Researching the Self.

The summer before I started high school, I took it upon myself to work my way through the young adult fiction section at the Chapel Hill Public Library. By the end of the summer, I had given up my quest to read every book on the shelves, but had finished a huge number of books that have stuck with me to this day. One of the books I dove into that summer was Sex Education: A Novel, by Jenny Davis. As the title asserts, this work of fiction makes no attempt to tackle the difficult act of educating children about sex, but instead tells the compelling story of two young adults and their journey together to simply "care about someone" as a class project. As the story progresses and leads to a very terrible climax, Davis shows the stark reality of both the best and worst in people, and just how serious caring about someone can become.

I picked up this book because I read the back cover, it seemed interesting, and I was at the Da-'s of young adult fiction. I grabbed it, and one other novel, to take to the beach, thinking it would be a good read for lying out on the sand. In reality, I began reading it on the car ride to Hilton Head, NC, and had finished it before we got out of the car. With the exception of the Harry Potter books and some speed-reads before classes, I don't think I've ever read a novel so quickly. The second and third (and fourth and fifth...) times I read it, I did manage to slow down and further appreciate the text.

Sex Education is by no means the best-written book I've ever read, nor did it teach me anything about sex that I hadn't already learned in 8th grade health. What it did teach me is the value of trust, the importance of investing in the world around us, and the fact that sometimes asking for help is the most important kind of courage. The teacher in this novel, who chooses to use a progressive form of sex education in the '80s, recognizes the potential of her students, and pushes them to be better people. She places a level of trust in her students, including the two main characters (Livvie and David), that is rarely seen in adult-student relationships. This trust and respect is something I always look for and bring to my interactions with others. I am also moved to care fully about those around me because of this novel. Though they end up in a very messy situation, the way in which the characters in this novel care about each other, and the world around them, is completely admirable. More than anything else, this novel's tragic end taught me that I can't solve the world's problems all alone, and it is always appropriate to ask for help. I feel that so often people get in over their heads, and one of the most vital lessons in life is that we don't have to do it all on our own. 

After reading this book, I found that it was on the American Library Association's list of the top 100 most frequently challenged (attempted to ban) books of 1990-2000. Though I can't say that this was surprising (the list also includes Of Mice and Men, Catcher in the Rye, and Bridge to Terabithia, to name a few), it is very sad, and I am incredibly lucky to live in a progressive town and have parents who don't believe in denying children of important books. It almost makes the knowledge I gained from this novel even more special, knowing that it has frequently been contested, but still stands. After finding this out, another impact that this book left on me was the desire to seek out and read those books deemed worthy of challenging, and have found that my literary knowledge and life knowledge have both been exponentially improved through the experience.