After looking at the ALA website for books banned in 2017, there were a few I recognized and a couple that I have actually read. I read 13 Reasons Why shortly before the Netflix series came out, and have also read To Kill A Mockingbird during high school. Objections towards 13 Reasons Why stands because of its discussion of suicide, and TKAM stands due to violence and use of the N-word. I personally enjoyed reading both of these books, they both had hidden meanings that you really had to dig for to understand the true meaning of the novel. Limiting certain access to some books for class use can be handy to avoid certain issues that could arise with students. On the other hand, I think some objections seem to be a little too harsh. For example in To Kill A Mockingbird, one of the reasons for banning it was because of the books violence. Many books have violence in them, and if it is not a specific kind of violence shown in TKAM then I think violence being one of the main reasons to ban this book is ridiculous. As this decade comes close to an end, that doesn't stop the spiral of more books exposing violence and the discussion of suicide in them... I think in the future we should learn to cope with what certain books have displayed in them, and learn how to get past that to see the true meaning of the story being told.
If you were to look at my personal bookshelf, writers would embrace that I am very much a "head over heels" romantic type of reader with a dash of mystery. The Girl On The Train, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, The Vampire Diaries series, these are only a few books on my shelf that show what I am mostly interested in. I am not much on reading, but when I do you can tell what type I am mostly invested in.
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