Humor

13 Things an Adult Should Actually Be Embarrassed to Read

Becky Stone

Staff Writer

Becky Stone loves to read stories about princesses who save themselves and firmly believes that a mug of hot chocolate paired with the right novel can solve almost any problem. Becky recently did that thing where you leave your safe, easy job to try to make money doing what you love, and is now a professional jewelry lover and freelance writer. You can find more of Becky at her blog, Diamonds in the Library, where she writes about both jewelry and books. Twitter: @DiamondsintheLi

As you may be aware, there has been some hoopla recently about a certain article that rails against the current popularity of YA books with adult readers.

According to that article, any adult who enjoys reading YA should be embarrassed.

There have since been many excellent things written in response to this nonsense, even on this very website. As far as I can tell; however, no one has yet offered alternative guidelines for the embarrassment-conscious adult to follow in order to avoid reading-based shame.

I am here to help.

As an adult, you should be embarrassed about reading:

15-flushed-face1. Your significant other’s email. Don’t you read advice columns? This always ends badly.

2. Your friend’s book that you borrowed a really, really long time ago and never gave back.

3. A book with the movie version of the cover when the non-movie version of the cover is readily available.

Ella enchanted book vs movie covers

4. A book that you have dropped in the bathtub, because you don’t have that fancy bathtub caddy thing to prevent such mishaps, Becky?

5. The last page of a book when you have not yet read all its other pages. That’s cheating.

6. A book that is trying to bite you. If you had read YA, you’d know to stroke the spine.

7. The Facebook feed of that person who you were never friends with but find oddly fascinating.

8. A secondhand copy of a book that you are supposed to put your penis through.

9. A book that is bound with human skin.

10. Other people’s text messages, even if they were in the bathroom when the text popped up and they’d never know you peeked.

11. A book that you don’t enjoy. Stop wasting your time.

12. Anything that tells you that other people’s feelings about what you read are important. They’re not.

13. Absolutely nothing, because you’re an adult and you can do what you want.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy this tote bag to carry around my favorite YA novels.

I-do-what-I-want-tote-bag

 

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