens.

This probably isn’t helpful but at least she’s talking to you about it.

Back in the day I remember copies of various bonkbusters doing the rounds at school when I was her age. We just weren’t silly enough to tell our parents about them

I don't understand why people think it's ok to let children read anything they want. I appreciate that many children have a reading ability beyond their age, but to say ANYTHING is ok just seems strange to me. I say this as someone who has always been an avid reader. I think sometimes that reading is seen as such a worthy pursuit compared to, say, playing video games or watching TV/films, that all concerns about reading something potentially very disturbing, fly out the window. Even as an adult, I have read books which left me feeling traumatised. I'm sure we all have. As adults, we can process that response and rationalise it, but a 12 year old, more than likely, will not be emotionally mature enough to do this and may be left dealing with feelings of trauma they can't express aloud. Some of the graphic descriptions of fear, physical and mental pain, torture, sadism, cruelty and sexual activity are definitely not something I would have wanted any 12 year old of mine reading. Just because it's written in a book, even though it's well written, doesn't mean it's ok for young readers.

She'll learn about it one day. let her read it

As someone who didn't have literate parents, and who had read her way through the children's library so that she was allowed to borrow from the adult library far earlier than normal (and from talking to friends with similar experiences of reading a wide range of adult books from very young), the stuff that stayed with me in a way that I think was definitely damaging was not actually violent or disturbing or graphic content, but the casual misogyny of well-regarded male literary writers like John Updike, Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis, John Fowles etc.

When you read incredibly beautifully- and -convincingly-written portraits of women viewed from a perspective that views half the human race as comic grotesques purely by virtue of possessing a vagina, and are 12 or 14 and without feminist perpsectives in my immediate environment (or indeed many books by women), it's hard not to think 'That must be who I am.'

I would disagree. I would say that your description is Throne of Glass. ACOTAR is very heavily romance-driven. The romantic relationships are a focal point of the books, not subplots. ToG they are definitely much more like subplots.

She should give it a go as part of wider fantasy reading, but compare it to writers like Ursula LeGuin, or the women in Wheel of Time. She'll probably find more interesting books quite swiftly.

Also has she read any Greek mythology? It's a nice base to learn where a lot of fantasy comes from. You'll see the Odyssey recycled over and over. Plenty of versions/translations available.

It's really interesting how the views vary so much, it's seems obvious to me that it is a parenting choice, rather than a clear cut moral value. I have asked her to tell me if she does decide to read it, so we can talk about anything that she wants to.

She absolutely could go to her school library and borrow, but she did say why would she do that when I have told her I don't want her to read it yet. With regards to the local library, I have her card linked to my app and I am always reserving books for her (she can also log on computer and choose her own which she does do, especially when she wants the next one a series) but I love picking out books for her and often find ones she enjoys. She does need to start going and browsing and choosing books that way again because I feel it may be a lost art to her!

Will take on board the recommendations and the ways to frame it to her. I think she gets it a bit as she asked maze runner series and read first one when she was 10 but then it was a bit much and has just read them all this year.

Four pages into a thread about a 12yo girl that's into fantasy, and no-one has suggested The Lord of the Rings yet (assuming she's not read it yet)? It'll do wonders for her vocabulary, possibly trigger a phase of writing highly derivative metrical poetry about magical swords and horses, and give a foundation for understanding many of the tropes of the genre.

Bluntly, if she likes Sarah J Maas (based on the prose and characterisation of the extract someone pasted in earlier), it's highly unlikely she will go for Tolkien.