I purchased this book at the same time as my last book review- "Does my head look big in this?" both from the young adult/older children's section of the book self from K-Mart. I was surprised by it's extremely graphic sexual content and was somewhat disturbed by a fiction children's book being so graphic. Jasira is a 13yr old mixed American Lebanese girl who is shipped off to live with her father because her mothers boyfriend -pays a little too much attention to her. Her father is strict and Jasira is unable to understand his boundaries. Jasira is a 13yr old who is lost in a world of adults whom she does not understand - she feels love through the unnatural affections of her mother's boyfriend, the neighbour - father of the boy she babysits and then a African American boy from school whom she is baned from seeing because he is "black"
The title of the book "Towelhead" is what the neighbours young son calls Jaira and her father.
I felt a little disturbed after reading this book there is an extreme amount of sexually graphic images portrayed as well as racism. (Not a view of the Author rather a portrayal of life a troubled 13 year old - which I am sure is more common that I would like to think).
I do not think this book should be placed on the shelves where young girls can read without any warnings ot it's strong sexual content or language. This book has been made into a motion picture which I would be curious to see - no where near my daughters. Thankfully it does have an R rating with Strong Disturbing Sexual Content and Abuse involving a teen and for language.
To Alicia Erian's credit the book was well written, easy to read and believable.
I have done some sewing lately but much more reading - stay tuned for my sewing pics and book reviews for the Twilight series.
1 comment:
I read quite a few books labeled young adult and find that they are seriously misrepresented. I find that I read them just to make sure they are appropriate for my 11 yr old to read. She's an advanced reader and some of the material is so not appropriate for her age level. It's too bad about that book, because it sounds interesting and could be written in a way as not to be offensive. I really hate when writers use foul language; to me it represents that they don't know enough about the English language to use different words. There are so many cool words out there that could be used to portray what they are trying to get across. Ok, my little rant as a writer! I loved the Twilight series...have gone to her book signings since she's from AZ. She is totally cool :). Hope you like them.
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