The other day, I received a review request. It was for an adult crossover. Here's the direct quote that sent me raging to my roommate for a good ten minutes.
It it is "clean" and suitable for teens.
First of all, let's define clean.
Does clean mean no curse words? If so, that's great. Sometimes curse words are an unnecessary way to get across anger or other intense emotions that could be better described. Sometimes, they suit a character. However, just because it has curse words in it doesn't mean it's not suitable for teens. Maybe not in a middle grade book, where some of the innocence of youth is still preserved, and definitley not in children's books (unless, of course, it's Go The Fuck To Sleep) but teens curse all the time.
Does clean mean no abuse of illegal substances? Is there no drinking, no drugs, no doing anything against the law? Awesome! But, you know, teens drink. Not all teens - I don't; most of my friends don't. But some do. So it's not necessary to completely eliminate that if it doesn't make sense to.
Does clean mean no hanky panky? Yes, I used the phrase hanky panky. And if there's no sex, that's cool. Heck, if there's nothing beyond kissing, that's great. A lot - and I mean a LOT - of teens don't actually have sex. Or do anything beyond kiss. And some go all the way and some get pregnant and some get dumped and some do weird things. Teens are strange folk.
I'm going to use Glee as an example of these. I used to be a Gleek; I don't watch the show anymore because Ryan Murphy and his clowns don't know how to plot or develop characters if their lives depended on it.
However, they do manage to showcase something: that teens aren't these pure clean little things. Do some of the characters follow the "clean" pattern? Sure. But there are characters who curse, characters who have sex, characters who drink. They're teenagers. It's what they do.
If a book is clean, it's great. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it's for teens for that reason, or that it has to be clean to be for teens.
Sometimes, it's more realistic for it not to be.