On the Subject of Unmentionable Things

by Julia Walton

A girl rewrites sex education, one viral post at a time, in this fiercely honest and delightfully awkward novel by the award-winning author of Words on Bathroom Walls.

Phoebe Townsend is a rule follower . . . or so everyone thinks. She’s an A student who writes for her small-town school newspaper. But what no one knows is that Phoebe is also Pom—the anonymous teen who’s rewriting sex education on her blog and social media.
 
Phoebe is not a pervert. No, really. Her unconventional hobby is just a research obsession. And sex should not be a secret. As long as Phoebe stays undercover, she’s sure she’ll fly through junior year unnoticed. . . .
 
That is, until Pom goes viral, courtesy of mayoral candidate Lydia Brookhurst. The former beauty queen labels Phoebe’s work an “assault on morality,” riling up her supporters and calling on Pom to reveal her identity. But Phoebe is not backing down. With her anonymity on the line, is it all worth the fight?
 
Julia Walton delivers a brutally honest novel about sex, social media, and the courage to pursue truth when misinformation is rife. Who knew truth could be so scandalous?

• ISBN10: 0593310586
• ISBN13: 9780593310588
• Publish Date: 2 January 2079 (first published 23 August 2022)
• Publish Status: Cancelled
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780593310588

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

On the Subject of Unmentionable Things is a well written YA coming-of-age novel by Julia Walton. Released 23rd Aug 2022 by Random House on their Children's imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback due out in 3rd quarter 2023. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

The author delivers a sex-positive story with an impressively believable and genuinely relatable young protagonist who writes a sex-ed blog anonymously in a sadly all-too-believable conservative town. The way the author manages to handle the unequal power dynamics and conflict between conservative religious figures and fact-based understandable sex education is -wonderfully- nuanced and engaging. 

The book does contain good information about sex, which is a nice bonus and a valid reason to access the book for its own merits. In addition, it's engaging and fun, with moments of humor and some pathos, and a solid character driven plot arc. 

Four stars. I'm a few decades outside the target audience, but I found myself rooting for Phoebe/Pom and satisfied with the denouement and resolution which are self contained in this volume. It's a very well done book, but it *is* a YA book about sex, and library acquisitions personnel & educators should be aware that there are on-page descriptions of sex, sexual acts, and sexual expression. They're absolutely not egregious, and there's nothing objectionable, but I'm 100% sure that it won't stop people protesting and clutching their pearls. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[bookstagramofmine]

Thank you, TBR and Beyond Tours, for the chance to read a really great young adult book that tackles an important topic without making it cringy or dull. 

 

Which of us has ever had a really informative talk with our parents? What we know, generally speaking, comes from pop culture, things we google in secret and porn. I live in a country where we ask if a woman is married to check if she’s sexually active or not. For me, the talk was just about periods and just that this happens to a woman as she grows older. I was then accidentally given a book on teen health that everyone thought would convince me to eat healthier and lose weight but instead answered the other question that plagued my mind; can a guy pee inside you when you’re having sex?

 

Sex education is still a controversial topic in most places. For some reason, people think it will involve showing young kids porn and encouraging kids to do it, and not as we will tell young people that STDs are a real thing, you can get pregnant the very first time, and what is good touch and bad touch. Let’s not even get into the joy of sex. It can be about pleasure and not just something for men to thirst for and women to put up with.

 

So when the sign-ups for On The Subject of Unmentionable Things went around, I was curious. This could either be really good or really bad, and I’m happy to say it fell into the first category. 

 

I had a brilliant professor in my freshmen year. She was a labor historian in Pakistan. I may not remember her exact words, but she talked about people who commented on why she was researching labor in Pakistan and not women because she was a woman. Her answer was, simply put, because I’m interested in labor. 

 

I thought of this because On The Subject of Unmentionable Things reminds us that a woman’s interests are political. A woman’s choice to study something not directly related to women is political. And we have Phoebe right here writing a blog and managing a Twitter page on the most political thing of them all; sex. She writes about sex not from a place of fear or because she’s having loads and thinking about facts turns her on; she writes about it because the human body, and sex, are fascinating things. You can be incredibly interested in them for no reason than that.

 

Julia Walton’s book was excellent. She touches on subjects that impact many of us; misinformation, fear-mongering, racism, sexism, homophobia, and how people can just be assholes without making this book feel preachy or boring. She writes well and has a plot, and I’m disappointed with Random House for not marketing this book better because she only has 3 reviews on amazon.

 

Phoebe has friends who don’t know the truth, parents trying to figure out how to manage their business and political preferences, people whose loyalty is up for rent, and a trump like woman who wants to make her town great again. 

 

You get where the author leans politically, and I love that about her. This is not her first book on teens, but her third. She seems to genuinely care about younger readers because while this book didn’t hold back, it wasn’t a graphic read. Phoebe does get slut shamed; the town is vandalized; she is stolen from. And yet you have a character that comes through with dignity and self-respect. Julia Walton writes about a character more mature than most of the older ones, a reminder that only the young can run.