 In the wake of the film version, the novel has been assigned in many American high school (and sometimes middle school) English classes due to its young-adult protagonist.This has led to some challenges to its inclusion on reading lists and curricula due to not only the subject matter but a short scene near the end of the novel in which Conrad and Jeannine make love.The American Library Association ranked it 59th on its list of the hundred most frequently challenged books in school libraries during the 1990s.