Book Looks: Book Reviews for Pearl-Clutching Parents
Goodreads is full of a bunch of book nerds. Amazon is full of people complaining that pages were printed upside down! When you’re a right-leaning parent with concerns about what your child (and every child in the school/library district) might be reading WHERE CAN YOU TURN?
Now you CAN read the book yourself and gain necessary insight and context relating to the scenes you might find concerning when isolated. OR (you’re no dummy), you could go to Book Looks, a website so smart, its own logo has its name wrong. (and that’s openbooknew-1.png up there, taken straight from their site, so don’t think I cherrypicked).
So what is Book Looks?
Let’s have them say it in their own words:
We are concerned parents who have been frustrated by the lack of resource material for content-based information regarding books accessible to children and young adults
Write and collect detailed and easy to understand book content reviews centered around objectionable content, including profanity, nudity, and sexual content. Our goal is to make these reviews available to all parents so they can make informed decisions.
Now, they do say they fully read the books they review and that they don’t support banning books, but since they also say many of the books they review “have been located in our local Brevard County, FL schools” so it doesn’t sound like the whole enterprise is entirely impartial.
You want to jump right to their rating system? Well aren’t you an eager beaver?
So think about some of the books you read in high school.
To Kill a Mockingbird has a two. Racist elements, but overall condemnation of racism.
The Brave New World graphic novel has a three, but the novel itself is not present.
If you’re like my cohost and read Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted, you are the worst of the worst type of person. It is a full FIVE on the content rating, and look at all the terms it uses:
That’s a spicy meatball (can I say that?).
If you’re into this sort of thing, you can check out their site HERE (they are currently working on a search function, be advised!). And if this stuff really floats your boat, you might also be interested in the Catholic Review, good old, wholesome reviews of movies.
