I saw my mom reading The World According to Garp when I was twelve and asked her if I could read it when she was finished. She flat out forbade me to read it. The next day I bought the book at the same used book store she did. What a great book and what a great author. I bought his other coming of age books not because of the sex, though there was plenty of that, but for the beauty of the language and the interesting people John Irving wrote about.

I plan to forbid my son from reading it when he turns twelve.