2025 Naughty List

I usually try to keep it positive on here – being a thermostat and not a thermometer, recommending good stuff instead of ripping into bad stuff. (Or at least recommending more than I rip. I’ll admit I have fun ripping.)

But, I often find myself in the position of standing in a bookshop, trying to google whether or not a particular book has any content in it I’m not willing to read before I pick it up. Thus, I figured I’d assemble a list for you guys of the books I’ve stumbled across that landed themselves on my ‘naughty list,’ so you can know what’s in them before you read them yourselves.

First Rider’s Call: Kristen Britain

I was enjoying this book at the start for its interesting concept, but then out nowhere the main character got sexually assaulted by bandits, and I quickly put that down. Don’t recommend, as that was only the first book in the series and only within the First Act, so I’m sure it probably got worse from there. Also language and some suggestive references.

1984: George Orwell

I get why this is such a landmark sort of book, especially with how it has shaped culture and made us more aware of how surveillance and dictatorships work. But, what most people don’t mention while praising this as a classic is that there are graphic sex scenes between an unmarried couple, as well as some disturbing torture scenes. Also language and some suggestive references.

Farenheit 451: Ray Bradbury

There weren’t any explicit things about this book that landed it straight on the naughty list – it was mostly just the theme and vibe. It rubbed me wrong for some reason. Maybe it’s a tribute to the author’s prose. But this was just bleak and depressing and skin-crawly, with a very nihilistic and hopeless feel. Also language and some suggestive references.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Similar to Farenheit 451, very bleak. Very depressing. Very informative, sure, and definitely gave me a renewed appreciation for the fact that I live in a capitalist, constitutional republic. But there was a ridiculous amount of language. I mean ridiculous. All the worst words, in insane quantities. Usually I use thin decorative washi tapes to cover up language in books I read so that siblings and later generations who read them, as well as myself rereading them, can be spared. But I was wasting so much tape I gave up and used a pencil to black them out instead. And I soon gave up on that too, because I just couldn’t read with any kind of flow.

The Color of Magic: Terry Pratchett

Don’t get me wrong – Terry Pratchett is a gifted writer, especially in the humor department, and I enjoy his writing. The bar fight scene in here, and the sentient trunk, were particularly hilarious. But his books are popcorn. Or candy, as opposed to wholesome foods. The particular issue with The Color of Magic is several very flippant, mocking references to God, and a stereotypical ‘hot chick’ who regularly wears nothing but a bikini, and of course the male characters have thoughts about her. Now, she exists because Pratchett is poking fun at the trope, especially prevalent in older fantasy/SF, of women who are purely objects and dress scantily – you probably know the type, seen on the covers of pulp paperbacks, or exemplified in Princess Leia wearing next to nothing for no good reason in Jabba’s palace. Also language and some suggestive references.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams

Much in a similar vein to The Color of Magic, this was very funny but also popcorn. Again, blasphemous references to God and mocking of Christians. Also language and some suggestive references. It’s a chaos story – there isn’t a huge overarching plot, but rather small, ridiculous adventures. All it’s good for is a laugh – there’s no meat to this. And I never finished this collection, so there might be more I don’t know about.

Pages & Co: Anna James

This one really makes me mad. This was a cute, whimsical MG series about characters who could jump into books… until suddenly it wasn’t. Around the third or fourth book, I don’t remember which, a gay couple was suddenly introduced, and treated like they were completely sweet and normal. I would never want my own future kids to be immersed in that sort of immorality, for when you read a book, you are experiencing the character’s thoughts, emotions, and view of the world as if they were your own.

The Gryphon Chronicles: E.G. Foley

There aren’t abject content warnings for this series, but this is something I would discourage my own children from reading, simply because I feel it isn’t edifying. There is a romance between a tween girl and a vampire, and various other crushes amongst the cast of younger heroes, all around the age of thirteen. The kids frequently portray a rebellious, disrespectful, self-absorbed nature which isn’t something to imitate, and I didn’t like this series’s treatment of God, angels, and demons – it felt a bit flippant. The series also ran on for a long time.

The Book Thief: Markus Zusak

Another one with an absolutely ludicrous amount of swearing – both in English and German. And the unfortunate thing is that the author tells you what the German swear words mean, so you can’t just ignore it. Also some innuendo. The worst part is that it’s a little girl telling the story and yet doing and thinking and seeing all these dark things. This is not a book for children – and there are not commendable morals in here either.

Path of the Ranger: Pedro Urvi

There was a decent amount of language in this, as well as some mild steaminess and forced awkward scenes (such as being stuck in a cabin with a girl and having to share body heat to survive the cold night.) The series also got progresssively more violent the longer it went on. Granted, I read it when I was thirteen or fourteen, and I probably wouldn’t bat an eye at the violence level now. It’s marketed for as young as twelve, but I’d recommend sixteen and up, just for the aforementioned violence, the maturity of some topics, and some inneuendo. It’s also a twenty-book series, which I never finished it because I felt it dragged.

The Portrait of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde

I didn’t get further than a chapter or two into this book, because the edition I happened to pick up had a biography of Oscar Wilde in the beginning. Turns out, he was disgustingly gay, and once you know that you’re not going to read any of the comments or relationships in this book the same way.

Brave New World: Aldous Huxley

There is a lot of sexual content and sexual references in here. Now, that’s it’s point – it’s describing a future world that lives only for pure hedonism, where there’s no pain and children are made via IVF and test tubes, so sex has no purpose other than entertainment. It’s mandatory for everyone to do regularly, even children. I understand this book’s impact on the culture. But I don’t want to read about that. I tried a few chapters after doing a Hillsdale course on dystopian novels. It just made me feel sick.

Keepers of the Lost Cities: Shannon Messenger

This is going to be controversial, but I thought this series was rubbish. It ran on endlessly. It had an idiotic female main character who spent most of her time agonizing over which hot boy she was in love with, and the rest of the time being a victim, playing with unicorns, or having angst over the plot instead of doing something about it. Also, trolls in bikinis – what the heck? I found the villains to have more character depth than the hero, and the only good character I liked kept getting forgotten about. I mean, he literally sacrificed himself and ended up getting captured by the enemy, where they forced him to use his powers for them, and the main character hardly gave him any thought. She didn’t even try to rescue him either. Frankly, I feel this was just toxic in terms of the message it sends to tween girls, and pointless to read. You do not want the example for your girls to be an overly-emotional whiner more focused on having a boyfriend at thirteen than saving lives.

Wind and Truth: Brandon Sanderson

I’ve already touched on this here, but in this fifth book of The Stormlight Archives, Sanderson made a character gay. Worse, he made him be a POV character, and so we had to hear his infatuated longings and fluttery feelings. 🤮 Also, there was a gay kiss. I was so stinking mad.

All the Light We Cannot See: Anthony Doerr

I actually was loving this book all the way until the last three chapters or so. It had been shockingly clean, with only one or two words in it, practically no gore or violence for a WW2 book, and only one gross reference to a cancer in an inappropriate spot. But then in the final chapters, the male lead, after rescuing the girl, decided to go step on a land mine instead of live happily ever after. Literally – he just got up and walked out into the land mine field. And his idiot sister decided that instead of running away from the invading Russians, she’d stay and get raped by them. It wasn’t as deeply described as in 1984 but it was still there. Plus, I felt for sure the book would end happily, what with its themes of light in darkness and small sweet things overcoming the gigantic evil going on in the world but NOPE! Miserable, look-back-at-the-emotional-moments, nihilism it is. (This is my beef with Titanic too. I am not here for the books that are all about the brief fling and then end in ‘glorious’ tragedy. Tragedy is not glorious. Sacrifice is, but Jack could have very well fit on that headboard – the Mythbusters proved it- or could have at least taken turns with her getting in and out of the water. It’s not a sweet sacrifice when you’re choosing to break your girl’s heart instead of doing the smart thing and staying alive.)

Throne of Glass: Sarah J. Maas

Puke. Just, puke. It’s a female assassin falling in love with the prince she’s sent to kill. No condemnation of the assassin’s actions, suggestive things, language – your typical trashy YA romantasy. Dropped it a few chapters in.

The Hero and the Crown: Robin McKinley

As with several others mentioned, I have respect for this author’s skill. I quite enjoyed her other novel set in the same world, The Blue Sword. But this book just had weird vibes. It was a female main character going through a more male mythology arc (ie, being the loner with epic power going on the hero’s journey and conquering everything themself) and it just felt off in that way. I don’t like boss girls (by this I mean the hot chick who wears skin-tight clothes and kicks the butts of men twice her size with no apparent difficulty,) and though this FMC wasn’t completely that, she was pretty close. There was also a weird thing between her and an immortal dude, where she loved him but also a mortal guy, and so when she gets immortality, she marries the mortal guy first, promising she’ll come back for the immortal dude later. She eventually becomes part of the mythology of this world and is referenced as a historical hero/semi-goddess in The Blue Sword. Anyway, it’s weird.

Some quick shorter warnings: Tom Clancy books have a lot of language and suggestive remarks. Just beware. Mutiny on the Bounty – also a lot of language. Mark of the Raven – nothing against the author but there was implied sexual assault in a beginning flashback scene and I just don’t go for that kind of thing in my reading. Lisa Bergen stuff – nothing against the author here as well, but most of her stuff, especially stuff written for girls, is full of romance, soppy stuff, and some suggestive close calls. (Meaning females who get captured by guys you know might rape them and it never happens but there’s threat of it, and stuff like that.) Also, in one series the FMC falls in love with the villain. 🙄

So, in conclusion, that is all the books that I have read in recent memory that I would warn you of. I understand that everyone has their own preferences and tolerance levels, so this isn’t to say you’re bad for reading any of these. I just want to warn you according to my levels, because I feel like there aren’t enough things out there that let Christians know what content is in the books they want to read.

As the title suggests, this might end up being a yearly thing. I’d like it to be. What do you think? Is a yearly ‘naughty list’ helpful?

Hope you have a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Til next time,

Cheers!

P.S. And on the subject of garbage fiction, a great article from the Daily Wire.