The ALA's "Top 11 Most Challenged Books of 2025" consists of these titles. Because of ties, the list was longer than the usual 10.
1. Sold by Patricia McCormick
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
4. Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
5. (tie) Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
5. (tie) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
7. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
8. (tie) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
8. (tie) Identical by Ellen Hopkins
8. (tie) Looking for Alaska by John Green
8. (tie) Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout
The ALA's Office for 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.
Of book challenges in 2025, 92% were initiated by "pressure groups, government officials, and decision makers, up from 72% in 2024. Less than 3% of challenges originated from individual parents." As Sarah Lamdan, executive director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, emphasized, almost all book challenges "were part of a well-funded, politically driven campaign to suppress the stories and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals and communities."
ALA defines a "ban" as the removal of materials from a library based on the objections of a person or group. A "challenge" is an attempt to have a library resource removed, or access to it restricted, based on the objections of a person or group. In 2025, ALA documented 5,668 books banned from libraries (66% of the total challenged). An additional 920 books were censored through access restrictions such as relocation or requiring parental permission. This is both the highest number of titles censored in one year and the highest rate of challenges resulting in censorship in the past 35 years, starting in 1990.