Jan.11, 2018

Alexie Response: “The Best Books are Written in Blood”

Without prior knowledge of Alexie’s YA novel I am able to get a grasp of its contents as this article is peppered with evidence that Alexie’s novel contains controversial topics for novels that target this age group such as: Rape, Drugs, sex, violence, etc. Alexie is directly responding to an article which complained that the book contains topics too graphic for young readers and that it is shameful that YA novels are going in this direction. With this article, Alexie provides very persuasive and  argumentative thoughts as to why he believes that this claim is wrong and even contributing to the problems of young adults who go through hell every day.

Alexie starts by talking about the plethora of fans he has encountered and the praise and love he has received from them. He also mentions how he has not once encountered a letter of hate of debilitation from any of the readers of his novel. He does this, not to brag, but rather to provide insight as to the power of the topics in his novel. The moral seems to be that trying to shield the youth from mature and explicit content is not the answer considering they are surrounded by it everyday. Instead, and effort of understanding should be enforced. The system is flawed on both sides of the spectrum and people like Alexie are actually doing something different to make a change.