I guess I've read a lot of the books that those self-righteous types celebrate on the Banned Books List, but I would never read one just because it's on the list. It may be striking a blow for freedom, but we don't ban a lot of books in this country (although we're starting to). When we used to think of banned books we thought of pecksniffian town elders getting so upset that a book contained a reference to a woman's ankle that their faces would pinch up like a dead man's anus. Now such old folks are desperately trying to be "down with the people" while banning is beginning to come from the same kinds of folks that celebrate banned books. So there's a good deal of insanity in the ranks.
Typically, though, it was really parents who wanted books to be banned, because they thought such books were inappropriate for young readers. For some reason it is reasonable to say that certain movies are not appropriate for youngsters, but you can no longer say that about books. And publishers seem to be thrilled about it, because when it comes to sex, depravity, and violence for the teen market, they are all in. (I should warn you that the link itself leads to naughty language because it's Cracked, but that should be obvious. Because Cracked.)
Personally I would like to lead a movement for Banned Bad Books Week. We're not going to get rid of books for young readers because they have sex, we're going to get rid of books because the sex in them is stupid and consequence-free. We're not going to get rid of them because they have violence, we're going to get rid of them because the violence is so ridiculous it makes your average superhero movie look like Saving Private Ryan. Above all, we want to ban books that are just bad. Publishers will say they print the books that teenagers want to read, but somehow if Nestle used that argument about Hot Pockets I don't think the nutrition watchdogs would buy it.
I've worked on a number of books for teen girls -- there are no books for teen boys, because boys don't buy books directed at teens when they buy books at all, which they don't -- and most of them end the same way. The heroine is someplace alone, bleeding profusely, but is such a badass she never quits. Here's my take -- and again, language warning, since I want to be accurate:
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Kaszandra got up out of the pool of her own blood that was quickly starting to ice over. It had to be minus forty in this warehouse. Wasn't that the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit? Damn, wish I'd paid more attention in Ms. Horkdork's class, she thought.
But this was no time to review math homework. She ripped the scrunchie from her hair and made a quick tourniquet for the bullet wound on her leg. Devlin DeVille was somewhere in this building, and none of his evil demonic power, none of his obscene wealth, would stop her from destroying him.
She hopped forward, stifling the scream from the stab wound in her gut. It hurt. She wouldn't have believed there was that much pain in the world. It hurt more than any hurt ever hurt. But all Kaszandra wanted was to stop bleeding so she wouldn't leave a trail for DeVille to follow if he was coming up behind her.
It was dark as coal in this warehouse, dark as DeVille's heart. Who would have guessed that the richest man in town, head of the local Republican committee, was also a vicious bastard who raped the entire fourth grade? Fucking asshole. She had to destroy him.
But where was he? She listened carefully, but her ears were still ringing from when DeVille shot her in the head with a potato gun.
Fucking asshole.
If only Jassper were here to help, but for all she knew he was--- God, she hated to think of it. She'd hated to leave him under that pile of excelsior, but there was no way she could dig him out. DeVille had planned that trap for Kaszandra, and Jassper had walked right into it, damn his stupid beautiful head, his 24-inch python arms, his rock-hard washboard abs, his---
Whoa, girl, better cool it. Work to do.
Kaszandra shifted into the shadows, quiet as a mouse in fuzzy slippers. With the fracture in her femur it was tricky, but those three years of ballet finally came in handy. Suddenly she heard a click, or a clack -- was DeVille here, behind those stacks of boxes marked High Explosives? Or was that an echo... an echo from the---
"Catwalk," said a voice, and a bucket of gasoline poured onto Kaszandra's head.
"You son of a bitch!" shouted Kaszandra. That was the end of this blouse. She staggered back into the center of the warehouse room. Dimly lit above her was the catwalk that ran around the interior of the building, and on that, cinematically lit from above, was Devlin DeVille.
"Feeling warm, Kas?" said DeVille. He struck a wooden match on his thumbnail and tossed it toward her. Kaszandra gasped and stepped back out of the way of the flaming stick of horrible death just in time. "Things are just starting to heat up around here."
"I'm going to destroy you, DeVille!" yelled Kaszandra, her gasoline-soaked hair billowing around her like a bronze cloud. "You've hosted your last Trump fund-raiser!"
DeVille chuckled. "You're difficult to kill, Miss Hendreson, but we're getting there. Fortunately you are unarmed and a sitting duck. A duck coated in gasoline, I might add."
He was right about the gasoline. But wrong about the duck. And wrong about her being unarmed. Carefully, slowly, never taking her eyes from DeVille, Kaszandra reached up to her sternum where his throwing knife had stuck in her ribs. This was going to hurt....
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