I found out about this through a few sites, but The Rejectionist gets straight to the point about it: write a review of your favorite banned book as a protest against the fuckwittery that is censorship.
A lot of books I admire and love are on this list, which isn’t even comprehensive beyond one decade, and some of them are really mind-boggling. After the red cleared from my eyes, I chose two to review: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause.
There’s something ironic about a novel on censorship being censored, isn’t there? Add that to the fact that The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the best dystopian stories I’ve read, and you bet I’m picking it for the spotlight.
In a world that used to be a lot like ours, women are relegated to strictly enforced roles in their society. They have no rights and no privacy. Some even have their personal names taken from them. They are only hands to do work, wombs to carry children, and tongues to spread propaganda, depending upon what role was chosen for them.
Main character Offred is a Handmaid, whose only duty is to get impregnated by her Commander (a man of the ruling class) so he can have an heir. Offred’s point of view is written as stream-of-consciousness — disjointed flashbacks, memories, and perceptions that slowly form a bleak picture of totalitarian rule.
Now I know some spec fic readers and writers cringe at The Handmaid’s Tale because it’s unapologetically feminist and feeling-oriented and eewwww, that’s not really dystopian. My reply is fuck you, it is. The fact that it is consistently banned is damn good proof of its power to push buttons and provoke, and I can’t think of anything more reflective of dystopia. It’s ambiguous, frighteningly realistic, and best of all, written to treat readers as a perceptive, intelligent audience that can be left to draw its own conclusions.
In comparison, Blood and Chocolate may seem like a bit of fluff, banned not because of the concepts it represents, but for mundane reasons like sexual content and violence. But I think that glosses over a lot of what this YA novel offers.
Sixteen-year-old Vivian is a werewolf, part of a pack that recently moved after their alpha (who was also Vivian’s father) was killed by suspicious humans. As her pack struggles to regroup and find a new leader to guide them, Vivian finds herself enamored with a human named Aiden. He seems sweet and gentle, unlike the rougher males in her pack. A nice change of pace.
Yet at the same time, one of the alpha contenders, Gabriel, warns her that she can’t trust a human to not break her heart, should she ever reveal herself… and when Vivian does, the consequences become life-threatening.
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if Blood and Chocolate isn’t banned so much for descriptions of gore and sex than because Vivian is a teenager aware and comfortable with her sexuality. Not in a “HOYEAH SCHOOLGIRL SLUT FANTASY” way, but in being straightforward with what she wants and who she wants it with. It feels very lupine, the sort of “This is my body, this is what it feels, so why question these urges?” mentality, and actually works really well in separating her mentality from that of a human’s.
On a more general note, it’s really unusual to find werewolves who feel primal even as humans, and it’s this characteristic that lifts Klause’s work above the swarm of werewolf novels out there. For that alone, this book should not only not be banned, but given a gold star.
