I found this debate today in the New York Times, and I wanted to share it with you, and to share my opinion.
What makes a book and "adult" book? It's complexity? the subjects that it touches? when is it right to read a certain book and when isn't? and while we are at it, what exactly makes an adult?
I'm 26, and I had my share of "young -adult" books, but also what apparently is called "adult" books. I read Gone with the Wind when I was still a teenager, as well as Madame Bovary, The Odyssey as well as all the available series of "Goosebumps" in my schools library. I always thought of them as books, that's it. Sure, they were genres, horror, fiction, non-fiction...but I never discriminated them for the age-public they were aiming at. I do not agree with Joel Stein, saying that adults should only read adult books. Partly because I think there are really amazing things about Harry Potter that you see differently with age. But mostly, because I think in a society that reading is being left behind, any opportunity that a person has to submerge in a book, and maybe find out what really moves them should not be left behind.
I think however that are books that should be read after you have a certain background (I don't like to use th word maturity in this context). I think your first contact with a "love story" should not be The Twilight Saga, but I read it, enjoyed talking about it with my friends, all the time knowing that this was not the ideal relationship (far from it) vampires or not vampires.
So what's your opinion? Let me know :)
