8 books the US government doesn’t want you to read

The US is currently facing an intense wave of book bans, with the number of books pulled from public schools and libraries steadily rising over the past few years thanks to right-wing fearmongering. PEN America, a non-profit whose goal is to raise awareness for the protection of free expression, defines a book ban as “any action taken against a book based on its content that leads to a previously accessible book being completely removed from availability for students or where access to a book is restricted or diminished”. The majority of books which have been targeted are either written by or about queer people and people of colour, with censors hoping to smother the spread of progressive ideas about race, gender, and LGBTQ+ issues.

PEN has recently warned that the current attack on literature is chillingly reminiscent of censorship programmes enacted by authoritarian regimes throughout history. “What we’re seeing right now mirrors elements of different historical periods, but this has never all happened at once,” Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms managing director for US free expression programs at PEN America, told the Guardian earlier this month.

It’s easy to see why repressive governments often target literature, which has the power to disseminate new ideas, encourage critical thinking, and bolster readers’ ability to empathise with people from all walks of life. With this in mind, given the current climate, it’s important to keep reading – especially the books that right-wing politicians want to ban. Here is a list of eight novels to read that have been banned or challenged in US states.

Written in 1993 but set in 2024, Octavia E Butler’s remarkably prescient novel Parable of the Sower is set in a California ravaged by climate catastrophe. Despite the apocalyptic situation, in this late capitalist dystopia, the state does little to help its citizens. The narrative is told from the perspective of protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina, an African American teenager who has a condition called ‘hyper-empathy’ which enables her to literally feel the pain and suffering she witnesses around her.

The novel tackles a number of resonant themes, including poverty, religion, feminism, womanhood, race, climate change, and more, with censors making the decision to ban the book based on the fact that the subject matter is unsuitable for young people. But it’s a timely, topical work which teaches readers valuable lessons on what happens if you let greed and selfishness fester away unchecked.

Khaled Hosseini’s 2003 novel The Kite Runner follows Amir, a young boy growing up in 1970s Kabul, and grapples with themes relating to friendship, family, betrayal and guilt. Beginning with the collapse of the Afghan monarchy and charting the ensuing conflict and subsequent rise of the Taliban, the book offers an engaging, forensic, yet accessible insight into recent Afghan history.

But The Kite Runner has been banned and challenged across the US owing to its depiction of violence, sexual content and offensive language. In the school year 2021-2022, it was one of the most banned books in the US. Today, it has been banned from libraries at schools in Florida, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Pennsylvania, Idaho and Wisconsin.

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s debut novel, has been banned by multiple school districts across the US for reasons including “sexually explicit material”, “lots of graphic descriptions and lots of disturbing language”, and “an underlying socialist-communist agenda”. In 2022, The Bluest Eye was the third most banned book in the US.

The novel, published in 1970, is set in Lorain, Ohio (Morrison’s hometown), and follows protagonist Pecola as she comes of age in the aftermath of the Great Depression. As a young African-American girl, she is isolated and deemed “ugly” by her peers, and obsessively fantasises about having lighter skin and blue eyes. It’s a searing novel which critiques how “crippling societal racism” can tear individuals’ lives apart.

Published in 1974, If Beale Street Could Talk follows 19-year-old Tish and 22-year-old Fonny, a pair of childhood friends turned lovers. Tish is pregnant and the couple are engaged to be married when Fonny is falsely accused of rape and subsequently arrested and incarcerated. In the novel, the late, great James Baldwin highlights the emotional cost of being trapped within a racist system.

The novel has been banned and challenged over the years due to its frank depiction of racism, sexual content and its sharp criticism of the criminal justice system.

The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the most banned books in the US, owing to its sexual content, “material that may discomfort students”, and its “discussion of feminism and extremism”. While the novel is undoubtedly a ‘challenging’ read for school-age children, its content shouldn’t warrant banning.

Set in a dystopian rendering of the US (renamed ‘Gilead’), the novel follows the story of a ‘handmaid’ living in a totalitarian, fundamentalist Christian state where fertile women are forced to bear children for the ruling class. Given that it grapples with topical issues like surveillance, power and reproductive coercion, it’s little wonder that it remains stringently censored.

Sally Rooney’s sophomore novel Normal People has recently been subject to censorship in the US. In 2022, Florida’s department of education released a list of more than 700 books that were “removed or discontinued” from schools across the state, including Normal People. The novel was also banned in South Carolina schools in late 2024.

It appears as though conservatives’ issue with the novel lies in its depiction of sex. But the novel is hardly explicit and emphatically unpornographic (Rooney is known for her spare, stark style, after all). If anything, the novel contains refreshingly nuanced depictions of sex and emphasises the importance of consent. In any case, it’s equal parts baffling and concerning that Normal People – a tender novel which is as much about the electricity of first love as class, gender, trauma and so much more – has been removed from a number of schools in red states.

Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing has been banned in several states, including Florida, Georgia, Missouri, and Texas for its unflinching depiction of the impact of slavery in the US. 

The novel follows two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, who are raised, unknown to one another, in different villages in 18th-century Ghana. While Effia is married off to a white man, and Esi is enslaved and forcibly taken to America. The book charts the journey of Effia and Esi’s offspring; as we are introduced to each new descendant, we are invited to consider how the ramifications of slavery reverberate through the generations. It’s vital reading for anyone wishing to understand how the past shapes the present.

Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, published in 1999, was first banned in 2003 in Fairfax, Virginia – to this day it remains banned in several US states for its depiction of sexual abuse, LGBTQ+ content, drug use, profanity and sexually explicit content.

Set in the early 1990s, the novel follows Charlie, the eponymous ‘wallflower’, as he navigates his freshman year of high school in a pedestrian Pittsburgh suburb. The novel tackles themes including sexuality, drug use, rape, abuse, trauma, and mental health – but it’s also a moving coming-of-age story about the value of love and friendship in the face of adversity.