Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, created and hosted by Eternity Books, where we discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! The topics are posted monthly, and you can even submit ideas for future topics, so be sure to check it out!

This week’s topic: Content Warnings – Should All Books Have Them?

In general, I am very for anything that will help readers and make reading experiences better for folks who might have triggers. If that is content warnings, then we should absolutely use them!

I will say that I wouldn’t like to see Content Warnings lead us down the path of allowing people to use those warnings to censor books they think other’s shouldn’t read (we know I am not about that). However, I like the idea of those with certain triggers to be able to know ahead of time what they might be able to expect.

I am a big reader of fanfiction, and MANY of the sites I use to access those fictions utilize content warnings in the descriptions of their archives. I have found this to be super useful in determining what stories I want to read when – while I don’t have triggers of my own, sometimes I’m just not in the mood to read certain things. However, I know plenty of people who do have serious triggers and these types of warnings are very important. If we were to include this warnings on say, the copyright page of the book, where they are accessible to any and all who want to check them, that could be a good thing. Also, having them in a consistent place in the book means that those argue against them because they consider them “spoilers” could just skip past.

I think in the end, I don’t have much skin in this game (as I don’t need them personally), but I will lend my support of them as long as they serve their intended purpose and are not used as a censoring tool.

What are your thoughts on Content Warnings? Tell me in the comments below!