There is a book in the teen section of the public library that sounds interesting. The blurb on the back cover or inside flap makes no mention of romance. Finally, a book with no kissing! Halfway through the book, however, the main characters start to kiss. The kiss is described in excruciating detail, with everything from what the person being kissed tastes like, to where their hands are going during the kiss. This is what happens in pretty much every single teen book.
This sort of detailed courtship is expected in books that are labeled under the category of romance. If that were the only category that had any affairs in it, no one would be surprised, but that is not the case. Love is the main plot of romance books, but still a subplot in all other teen books.
There was recently a book published, “Sibylline” by Melissa de la Cruz, that caused a big stir online because it had a chapter where the characters brought another character back to life by raping him. This scene caused many parents to wonder what exactly their kids are reading because not only did it not have any sort of warning that this was going to happen in this book, despite having been read by publishers, badly reviewed by advance readers and being chosen by the Good Morning America YA Book Club.
Most Young Adult (YA) books do not actually include sex scenes and tend to skip over those parts, but there is still a lot of kissing. YA authors seem to think that all teenagers want to be subjected to detailed descriptions of exactly what kissing feels like. What if there is a teen out there who wants nothing to do with romance, though? Or what if some people who normally enjoy such scenes are tired of kisses existing in every book they read, and just want a book at their reading level that does not mention romance? A couple of books mentioning someone kissing is fine, since the targeted audience is teens who have all sorts of love-related hormones flooding their bodies, but every book seems like a bit much. It should not be impossible to find a book written for teens that does not have a kissing scene in it, but it feels like it is.
