Happy Mother’s Day to you!! Human parents and pet parents alike! You have the incredible job of being responsible for someone other than yourself and I hope you know that you’re doing AMAZING!

In spirit of the day, let’s create a positivity thread!! Share anything positive (about your life, reading Pagebound appreciate, etc). Anything goes as long as it’s positive 🥰🥰

TIME TO STIR THE POT! Probably not a good thing when my anxiety is kicking my butt but I have things to say.

I'm noticing a lot of books marketed as YA lately have gotten some really mature topics in them. Anybody else noticed this change in the YA genre?

There will be on page spicy time with more adult themes throughout. And I'm probably just old but I've always been under the impression that YA books should be fade to black and any mature themes be muted. When I was a kid YA books were fluffy so to speak but lately when I pick up newer YA books this isn't the case.

For example These Hollow Vows is said to be YA and the sequel had on page spice.

Currently reading Stormbreaker by Nisha J Tuli and there's alcohol use, drug use, spicy content, multiple swearing throughout

I run a book club and we were reading A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid which is said to be YA and a lot had to DNF because there was some really triggering material in graphic detail.

Sunrise on the Reaping had very graphic scenes that had me gasping at the page.

Just for the record; I am not saying teens shouldn't be reading this, they can read whatever. Teens are reading and watching some real messed up stuff lately, and gravitating toward more mature books. So I do get why YA is changing

I have a hypothesis that people who really like reading--enough to be in a community like this and to read a wide variety of books--were not only encouraged to read growing up but had a fair amount of latitude in what they read.

My mother didn't read very much but my father read all the time and the house was full of books. A little of everything, though mostly SF/F/H. We had everything from the Narnia books to LotR to very adult-oriented horror books. It was all open to me and my parents never policed my reading, so I read a bit of every type of book we had going back to at least 3rd or 4th grade.

I'm curious about the rest of you. Not necessarily a no-boundaries childhood when it came to reading, but whether you felt like books were encouraged and you were mostly given the freedom to explore them on your own.