Paul's Review: Lush, by Natasha Friend

Lush
Natasha Friend

I'm reading a few of the young adult novels that have shown up on the American Library Association's Top Ten Banned and Challenged List. Natasha Friend's Lush made the list in 2010, so I sat down to read it. And I have to say, I'm baffled. Why anyone would object to this book is beyond me. But according to the ALA, parents object to the book for the following reasons: it deals with drugs, contains offensive language, is sexually explicit, and is unsuited to the age group for which it is intended.

Drugs? The book is about growing up with an alcoholic parent. As the kids would say, duh! Offensive language? Samantha's breasts develop a little earlier than some of her classmates', and some junior high boys tease her about that. Unless I missed a purple passage somewhere, a couple of repetitions of the word "boobs" is what they're calling offensive language. Sexually explicit? Oh give me a break ... an older teenaged boy hits on Sam, but nothing happens ... she's a virgin going in and when the book ends she still is. There's no explicit sex whatsoever in this book. Unsuited to age group? How many young teens have alcoholic parents? Unless the answer is "none," how could this book be unsuitable for young teens?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. This is a helpful YA novel for troubled kids. With alcoholism as big a problem as it is in our society, there are a lot of kids with alcoholic parents, kids who could get support and direction from a book like this. Lush is everything you want a YA novel to be: kindly, understanding, full of good advice, supportive of good morals ... it even has a happy ending, for crying out loud.

My opinion only (and if you read the author's comments at the end of this review, you'll see that I may be the only person on earth to think this): the folks who want to ban this book aren't objecting to Lush for the reasons stated. They're upset there's a gay character in the book: Jesse, the library assistant who becomes Sam's friend and confessor. Reading parental comments on book-banning forums, I see hostility to books with gay characters come up again and again. I think that's what's really going on here. They want to ban this book for the same reason they keep going after And Tango Makes Three.

So how's the book? Great. Natasha Friend tells a compelling story, perfectly tailored for the young adult audience but one any adult will find readable. Very few of us are untouched by alcoholism, so Samantha's story gets its hooks into us quickly and doesn't let go. There are a lot of YA books about the dangers of drug addiction, but I was happy to see one ... and such a readable one at that ... dealing with the most common, arguably hardest and most addictive drug of all, plain old alcohol. This is a book all kids should read, and maybe all parents too. I'm glad I read it.

To close, a few words about the banning of Lush from Natasha Friend herself:

Lush has been banned in some middle schools. How do you feel about that? Befuddled. While I was writing, it never occurred to me that Sam’s story was in any way controversial or inappropriate for middle-grade readers. To my mind, the book is a realistic portrayal of a girl with an alcoholic father, a girl who is struggling with her own decision-making vis-à-vis alcohol and boys. The scene of contention for some parents and educators: when a drunken Sam ends up in a bedroom with an older boy and he attempts to take advantage of her. The incident, while disturbing, is not gratuitous. If anything, the scene serves as a cautionary tale — fruit for discussion, not forbidden fruit.