Problems Within the Age Rating System in the Book Community

I have had issues over the years figuring out what books are for what age range. Movies have a standard set rating that can easily be found online and the physical copies telling you if it's PG, PG-13, TV-14, R, etc. Now, the book community does have an age rating system: Children's(0-8), Middle Grade(8-12), Young Adult(12-18)and Adult(18+) books, but not spoken about often(correctly). In todays society, things I have heard and seen thats problematic is parents not knowing what books are safe for their kids. Recently, a book targeted to YA readers had explicit scenes that shouldn't be in that age range.

You may ask what designates clean books. As a Christian, I would rather read books where I don’t have to skip full chapters because of the graphic sexual content. Also, if a book has a lot of language (for me specifically saying GD multiple times) then it's not something I particularly want to read a lot of or at all. Sure, I do have books on my shelves that I have to skip over parts or have language, but over the past couple of years I've been trying to find books that fit my values. They don’t have to all be faith based but I would love to dive into more faith content. 

A lot of Non-clean books have graphic sexual content and language such as Icebreaker by Hannah Grace. I believe Young Adults should not be reading it or any books in that realm. The front looks like a harmless romance with the cartoonish cover, but honestly it's full of smut. Many parents don’t know what is safe and what's not for the age range of their child and also books that would fit the belief system of the household. 

Now some people say that it doesn’t matter because kids can find things online which is true. You might not be able to shield them from it all, but you can teach them to not look for those things. Multiple sources I’ve seen support that the average American reads about 12-14 books a year and I don’t really know how accurate this is, but most parents aren’t reading the books their kids want to read. 

I don’t want to go into the scientific reason why it is harmful to the development of a growing human and an adult reading books that technically *corn* but it is not something I personally recommend. I would love to see a change in the publication of books specifically where the synopsis is. Like how on a physical copy of a movie has a rating or a CD having a parent advisory, I think books should have age ratings and warnings on the back or at the beginning of the book.

Even though I don’t personally read dark romance, I know that inside they have major lists of content warnings before getting into the story. I think that it would be beneficial in all books whether clean or not to have these types of explanations so that anyone can see the contents within the books and judge if they are appropriate for their tastes and beliefs. This marketing change would be extraordinary for all readers no matter what type of books you like and for parents to protect their kids.

What do you look for in your books? If you have any clean recomendations let me know in the comments down below!