In the book reading community, across the board, there’s an argument that I’ve seen prevail, and it’s about young adult books: books that are written with a target audience of people who are between 13 and 18 years old. I’ve heard and read tons of different arguments regarding whether or not these books are good or bad as a whole, so I decided to take some time, do some research, and put together a post about this idea that YA books are objectively bad by default.

Dark content has been prevalent in stories of all kinds for a long time. However, it hasn’t always been as pervasive or in-your-face as it seems to be today. It seems like we can’t turn on a show, go see a movie, play a game, or open a book without experiencing content that’s aggressively dark or grim hitting our eyes at some point during the story. This is something I’ve seen ramping up lately, particularly with the success of shows like Game of Thrones. The question I want to ask today is… do stories need dark or controversial content? Are violence, gore, sex, drugs, trauma, and other topics that have been considered taboo in the past necessary for stories? Do they improve the stories overall, or would the stories be better if this content were cut?

When I look to a reviewer for an opinion, I generally look for a reviewer whose tastes are similar to my own. What better way to see if our tastes are aligned than listing a few of my favorite things? I’m going to tackle my top three books, movies, games, and shows. We’ll start with number three and work our way up, one category at a time.