Maybe you have never heard of clean reading, or maybe you are interested in starting clean reading, or maybe you just want to know why people 'read clean'. Well, hopefully by the time you finish reading this, your questions will be answered. I will begin with telling why I have started 'clean reading'.
At the beginning of 2012 I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. The main reason I wished to read it was because of all the hype over the books and movie. I went at it knowing nothing of the plot, or of the graphic sexual content. I may have finished the book, but I felt dirty and violated after reading it. I hated that uncomfortable feeling. It was as if I had been watching those things happen right in front of me, and I hated having those words and sexual images stuck in my head. I took some advice from my priest (I am Catholic) and every time those images would creep into my mind I would pray 'Lord, take these images out of my head.' I would repeat it over and over until those images left. It worked, but I know I never wanted to add fuel to that fire.
Books should make you think and explore new ideas, but they should never make you uncomfortable or feel violated. Thus my quest for clean reading began.
It has been a year and a half since I started this quest. Many times I struggled to find books that were clean and weren't a waste of time to read. Sometimes I would be reading a book that was clean and had nothing objectionable, when suddenly out of now where the characters have sex. It was like watching a movie that is really good and suddenly the characters are having sex because Hollywood, and many times society, demands to have it happen. Being on Goodreads I would try to read reviews and get an idea of the sexual content in a book where it seems plausible of happening. Rarely would I have any luck with that. When it came to finding new books in the library I was stuck looking at the children section, as the majority of the teen section is riddled with sex filled pages. My goal for this blog is to help people realize they can read great books, without having to read porn along with it.
So what is clean reading? Clean reading can have several definitions and varies from person to person. The most conservative clean read definition is 'No language, little violence, no sex or uncomfortable romantic gestures'. And even that definition can be interpreted differently. For some people clean reading is just reading a book with no language (or maybe just no 'F-bombs' being dropped, period). For some, they consider clean reads books without heavy description of violence. And for many, like myself, a clean read is a book with no sex or uncomfortable romantic gestures. This is where the trouble comes in defining what is a clean read or not, because everyone is different, and everyone is uncomfortable with different things. For me, a clean read is a book with no sexual interaction, or uncomfortable (to me) romantic gestures, and little cursing. You can see where the trouble comes in, what makes a romantic gesture uncomfortable? And what is little cursing?
Don't loose hope just yet. Sometimes it just takes a review covering the amount of violence, sexual & romantic interactions, and language in a book. With each review I give on my blog, I try to cover these areas to help people find a book that will hopefully not make them feel violated or dirty. Something they would be proud to recommend to their grandmother or mother, or even a nun.
And that is an introduction to clean reading. If you have book recommendations for me to read, or perhaps you want to find out if a book is a clean read, send me a message. I will do my best to answer and read all book requests. After all, that's what we bibliophiles do.
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