11:19 pm - 04/03/2012
The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading “The Hunger Games.” Or a Twilight book. Or Harry Potter. The only time I’m O.K. with an adult holding a children’s book is if he’s moving his mouth as he reads.
I’m sure all those books are well written. So is “Horton Hatches the Egg.” But Horton doesn’t have the depth of language and character as literature written for people who have stopped physically growing.
I appreciate that adults occasionally watch Pixar movies or play video games. That’s fine. Those media don’t require much of your brains. Books are one of our few chances to learn. There’s a reason my teachers didn’t assign me to go home and play three hours of Donkey Kong.
I have no idea what “The Hunger Games” is like. Maybe there are complicated shades of good and evil in each character. Maybe there are Pynchonesque turns of phrase. Maybe it delves into issues of identity, self-justification and anomie that would make David Foster Wallace proud. I don’t know because it’s a book for kids. I’ll read “The Hunger Games” when I finish the previous 3,000 years of fiction written for adults.
Let’s have the decency to let tween girls have their own little world of vampires and child wizards and games you play when hungry. Let’s not pump Justin Bieber in our Saabs and get engaged at Cinderella’s Castle at Disneyland. Because it’s embarrassing. You can’t take an adult seriously when he’s debating you over why Twilight vampires are O.K. with sunlight. If my parents had read “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” at the same time as I did, I would have looked into boarding school.
NYTimes Fail Opinion
Joel Stein: "Adults Should Read Adult Books"
The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading “The Hunger Games.” Or a Twilight book. Or Harry Potter. The only time I’m O.K. with an adult holding a children’s book is if he’s moving his mouth as he reads.
I’m sure all those books are well written. So is “Horton Hatches the Egg.” But Horton doesn’t have the depth of language and character as literature written for people who have stopped physically growing.
I appreciate that adults occasionally watch Pixar movies or play video games. That’s fine. Those media don’t require much of your brains. Books are one of our few chances to learn. There’s a reason my teachers didn’t assign me to go home and play three hours of Donkey Kong.
I have no idea what “The Hunger Games” is like. Maybe there are complicated shades of good and evil in each character. Maybe there are Pynchonesque turns of phrase. Maybe it delves into issues of identity, self-justification and anomie that would make David Foster Wallace proud. I don’t know because it’s a book for kids. I’ll read “The Hunger Games” when I finish the previous 3,000 years of fiction written for adults.
Let’s have the decency to let tween girls have their own little world of vampires and child wizards and games you play when hungry. Let’s not pump Justin Bieber in our Saabs and get engaged at Cinderella’s Castle at Disneyland. Because it’s embarrassing. You can’t take an adult seriously when he’s debating you over why Twilight vampires are O.K. with sunlight. If my parents had read “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” at the same time as I did, I would have looked into boarding school.
NYTimes Fail Opinion
I might read Monster Blood this weekend, now that I think about it.
~rearrange the Fier name and you'll have *FIRE*~
Read. Read. Read. Just don't read one type of book. Read different books. - R.L. Stein
Edited at 2012-04-04 03:48 am (UTC)
don't see why you should even give a shit
Sometimes I just want something quick and easy that I can enjoy because I'm too stressed from real life
Harry Potter is for all ages.
instead?
Why bother getting an higher education if your maturity and comprehension levels are the same as when you were at 13?
Also every Harlequin romance ever published because those def aren't for kids
Fuck that shit. I'll do what i want.
I also blame Twilight for the onslaught of vampire fiction and I'm going to blame Hunger Games for the inevitable deluge of YA dystopian and/or survivalist fiction lol. THANKS BOOK PUBLISHERS!!!!
- a mother with grown children finding herself after having a midlife crisis
- chick lit where the girl is a socialite, a model, working in the modelling, magazine or film industry behind the scenes, big on shopping and cute little lunches with "the girls" or all of the above put together
- how the family pet taught the family to laugh and love again
- journeying abroad and finding oneself
etc.
It's also hard to find any book blogs written by adults that aren't YA. I don't mean like 20 year olds like some are in their 30s and talking about YA books. Like really?
"The Hunger Games," I have cautiously started reading in between reading non-fiction books like "Game Change" and "Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine." So far though, I have to say "The Hunger Games" could be considered an actual adult book that is also acceptable for younger people. Then again, I'm not even halfway through the first book so my opinion could change. It does remind me of "The Giver" (book), "Equilibrium" (movie) and a few other things like that.
"Harry Potter" is pretty much completely out of appropriate for kids by the last book really. Its villain is based on Hitler for crying out loud. I think that series is written similar to the Disney/Pixar movies he comments on in the article. It's written so that on the surface it seems like it's for children and entertains them, but there are also much deeper adult themes and emotions going on that the child would probably not notice while it's the main story for the adult.
I'm not "stanning" for any of these and some people that are supposed to be adults are a little weird about this stuff (cough-TwiMoms-cough), but I've also seen several adults that have high up jobs and can't use proper spelling or grammar on such things as "where", "were", "their", "there", "your", "you're", "tomorrow", etc. To be honest, there's a huge issue with adults being illiterate or "under" literate in this country so as long as they are actually reading and it's a book with proper spelling and grammar examples, I don't have a problem with it.
When I was a YA I read Harry Potter but after I read the entirety of LoTR in middle school. They are both brilliant series and I enjoyed them equally.
Why are we lowering our expectations of YA's? They can enjoy adult literature and we can enjoy YA literature. There is literature in both categories that are challenging and enriching. I don't understand why we expect YA's to love 'easy reads'? We should up our expectation of all books in all groups instead of continuing to create this ridiculous divide between YA's and adults as if we're so different. They already struggle enough to find identity as it is.
ilh
nope
like, really...
"As long as people are reading" needs to die and be replaced by "As long as people are consuming intelligent works", which clearly doesn't apply to all books.
I see his point and agree to a bit of it, but the best-seller adult lit today is basically no less complex than something written for a 7th grade level anyway.
Sounds like he's stanning for literature more than just "adult" books.
i get his point, though he's coming off as kind of antagonistic about it.
and your icon