Every year the American Library Association delights in releasing a list of the most frequently challenged books. A number of young-adult books made the Top 10 in 2010, including Suzanne Collins's hyper-violent, best-selling "Hunger Games" trilogy and Sherman Alexie's prize-winning novel, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." "It almost makes me happy to hear books still have that kind of power," Mr. Alexie was quoted saying; "There's nothing in my book that even compares to what kids can find on the Internet."

Oh, well, that's all right then. Except that it isn't. It is no comment on Mr. Alexie's work to say that one depravity does not justify another. If young people are encountering ghastly things on the Internet, that's a failure of the adults around them, not an excuse for more envelope-pushing.

That's a fantastic point: if parents are worried about violent or sexual images turning their kids into some kind of neighbor-devouring sex criminal, it's their job to more closely monitor the kinds of shit their children are looking at online. It's so simple, and yet breathtaking in its practicality: parents can raise their own kids without forcing the rest of us to do it for them.

 Now, why Ms. Gurdon can't apply that same beautiful logic to the Young Adult Books industry is an unexplainable mystery.

 I get that being a parent is hard, but I hate how many parents seem willing to bring that up as an excuse for supporting whatever issue their Parent-Teacher Association discussed that week. I don't have kids, so I absolutely understand that I have no real idea what a challenge it is to be a parent. But I've also never climbed Mt Everest... so in exactly the same fashion, I have no real idea how challenging it is to do that either. But even without firsthand experience, I can still intellectually understand that both parenting and climbing Mt. Everest are extremely taxing on dozens of levels: emotionally, mentally, physically. And I can intellectually understand that despite all that, people will always want to do it because it's ultimately rewarding.

 So yes, I can see why people become parents. And to a point I can empathize how hard they work. I know they can't monitor their kids 24/7, that they must worry about raising their kids right, how it can often seem like an uphill battle against a society that's perpetually in the toilet. I know, even if I don't really understand.

But here's the thing, society: I like violence and sex in my fiction. I actively seek it out. I want there to be more books and films released that appeal to that kind of thing. And since I have a job, pay my taxes, and have made it through 26 years without raping or murdering anybody, I don't feel like I need to justify any of that to you. Nor do I feel like I should be made to go through more hurdles to get those things just because you are worn out after a hard day of being a goddamn parent.

 Censorship is wrong, even when it's for the children. I'm not saying parents don't have a right to exert some control over what their kids are exposed to. I'm saying that it's their job to do that, not everybody else's. Fact is, there are lots of parents out there who are aware of the content of those books and don't seem to mind their kids reading them. I know this because I used to work at a bookstore; young adult books flew off the shelves like crazy, and it wasn't just the teenagers buying them. Plenty of adults have walked up to bookstore counters with an armload of Stephanie Meyer, an ashamed look on their face that they're reading things ostensibly written for 13 year old girls.

 (In the case of Stephanie Meyer, they're right to be ashamed of themselves... there are plenty of good books written for those with a 6th-grade reading level, the fact that you haven't read a book in 15 years is no excuse to be slumming it. But I digress.)

 Now to be fair, I can understand the argument about whether or not these books should be available at school. I'm for a free and uncensored internet, but I can see why porn sites are blocked at school. So it's not that much of a stretch that parents have democratically decided certain books also shouldn't be available at the place where they've sent their children to learn. But at public libraries and bookstores? Sorry, parents, but you don't have a leg to stand on there. The anecdote at the beginning of Gurdon's article wants you to empathize with the mother who just wants to buy her daughter something to read and finds herself awash in a sea of depravity, but I don't buy it. Here's the thing, Gurdon: the young adult book industry doesn't owe you a goddamn thing. If parents really don't want their kids reading those books, they'll stop buying them, and then the book industry will try to make its money some other way. That that hasn't happened yet (indeed, hasn't happened in like 50 fucking years) is a pretty strong indicator that most parents don't find the material has horrifically objectionable as you. And even if the reason for that is because none of them have bothered to look at what's inside these books, that's still just an argument for more parental involvement; once parents are aware of the problem, they'll stop buying the books, and the whole situation will fix itself. You don't need to start bandying about words like "ban" and "censorship".

 There are parents out there who don't want their kids reading the violent and sexual images in Young Adult books, and there are parents out there who don't seem to mind their kids reading the violent and sexual images in Young Adult books. And Ms. Gurdon seems to want one group to suck it up to make the other group's lives easier. That's something I absolutely agree with... except that our ideas about which side needs to suck it up are completely opposite.

In short, good game. Maybe even great, though I can't really be sure until I've finished it. Hard, though; the game makes a big deal about reading the expressions of the people you interview to tell when they're lying. The instruction manual gives some tips, and recommends you "trust your gut", reminding you that you have years of experience at reading people's expressions to tell when they're lying while also forgetting to mention that they've done studies and shown pretty conclusively that human beings are terrible at spotting a lie based on facial expressions. But that's not the tricky part- these are actors, they've been told to "act like you're lying" when their characters lie, so it's pretty easy to spot. No, the hard part is knowing what piece of evidence you should present to them to contradict the lie they're telling... in some cases, it's obvious, but often times it feels mostly like a guessing game.

 Also, important note: this is not a game about solving mysteries. This is a game about solving crimes. It might seem like the same thing, but LA Noire drives the distinction between them home. It's less about attention to detail and lateral thinking to put together clues, and more about following a breadcrumb trail of clues to an eventual arrest. And boy howdy if there aren't times where the game asks you to put away a suspect that you, in real life, are not convinced is actually guilty... though in fairness to the game's developing storyline, I feel like this is mostly on purpose.

 There are also some technical issues... gunfights are occasionally trickier than they need to be due to an occasionally frustrating camera and cover system, but for the most part these sequences are optional and even when they're not, the game gives you the (sissy) option of skipping past them altogether. And imagine a game with "Grand Theft Auto 4"'s driving mechanics that *penalizes* you for running over idiot pedestrians...

 Still, the focus is on the investigations, interrogations, and the story. And the game gets these mostly right. Main character Cole Phelps is certainly no Sherlock Holmes, but as a procedural crime drama the game comes through in spades. From searching the crime scene for clues (and the special thrill you get from finding the ones that aren't clearly labeled) to getting the coroner's report at the morgue to grilling a suspect in the interrogation room while your angry lieutenant scowls at you from behind the two-way mirror... all the elements are there. The atmosphere may not be quite as rich as "Red Dead Redemption", but that honestly could just be a preference for Westerns rather than detective stories, and for the most part the immersion is almost perfect. Sure, it still has the issue of every pedestrian in Los Angeles having one of six possible things to say as you pass by them on the street, but overall the script is top notch.

 In summary, this is a game people will be talking about for a long time, and it's probably a shoe-in for "Game of the Year" awards from all over the industry, so you should probably play it. It's not perfect, but it's good enough that you'll hardly notice.