Every year, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The lists are based on information from confidential reports filed by library professionals and community members, as well as news stories published throughout the United States.
Because many book challenges are not reported to the ALA or covered by the press, the data compiled by ALA represent only a snapshot of censorship attempts in libraries.
ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, the second highest ever documented by ALA. The highest ever documented was 4,240 in 2023. Of the unique titles challenged in 2025, 1,671 (40%) represent the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and people of color. Learn more on ALA’s Book Ban Data page.
#1 with 36 challenges
by Patricia McCormick
Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape. (Fiction, Young Adult)
#2 with 33 challenges
by Stephen Chbosky
A coming of age novel about Charlie, a freshman in high school who is a wallflower, shy and introspective, and very intelligent. He deals with the usual teen problems, but also with the suicide of his best friend. (Fiction, Young Adult)
#3 with 25 challenges
by Maia Kobabe
Maia’s, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, and bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction… (Non-Fiction, Young Adult)
#4 with 24 challenges
by Sarah J. Maas
The long path to the throne has only just begun for Aelin Galathynius. As the kingdoms of Erilea fracture around her, enemies must become allies if Aelin is to keep those she loves from falling to the dark forces poised to claim her world. (Fiction, Young Adult)
#5 (tie) with 23 challenges
by Malinda Lo
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. (Fiction, Young Adult)
#5 (tie) with 23 challenges
by Ellen Hopkins
Tricks is a young adult verse novel by Ellen Hopkins, released in August 2009. It tells the converging narratives of five troubled teenage protagonists. (Fiction, Young Adult)
#7 with 22 challenges
by Sarah J. Maas
Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from stories, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin, a High Lord of the faeries. As her feelings toward him transform from hostility to a fiery passion, the threats against the faerie lands grow. (Fiction, Young Adult)
#8 (tie) with 21 challenges
by John Green
Sixteen-year-old Miles’ first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash. (Fiction, Young Adult)
#8 (tie) with 21 challenges
by Anthony Burgess
In Anthony Burgess’s influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends’ intense reaction against their society. (Fiction, Adult)
#8 (tie) with 21 challenges
Identical
by Ellen Hopkins
Sixteen-year-old identical twin daughters of a district court judge and a candidate for the United States House of Representatives, Kaeleigh and Raeanne Gardella desperately struggle with secrets that have already torn them and their family apart (Fiction, Young Adult)
#8 (tie) with 21 challenges
by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Eighteen-year-old Trinity Marrow may be going blind, but she can see and communicate with ghosts and spirits. Her unique gift is part of a secret so dangerous that she’s been in hiding for years in an isolated compound fiercely guarded by Wardens—gargoyle shape-shifters who protect humankind from demons… (Fiction, Young Adult)