All this controversy about Manhunt 2 has made me think. Video games and films are rated, so why not books?
This is something I feel strongly about. A couple of years ago I was at a second-hand bookstall and I bought several books, to see if I could find any new authors that I liked. One of these was a horror book. Several chapters in it told of a man breaking into a house where there was a young girl alone. Or maybe he kidknapped her and brought her to the house, I don't remember very well. You can imagine what this guy did to the little girl, I don't want to describe it. I don't know exactly how far the author went as I had to put the book down, but what little of that chapter I read made me feel really disgusted. Since then I've not even touched another horror book, although I never was a big fan of the genre in the first place.
The point is that this novel was in a stall alongside books aimed at teenagers. It had no 18+ sign, no warning of the content inside it. Books can be just as sick as some adult films and games. If fact, they are sometimes worse IMO as it seems they can get away with more.
This has been ignored for too long, books should have age ratings just like those for films and games.
