Banned Books Week

I feel like I should say something on this topic. I've never been told what to read, I've never had a book banned, so I don't understand why books should be banned. I feel like books get a really bad name for some of their darker concepts that we see all around us and not just in books. Some of the books we see banned shouldn't be. Main problems that parents or teachers see with books is sex, drugs, alcohol, inappropriate behaviour, crime, all of that. It's wrong, it's disgusting, it's whatever they're telling you.

And?

I started really reading when I was 13. I picked up a book because I needed to get my mind of personal problems. It was an escape. The truth is I knew about drugs and sex and alcoholism and death and all of the things that people ban from these books way before I started reading. My first proper starting to read was when I was 13, before that I'd known about alcohol from seeing my dad, death from my mam, sex from PSE classes, drugs from PSE classes, smoking from my nana, it's teenaged life to do stuff. And when I was 13 I could have gone down the road of drinking and drugs and smoking and partying and fucking my life up. But instead I read so I don't see how books like this should be banned. They help more than they hurt.


And I'd like to point out TV. If you look at a UK soap like Eastenders, they tailor each episode to fit to a problem that they see in society as of right now. So they cover, alcoholism, drugs, sex, homosexuality, death, and all of the things that people ban in books. So if I go to the writers of one of the most well loved TV shows in the UK do you think I'd be successful?


I feel like someone should go to whoever decides to ban the books and say to them 'what's your favourite book/show?' then tell them stupid trivial reason for why that should be banned. Show them how we feel.


Books saved my life. Books with dark themes and twisted morals and messed up characters and beautiful, wonderful, amazingly different worlds helped me to get over reality for a moment. If it can help someone in life, why should we be banning books that show us reality for some, and stop people from getting into those things that people think are wrong?