The American Library Association's 2025 Most Challenged Books List — released this April — names 11 titles, led by Patricia McCormick's Sold and including Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower and two Sarah J. Maas bestsellers. Over 4,235 unique titles were challenged in 2025 alone, the second-highest total on record. Here's the full list, why it looks the way it does this year, and what to actually do with that information.
We'll be honest about why we're the ones telling you this: we make bookish t-shirts, not journalism. For the reporting itself, Book Riot's literary activism coverage does that work properly and does it well. What we noticed, going through this year's list with our own shelves in the room, is something the straight reporting tends to skip past: this isn't a list of obscure, easy-to-dismiss books anymore. It's a list with two Sarah J. Maas novels on it.
The ALA's 2025 Most Challenged Books List
| Rank | Title | Author | Most-cited reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sold | Patricia McCormick | Sexual content, depictions of abuse |
| 2 | The Perks of Being a Wallflower | Stephen Chbosky | Sexual content, drug use, LGBTQIA+ themes |
| 3 | Gender Queer: A Memoir | Maia Kobabe | LGBTQIA+ content, sexually explicit imagery |
| 4 | Empire of Storms | Sarah J. Maas | Sexual content |
| 5 (tie) | Last Night at the Telegraph Club | Malinda Lo | LGBTQIA+ themes |
| 5 (tie) | Tricks | Ellen Hopkins | Sexual content, drug use |
| 7 | A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah J. Maas | Sexual content |
| 8 (tie) | A Clockwork Orange | Anthony Burgess | Violence, sexual content |
| 8 (tie) | Identical | Ellen Hopkins | Sexual content, abuse, self-harm |
| 8 (tie) | Looking for Alaska | John Green | Sexual content, substance use |
| 8 (tie) | Storm and Fury | Jennifer L. Armentrout | Sexual content |
Source: American Library Association, April 2026
Why This Year's List Looks Different
A “challenge” is a formal attempt to remove or restrict a book from a school or library — it's not the same as an actual ban, and being challenged doesn't make a book illegal to own, buy, or read anywhere in the country. But the pattern behind the 2025 challenges is what's actually new. According to the ALA, roughly 40% of challenged titles represent the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and people of color, and — this is the number that matters — 92% of all 2025 challenges came from organized pressure groups and government officials, up from 72% the year before. This isn't mostly individual parents anymore. It's coordinated. Of the books challenged, 5,668 were actually removed from library shelves in 2025, with another 920 restricted to limited access.
The Uncomfortable Part
Here's the thing about this list that a lot of coverage glosses over: it doesn't read like a list of fringe titles anymore. A Court of Thorns and Roses and Empire of Storms aren't niche — they're two of the best-selling fantasy romance novels of the last decade, sitting on a genuinely enormous number of readers' shelves, ours included in our own Romantasy collection. Looking for Alaska made a whole generation of readers cry on a school bus. Perks of Being a Wallflower got made into a movie with a cast people still have opinions about. When the list stops looking like a catalogue of obscure titles and starts looking like an inventory of what's actually being widely read and loved, that's worth sitting with. It means the books being pulled from shelves aren't outliers — they're mainstream. That should change how the whole conversation feels.
What Actually Doing Something About It Looks Like
You don't need a protest sign for Banned Books Week (October 4–10, 2026, official theme this year: “Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read.”). The most effective thing most readers can do is genuinely small:
- Read one. Circulation is the plainest counter-argument there is — a challenged book that keeps getting checked out and talked about is a hard case to make disappear.
- Check it out from your actual library, not just buy it. Circulation numbers are part of what libraries use to justify keeping a title on shelves.
- Talk about it publicly — a Goodreads review, a shelfie, a Bookstagram post with the title visible. Visibility is the opposite of the goal of a challenge.
- Support your local library or the Freedom to Read Foundation directly, if you're in a position to.
- Wear the argument, if that's your speed — this is, admittedly, where we come in. Our Library & Literary Activism collection exists for exactly this: quiet, wearable statements for people who'd rather let their shelf (and their shirt) do the talking than get into it in a comment section.
FAQ
Is it illegal to read or own a banned book in the US?
No. A book being “banned” or “challenged” refers to it being removed or restricted in a specific school, library, or district — it does not make the book illegal to buy, own, or read anywhere.
What's the difference between a “banned” and a “challenged” book?
A challenge is a formal request to remove or restrict a book. A ban is what happens if that challenge succeeds and the book is actually pulled. Most reporting (including the ALA's) tracks challenges, since that's the more complete and consistent dataset — not every challenge results in a ban.
Who is actually filing these challenges?
Historically it skewed toward individual parents raising concerns about a specific school's collection. In 2025, the ALA reported that 92% of challenges came from organized pressure groups and government officials — a sharp shift from 72% the year before.
Why are so many popular, bestselling books on the list?
Because visibility and popularity are exactly what draw challenges — a widely read book is a widely noticed one. It's part of why this year's list includes mainstream bestsellers like the Sarah J. Maas titles alongside classics like A Clockwork Orange.
What can one person actually do about it?
Read the books, check them out from your library rather than only buying them (circulation numbers matter to library boards), talk about them publicly, and support organizations like the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom or the Freedom to Read Foundation.
Know your TBR is about to get more complicated. Follow along for more of this — reading culture, banned-books updates, and the occasional shelf confession — and check out the Reading Club collection while you're here.