Whats in a Book? Really?

Ok, so I don't normally do stuff like this, at least, I hope I don't. : /

I've been reading more books lately and have found that when I venture out of the Young Adult book land (Twilight, Harry Potter, etc), I come across some pretty offensive and inappropriate material. Its really sad because the sexual content and/or language really does not make a book better so I've been perplexed as to why a writer feels they need to add such content.

ANYWHO - I'm a BIG time supporter of the movie rating website Kids In Mind. I've been a supporter of this website for years now. They have a special rating system, they rate sex/nudity, violence/gore and profanity. Its a simply rating system and they tell you why they rated the movie the way they did. Its just nice to know what you're getting into before hand, as far as movies go. Its not a biased rating system either. They're just telling you what content is in a movie in more detail than a PG-13 or R rating does.

So after these books that I've been reading lately, I began to wonder why on EARTH they don't have the same rating system as Kids in Mind does??? And you might say, there are millions of books out there. Well, there are millions of movies out there as well. SO, I did some googling.

I came up with these gems:

Rated Reads
This book reviewer and former book page editor rates books as "None, Mild, Moderate, High and DIRT". DIRT actually stands for, "Don't Invest Reading Time". I've read some of her/his ratings for books I've already read and find them spot on. There are quite a few books that I couldn't find on this website but they do have a vast library of reviews and ratings.

Good Clean Reads Blog
This blog is run by an LDS lady who just loves to read. She had the same feelings that I do about rating systems for books and she actually rates her reads with a similar system to Kids In Mind. You can find her detailed rating system on her blog. She has done tons of ratings and reviews.

And lastly:

MAW Books Blog
I really enjoyed reading this blog and her reviews. She doesn't have a rating system as the two sites above but she does clear up the skewed line between RAVE Book reviews for a dirty book and actual good clean books.

I didn't make this post to poo poo on people reading inappropriate books out there, we all have a different opinion on what makes us comfortable while reading and what doesn't. I just wanted to post this in case you had the same curiosity that I did; is there a way to find out what content is in a book before actually reading it? And there is!

So I hope this helps!
Thanks for listening!