If you come to Semicolon to read book reviews, you have a right to know what my standards are for judging a book. Sometimes I just don’t care for a book; the author and I just don’t mesh or it was a bad day for me. If so, I usually say so in my post on the book. Sometimes I really like a book that I know might be offensive to other people; if so, I try to remember to mention the parts that might be offensive so that readers can be forewarned. Sometimes I read a book that I hate for reasons that I am willing to share in print here; if so, I state my reasons as plainly as I can.

I read books that have profanity, vulgarity, sexual content, and violence. I think some of these books are excellent, vividly portraying the human condition and our need for God’s mercy. As many people have pointed out, the Bible tells stories about people who were profane, vulgar, sexually immoral, and violent.

I don’t like books that contain pervasive profanity and/or vulgarity, graphic, detailed sexual descriptions, or lurid, gratuitous violence. And I don’t like books that try to make sin and degradation, however graphically described, seem exciting, fulfilling, and joyous. Enjoyable, yes, sin is usually pleasureable for a season. But adultery and promiscuity do not lead to joy and happiness in this world or the next, and violence is wrong and awful, even if you believe (as I do) that it is sometimes necessary.

“Do not be deceived, whatever a man sows, he will reap.” Books that depict characters who “sow” rebellion and sexual sin and violence and “reap” happiness, peace, and joy are simply untrue. And their authors do a disservice to their own talent and to readers in writing such books. Oscar Wilde said famously that there is no such thing as an immoral book, only a badly written one. However, Oscar Wilde, who was quite witty and often quite immoral himself, was wrong in this instance. Books that deceive and tell lies and portray evil as good and good as evil are immoral —and badly written, too, no matter how skillfully their authors may use words and phrases and elements of prose to create that effect. In fact the more skillful the author is in manipulating words and ideas, the more harm he can do when he sets out to serve a lie instead of the truth.

So one of my standards is that I like books that tell the truth. If I think a book is lying, I’ll say so.