# You were too young to read it, but you read it anyway **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 2, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409 "2010-02-02T17:40:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/81 "2010-02-03T20:06:23Z")
When I was in 4th grade my favourite book was P.S. Your Cat is Dead. ot it from my grandmother. No, she didn’t give it to me. And not really her sort of book, but she was a librarian and brought home all kinds of stuff the library was replacing or whatever. If you don’t know it’s the story of a confused/bi '70 era NY actor (not unlike it’s author, the guy who wrote Chorus Line) who subdues and ties up a gay burgalar and…let’s say I learned a lot. And read my step father’s Playboys and my aunt’s Penthouse’s. (my aunt had better taste). And my mom’s Fear of Flying and Fanny. But if you think my childhood knowledge was all zippless fuck, also my mom’s college textbook Human Sexuality. And in junior high my classmates thought I was a geek (not that I wasn’t) but didn’t realize the big thick library books I was reading in the lunchroom were Henry Miller. That and 1984, Cat’s Cradlel, The Inquisitor, Anna Karinina,Our Lady of the Floweres, Naked Lunch…what did I read that was age approprate? ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/82 "2010-02-03T20:15:28Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I read **Cat’s Cradle** when I was around 15; though the entire time I got the feeling I wasn’t supposed to be reading anything like this. My dad gave me a copy of _Cat’s Cradle_ when I was about fourteen or fifteen. I liked it. I probably shouldn’t have read _Jaws_ at age eleven. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/83 "2010-02-03T20:41:03Z")
I’m seconding the _Lord of the Flies_ vote. I have no idea how old I was when I read it, just that I felt sickened and miserable for several days afterwards. It didn’t help that I saw that movie from the '60s at about the same time, too. And I tried to read _A Tale Of Two Cities_ for the first time when I was a kid, and it was completely over my head. I thought I’d like it, because I liked _A Christmas Carol_ and _Oliver Twist_. I gave up after a couple of chapters, and then read the whole thing for the first time ever in my '40s, and thought it was one of the best books I ever read. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/84 "2010-02-03T20:51:47Z")
I got hold of some Anaïs Nin at about age twelve. After _Gravity’s Rainbow_ at eight, it pretty much confirmed for me that smart, sophisticated adults liked their sex kind of mechanical and dehumanizing. I was already getting smoochy-woochy-romantic thoughts about girls; I started thinking I might be some straight kind of gay or something, because I was _not_ about to match that action. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_Doubt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Angel\_of\_Doubt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_Doubt)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/85 "2010-02-03T20:53:04Z")
_A Clockwork Orange_ at about age 12. I’d read a lot of more adult material by then, but this one only because we had the soundtrack album. This was the first I’d heard Beethoven’s music and I associated it with the movie, so I just had to read the book. Also, the album cover was well, intriguing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/86 "2010-02-03T21:02:31Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > _1984_. In 1982, when I was 10. _1984_. In 1984, when I was 9. Because, hey, it’s 1984, and here’s a book called “1984”, so this is what I should read. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/87 "2010-02-03T21:06:46Z")
I read a lot of stuff at way too young an age. My dad belonged to the Playboy Book Club (which wasn’t as bad as it sounded, but a lot of the books weren’t exactly kid fodder). I don’t remember my parents ever censoring what I read. Some of the highlights include: _The Rape of the A.P.E_. by Alan Sherman (funny, but rather R-rated) _Killer_, by Joey (the autobiography of a Mafia hit man) _The Ungodly_ (historical novel about the Donner Party) _Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)_ _Helter Skelter_ Several Harold Robbins books (which I got from my 7th grade math teacher, who in retrospect was probably a perv). I read the one in the OP at about the same age. _The Godfather_ 83 Hours Till Dawn (the true-life account of an heiress who was kidnapped and stashed in a coffin-sized underground box until her father paid the ransom. Only the latter affected me in any way (that one gave me nightmares) but the stuff about sex, serial killers and cannibalism…I enjoyed those a lot. I think my love for horror novels was born at a very young age. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/88 "2010-02-03T21:33:58Z")
I don’t recall my exact age, but I was pretty young; 10 or less think. My mother let me have untrammeled access to her book collection. After reading my first sci-fi book right through in a day and liking it, I decided I wanted more. I picked up the next one on the shelf since I didn’t know where to start. It turned out to be Roger Zelazny’s _Creatures of Light And Darkness_. That book took me the rest of the summer to puzzle though, and by then I’d forgotten the beginning. It wasn’t traumatizing, but it was pretty baffling. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/89 "2010-02-03T22:19:06Z")
> [@gladtobeblazed](#): > > My dad gave me a copy of _Papillon_ for my tenth birthday. I checked that book out of the library when I was in 6th grade. The movie had been playing on HBO, and while I didn’t see it at the time, the trailers made me curious. Considering I had only just learned about the birds and the bees (my parents had surreptitiously placed a copy of _Where Did I Come From?_ on my bookshelf), it was quite an education. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/90 "2010-02-04T00:56:43Z")
When I was 8 or so, I found a collection of H.P. Lovecraft short stories on my mother’s bookshelf. I asked her “is this any good?” and she told me I couldn’t read that book. “The hell I can’t”, I thought. I waited until she was out of the house, took it into my room and read _The Dunwich Horror_. For some reason I assumed that it was a historical account of actual events, which I assumed came to a conclusion in the 1920’s. We were inactive Catholics at the time and this story shook my faith in the Holy Trinity. I read _At the Mountains of Madness_ that same night. I “borrowed” her copy of _Jaws_ about 2 years later. My father gave me _The Hobbit_ later that same year, when I was 10. I started \*The Lord of the Rings \*when I was in the sixth grade, so age 11. I made it through Fellowship and Two Towers but bogged down early in Return of the King. I read _Alive_, the story of the college football team stranded in the Andes and forced to cannibalism when I was 12. I checked it out from the school library so I figured it was age appropriate. I didn’t start reading sex stuff until I was 14, with _The Exorcist_ and found the crucifix-masturbation scene quite shocking. I read _The Godfather_ later that same year. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/91 "2010-02-04T01:11:20Z")
A lot. The one that comes to mind right now is **The Martian Chronicles**. My mom ordered it from the library for some reason, and I found it lying around. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/92 "2010-02-04T02:15:55Z")
I started reading Stephen King when I was pretty young. Probably a fourth of fifth grader. But it was Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher that freaked me right out as a fifth grader. ---
**Author:** ![TurboNuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f19dbf/32.png) [@TurboNuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TurboNuke)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/93 "2010-02-04T03:22:08Z")
I read ‘Let’s Go Play at the Adams’’ when I was about 10. Kids capture their babysitter then rape and kill her. Very, very dark. Google it, there are people still freaked out about it.it, ---
**Author:** ![kapri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kapri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kapri)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/94 "2010-02-04T04:28:13Z")
I don’t know what it was called–it was some sort of pulp paperback that a friend had gotten from her older sister–but it was about two teenage girls hitchhiking around the country and having random and detailed sex. The book probably wasn’t all that salacious, but I was a 12-year-old Baptist at the time and to me it seemed **so naughty.** ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Crap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.crap/32/3131_2.png) [@Dr.Crap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Crap)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/95 "2010-02-04T05:46:57Z")
I was assigned a book report on The Communist Manifesto when I was 12…in California. That was necessary. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Real\_Regency\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@The\_Real\_Regency\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Real_Regency_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/96 "2010-02-04T15:41:01Z")
I attempted both \*Lolita \*and _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ when I was 12, almost 13. Made it through the former but didn’t really “get it” until I re-read it a few years later. Got halfway through the latter before deciding that those guys sounded way too weird and scary for me and that it would turn into some kind of horror novel where someone’s head graphically imploded from too much drug consumption. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/97 "2010-02-04T16:38:40Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I read **Jonathan Livingston Seagull** when I was 8 or so. At that time (around 1973), it was an immensely popular book. > > It wasn’t like there were sex scenes or anything like that, but I’m sure that a lot of it went over my head. I was just reading about a seagull who really liked to fly. 😃 It wasn’t? 😕 I’ve remembered another one- and it wasn’t about smut or violence. Just the opposite. For my tenth birthday, my sister’s caretaker gave me _The Thinking Jewish Teenager’s Guide To Life_. I guess she figured, I was into religion, I was nearly a teen, it would be a good read. Looking back, I can see the book was meant for older teens, and young adults. It’s a very deep, very difficult volume that was supposed to be read by mature teenagers wondering what to so with their futures. Needless to say, I was very confused. The chapter that gave me the most problems was the one titled, “Men and Women”. The author seemed to be talking about something that went on between guys and gals- something that he said our whole culture was obsessed with- but I couldn’t figure out what. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/98 "2010-02-04T17:34:28Z")
When I was 12 or 13, I read Men in Love by Nancy Friday. My mom picked it up as it was left behind at the hotel where she worked. My guess is they left it intentionally because it had a substantial amount of dried blood on it, but oddly, no pages were stuck together. I would sneak it out, read a fantasy, then sneak it back. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/99 "2010-02-05T16:33:20Z")
Tanith Lee writes fantasy for children. She also writes fantasy for adults. So when I had read all the children’s books at age ten or so I decided to to check out the adult ones which turned to revolve around an incredibly horny demonic being called IIRC Azrahrn and his copulations with man, woman, demon and practically anything else that moved. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409/100 "2010-02-05T16:45:12Z")
Read Henry Fielding’s classic _Tom Jones_ one summer when I was 11. There’s a few passages in it my parents didn’t know about. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-were-too-young-to-read-it-but-you-read-it-anyway/527409.md?page=6)