I’ve never understood parents who heavily censor the content that their teenage children read. There’s a big difference between ensuring your 4th grader isn’t reading Danielle Steel novels and telling a kid who is Carrie’s age that «Carrie» by Stephen King isn’t appropriate for them. There are many worse things kids could be doing than reading a book that’s a little out of their age range. The internet is full of insane fanfiction on Wattpad and AO3 that is written and consumed almost exclusively by teenagers and young adults. Teens could be scrolling through short-form video content all day, every day, and get a lot more inappropriate messaging than they would from an Ottessa Moshfegh novel. Censoring reading materials will only lead to kids reading less challenging and less interesting books, and eventually, will discourage them from reading for pleasure altogether. In an increasingly post-literate society, that’s not what we want.