Sugar, Spice, Steam… What Is The Spice Scale?
Hello my fellow readers! Today’s going to be a bit of a shorter post, since what I’m going to be talking about isn’t a very long-winded discussion. This post may be considered controversial, so I can only ask that you remain polite and civil in the comments.
I will be discussing a specific type of romance that has made a larger appearance in books in this decade… spice.
Now, if you do not know what spice is, I’ll tell you. It’s slang for sex scenes. Yeah. I know plenty of people who do not like spice at all, and do not read it (like me), but there are also people who prefer their books to be high on the spice scale.
What Is The ‘Spice Scale’?
It is also called spice level, and it is typically organized into five categories. Everyone’s determination of the categories are different, so make sure to check what they consider each level before you look at the books they recommend.
I’ll use one that is the most common.
1- This is the mild one. Only kisses, probably some light flirting. The kind of stuff that is in a lot of Clean YA books.
2- This is mostly considered the closed-door one. It has kisses, maybe a fade-to-black (but I myself consider fade-to-black as a part of the 3rd category), but it is closed-door, meaning that it has no on-page sex scenes.
3- This one is the beginning of the open-door ones. It has kisses(some of them, or a lot of them, being very descriptive), normally several on-page scenes, though it is typically not as descriptive as the next two categories.
4- This is most definitely open-door. It has typically more on-pages scenes than category three, and is more descriptive. Romance at this level is typically very descriptive.
5- This is the highest level of spice. The book, at this point, is heavily focused on explicit romance, with a lot of steamy kisses, a lot of sex scenes, and a lot of description about the romance.
What Books Have These Levels?
Unfortunately, a lot of YA books have levels 3-5, but many of them generally stick closer to 1-3. Adult books range from even less than one to even more than 5.
It also depends on the genre– romance and fantasy have a higher leaning towards books having things like this in it, while thrillers, mysteries, and historical fiction (generally) stay closer to the lower end of the scale.
Why Is This Important To Know?
Well, if you’re looking for a book for your fourteen-year-old to read, and you don’t want them reading spice (or maybe they themselves don’t want to read spice and you are okay with it), then you do not want to give them a book like ACOTAR or Fourth Wing.
Knowing your personal comfort level and the spice level is important– you don’t want to read something you know you’re not going to enjoy, and by knowing if the book you’re considering is a level 4 when you want a level 2 is important.
What About You?
I read, at the highest, level 2. I don’t have any desire to read an open-door book. Along with that, all the books I recommend will be level 2 or lower, as well as on my Youtube Channel.
And that is my blogpost about spice in books! If you’re new here, take a look around, and check out my Youtube Channel!
Same! I don’t want to read high spice level books. It’s not necessary to have sexual content in stories.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know what the spice level is?? Grams
ReplyDeleteI normally will Google the book's spice level. All you have to do is enter the name of the book, and then 'spice level' (so it's like: _____ spice level). Then I just go from site to site until I get a spice rating.
DeleteSome books (mostly Kindle ones) will say if there's spice in the description.
Anything higher than a level 2- I don’t read. Well written stories don’t need spice! I can be entertained without sexual content. My faith is the driving force behind my decision to not read books that are spicy. Thank you for sharing this well written piece!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this! As a YA reader, it's so hard to see YA slipping into allowing even level 5 into its books :(( There are so many lovely YA books that are tainted by descriptions of this. People don't realize that YA is, simply, for kids: kids who are growing out of middle-grade but aren't ready for spice yet. When I was a preteen, there was nothing safe: I was beginning to get bored with middle-grade, but couldn't safely browse the YA section. Now I know how to find decent YA, but it's still heartbreaking to see this happening :((( YA authors need to start catering to real kids who aren't going to be tainted by indecency; what example is this setting? You are what you read, and I'm already seeing CHILDREN (teenagers, at the end of the day, are children) consuming this type of content. It's awful.
ReplyDeleteMy friend's mum joked that books should come with warning labels like films do, and honestly, there's something to that. It'd be wonderful.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling, and thank you so much for writing this post. The world could use more clean, good writers like you :)))
Thank you! I've wanted something like a warning label for books for a while, and I've learned how to check my books before I read them. :)
DeleteWhat are some of your tricks for checking books? Google and searching "spice" on Goodreads are usually helpful, but not 100% reliable, so I can always use ways to check books!
DeleteOne thing I will do is Google this: (books name) spice level, and then scroll until I find blogs that talk about it.
DeleteYou could use Common Sense Media, though you have to pay to use it after a certain number of times.