BBC Read: Places I Never Meant to Be

While I was in Atlanta, I was browsing Lesley’s bookshelves and came upon the book Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers, edited by Judy Blume, who is one of the most censored writers of our time.  I was intrigued, so I made note of it and ordered the book from Paperback Swap when I got home.

The book has an introduction by Blume and then contains original fiction by 12 authors of books for young adults, all of whom have faced some sort of censorship in their careers as writers.  Each other then writes about their experience as a censored writer and includes that at the end of their story.  Their experiences range from the pressure to self-censor after being censored at large, the pressure to write books from a certain perspective due to their ethnic background, pressure from family, pressure from the public, and pressure from schools. 

As I continue to try and slog my way through writing my own book, 4 years in the making now, I can only too easily identify with the feeling that something should or should not be written to pass some kind of nebulous test by some stranger out there who could be offended.  It’s great to read of “real writers” experiences with the same.

The fiction portion of the book contains fascinating short stories, one of which actually caused me nightmares last night—I think I’m getting more susceptible as time goes on to graphic depictions of things.

This book counts towards the Bibliophilic Book Challenge and is my second book for this challenge.  I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads.com