By Courtney Warren
I have the pleasure of running the middle school library at my amazing school. It has been so much fun watching the amount of books on the shelves grow and learning what our students enjoy reading.
With that being said, I do run into a challenge.
Our students are high level readers, which means I have to be mindful of what books my students are bringing into the room. We have seen such an uptick in smutty books. For those that are unfamiliar with that term, it means sexually explicit. We are seeing this more and more in the young adult (YA) genre, because YA does technically go into the early years of college.
However, because I have advanced readers in my classroom, I often struggle to find books that are appropriate for them, interest them and challenge them all in one go.
Imagine my excitement when I stumbled across a book that was labeled a “clean, Christian thriller.”
Perfect! My kiddos love reading spooky books, so to read this would be spooky and I wouldn’t have to worry about sexually explicit material or obscene language had me so excited. I ordered the book immediately. When it came in, I told the kids how excited I was about finding a clean thriller, and that I was going to take it home to read so I could hype it up the following Monday.
Man, was I in for a thriller! The premise of the story is that a woman moves to a house in Maine with her wife and baby after having a falling out at her former job as a homicide detective. While she is in this house that she bought sight unseen, she begins to experience paranormal activity, including hearing voices and seeing the ghost of a young girl. Seems great right? I wanted to know who the young girl was, why the main character was drawn to this house and how her family would be involved.
Now, prepare yourself, because I’m going to include spoilers. I didn’t get a thriller. What I got was kidnapping, child abuse, sexual abuse and more. The whole kit and caboodle! It was an absolute mess, and, as I read the book, I basically sat with my mouth open the entire time, shocked that someone could label this a clean thriller.
It makes it so clear that we can’t blindly trust what one person deems clean or appropriate for someone else. While this one was way way off base, it reminds me of the importance of movie and TV ratings. Even though something says it might be okay for my child, it doesn’t mean it is.
The same goes for books and for ratings. As we continue into 2026, and soon 2027, with so many new movies, books and albums releasing, it’s a good reminder that just because one person labels one clean or appropriate, doesn’t mean it will work for others.
I am so glad that I took a look at this book, and, while I rated it very low on the star scale, I rate it even lower on the self-representation scale, because what the heck! I wanted ghosts! Instead, I got nightmares.
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