Tag: 2025

Censorship is so 1984 – Read for Your Rights

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Banned Book Week 2025 is finally here! Running from October 5th through October 11th, 2025, the theme for this year is ‘Censorship is So 1984 – Read for Your Rights’. According to the American Library Association, ‘With the escalation in attempts to ban books in libraries, schools, and bookstores around the country, George Orwell’s cautionary tale “1984” serves a prescient warning about the dangers of censorship. This year’s theme reminds us that the right to read belongs to all of us, that censorship has no place in contemporary society, and that we must defend our rights.’

Below are the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024 (Descriptions are provided by the publishers.):

1. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
Why this book matters: bit.ly/allboysBR

In a series of personal essays, award-winning author and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue explores their childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia.

From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.

Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren’t Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson’s emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults. (Johnson used he/him pronouns at the time of publication.) – Farrar, Straus and Giroux

2. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
Why this book matters: bit.ly/genderBR

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic 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, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.

Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. – Oni Press

3. (TIE) The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Why this book matters: bit.ly/bluestBR

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace.

In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. – Vintage

3. (TIE) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Why this book matters: bit.ly/wallflowerBR

The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

A #1 New York Times bestseller for more than a year, adapted into a major motion picture starring Logan Lerman and Emma Watson (and written and directed by the author), and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults (2000) and Best Book for Reluctant Readers (2000), this novel for teen readers (or wallflowers of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life. – MTV Books

5. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Why this book matters: bit.ly/tricksBR

When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival.

Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching…for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don’t expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words “I love you” are said for all the wrong reasons.

Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story—a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, “Can I ever feel okay about myself?” – Margaret K. McElderry Books

6. (TIE) Looking for Alaska by John Green
Why this book matters: bit.ly/alaskaBR

First drink. First prank. First friend. First love.

Last words.

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green’s arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction. – Penguin Books

6. (TIE) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
Why this book matters: bit.ly/earlBR

This is the funniest book you’ll ever read about death.

It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he’s figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad?

His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl.

This plan works for exactly eight hours. Then Greg’s mom forces him to become friends with a girl who has cancer. This brings about the destruction of Greg’s entire life.– Amulet Books

8. (TIE) Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Why this book matters: bit.ly/crankBR

Life was good
before I
met
the monster.

After,
life
was great,
At
least

for a little while.

Kristina Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble.

Then, Kristina meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul—her life.

8. (TIE) Sold by Patricia McCormick
Why this book matters: bit.ly/soldBR

The powerful, poignant, bestselling National Book Award finalist gives voice to a young girl robbed of her childhood yet determined to find the strength to triumph.

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.
He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.

An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family’s debt-then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.

Lakshmi’s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother’s words—Simply to endure is to triumph—and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision-will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life?

Written in spare and evocative vignettes by the co-author of I Am Malala (Young Readers Edition), this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs. – Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

10. Flamer by Mike Curato
Why this book matters: bit.ly/flamerBR

I know I’m not gay. Gay boys like other boys. I hate boys. They’re mean, and scary, and they’re always destroying something or saying something dumb or both.

I hate that word. Gay. It makes me feel . . . unsafe.

It’s the summer between middle school and high school, and Aiden Navarro is away at camp. Everyone’s going through changes—but for Aiden, the stakes feel higher. As he navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can’t stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance. – Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

Online Reading Challenge – September Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a young adult literature title for September? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: The Cousins by Karen McManus. McManus is known for her Bayview High series (One of Us is Lying, One of Us is Next, and One of Us is Back), but The Cousins is a standalone novel diving into one family’s sordid history. What caught my attention about this novel was the premise: three teenage cousins invited to spend the summer with their estranged grandmother at the resort she owns. Sounds intriguing and a bit familiar, right? I thought so, too.

The three Story cousins, Jonah, Millie, and Aubrey, are contacted by their estranged grandmother, inviting them to spend the summer in a resort beach town. Mildred Story, the estranged matriarch of the Story family, cut off her four children over twenty years ago, their only notice a cryptic letter stating, ‘You know what you did’. Despite her children professing to have no idea what they did to earn her displeasure, Mildred refused to see her children or correspond in any way. This new invitation to her grandchildren comes completely out of the blue, catching everyone off guard. The fact that Mildred is incredibly wealthy has her children hoping that the grandchildren will get access to her money if they land themselves in her good graces.

Millie, Aubrey, and Jonah have no desire to spend summer with their grandma. They are teenagers with their own summer plans! Despite their protests, the three soon find themselves in the crosshairs of the rich and reclusive woman who disinherited their parents all those years ago. After their initial meeting, the three realize that Mildred’s plans are different than what they thought. She becomes increasingly hard to get a hold of, disappearing for trips, and using her assistant to blow off the cousins’ requests to meet. The cousins spend their time on island working and looking for more information about their parents. This leads to discovering some of the dark secrets in the Story family’s past. What fractured the family structure years ago? Can the cousins find the truth and repair these destroyed relationships?

Told from the point of view of the three cousins, plus one of their parents, McManus has written a mystery full of twists and turns. Flashback chapters fill in background information and family secrets that the cousins would not have been able to discover on their own. (The flashback chapters are the ones that kept me hooked throughout the book to be honest.) What kept me from completely loving this book were the twists’ reveals. I had trouble suspending my disbelief during some of the reveals, as it seemed implausible that only a few people would realize what was happening. The ending also seemed very rushed, to the point where I had to reread the last three chapters and the epilogue to piece together the end, but I’m still confused… This was a three star read for me.

Next month, we will be reading fantasy!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – September

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on young adult literature. Our main title for September is The Cousins by Karen McManus. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins, but they barely know each another, and they’ve never even met their grandmother. Rich and reclusive, she disinherited their parents before they were born. So when they each receive a letter inviting them to work at her island resort for the summer, they’re surprised . . . and curious.

Their parents are all clear on one point–not going is not an option. This could be the opportunity to get back into Grandmother’s good graces. But when the cousins arrive on the island, it’s immediately clear that she has different plans for them. And the longer they stay, the more they realize how mysterious–and dark–their family’s past is.

The entire Story family has secrets. Whatever pulled them apart years ago isn’t over–and this summer, the cousins will learn everything. – Delacorte Press

Looking for some other young adult literature? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – August Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a classic? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Published in 1956, Giovanni’s Room is the story of David, a young man living in Paris in the 1950s. Waiting for his fiancée Hella to return from a trip to Spain, David starts an affair with an Italian bartender named Giovanni. Said affair spans several months. Giovanni is passionate and clever, but something seems off. Soon the two find themselves living together in Giovanni’s small room. David begins to feel stifled, while Giovanni repeatedly says that he won’t survive if David leaves him. During this time, David reflects on a homosexual affair he had in his adolescence and the impulses he has been struggling to repress for years. David is caught in a conflict between heterosexual and homosexual love, between desire and conventional morality. When Hella returns, David again struggles with the life he envisions for himself (and Hella) and with his homosexuality. The three impacted parties (Giovanni, David, and Hella) are humans with flaws whose decisions end up altering their lives forever.

I chose to listen to the audiobook narrated by Matt Bomer with an introduction by Kevin Young, but I highly recommend you read this book in any format that you can get your hands on. The writing style and imagery are gorgeous. The prose was laden with love, highlighting a depth of emotion portrayed beautifully throughout the book. Although I enjoyed the book, the main character was decidedly not my favorite and was hard to love. David was incredibly selfish, only worried about himself, and unlikable. The relationships he was in were toxic, but I had hopes throughout that David would grow by the end. Sadly, he did not. I had a rough time getting through this book, but I’m glad I did as it hooked me in completely with about 45 minutes left in the story. If this is on your to-read list, give it a go and let me know what you think.

Next month, we will be reading young adult literature!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – August

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on classics. Our main title for August is Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.

David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.

David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. – Vintage

Looking for some other classics? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – July Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read domestic fiction? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg. When I was picking out a domestic fiction title to read for this month, All This Could Be Yours caught my attention as it was described as ‘Big Little Lies meets Succession‘. Intriguing, right? Jami Attenberg was also described as ‘the queen of dysfunctional families,’ which also caught my eye! Let’s get into what the book was about and my thoughts.

Alex Tuchman has been summoned by her mother to her father’s deathbed. He has suffered from a heart attack and the results aren’t good. As she travels to New Orleans to be with her family, Alex reflects on her life growing up. She decides that now is the time to confront her tight-lipped mother Barbra about her father Victor, his secrets, and why they stayed together for so long. Barbra is not ready to answer Alex’s questions, but her questions force her to reflect on the tumult she and Victor went through. Barbra and Alex are left picking up the pieces because Alex’s brother Gary has disappeared. He’s gone quiet and is across the country in Los Angeles working on his movie career. Gary’s wife Twyla is left behind in New Orleans dealing with his family. This family is incredibly dysfunctional. Each family member, plus some outside people, are dragged into dealing with Victor’s complicated history. Even though they are not close, each person will have to figure out how they will move on after Victor eventually passes.

All This Could Be Yours is a multi-generational drama told through flashbacks in time. Each member of the family tells their story, plus some random side characters that are also somehow connected to the family. At times I was confused about why certain people were talking and how their stories were relevant. I also found myself wanting to learn more about the family dysfunction and how they ended up the way they are. I spent most of the book wondering what the point was because even though you learn about each family member and their lies, there isn’t a real plot. This title felt on the verge of greatness, but didn’t quite make it there for me.

Next month, we will be reading classics!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – July

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on domestic fiction, also known as domestic realism. This genre focuses on everyday lives of ordinary people, particularly the domestic sphere that focuses on families and communities. It strives to show a realistic portrayal of ordinary life in a straightforward way. Our main title for July is All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father, Victor, is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister—feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tight-lipped mother, Barbra.

As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drugstores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As family members grapple with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.

All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can entangle a family for generations, and what it takes to—maybe, hopefully—break free. With her signature “sparkling prose” (Marie Claire) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age. – Ecco

Looking for some other domestic fiction? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – June Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read queer fiction? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. This national bestseller has won many awards, was featured on many publication lists, and was longlisted for other prizes. With these high accolades, this was an easy queer fiction pick for June.

Here’s a short summary before I discuss my thoughts. Detransition, Baby is the story of Reese and Amy and what they each want out of life. Reese has created the life that she has always dreamed of: a gorgeous apartment in New York City, a job she enjoys, and a loving stable relationship with Amy. As a trans woman, this life is full of things that she never thought herself worthy of, but one thing has always been missing: a child. Just when Amy and Reese start the process to have a child, their relationship explodes. Amy detransitions and become Ames and the life they know is over. Flash forward and neither Ames nor Reese are happy. When Ames’ partner, his boss Katrina, announces that she’s pregnant, Ames realizes that this baby is the way to get Reese back into his life. Ames, Reese, and Katrina start an awkward dance to figure out if this unconventional family will work.

The exploration that the author makes into each characters’ life was eye-opening. Each character is forced to confront their thoughts about sex, motherhood, and gender, to examine the messy corners of what it truly means to be a woman. The author isn’t afraid to discuss the uncomfortable, which I enjoyed. When I started Detransition, Baby, the writing and pacing hooked me. I could tell that the author was sincere in their writing, that nothing was written without a lot of thought, although some sections were a bit wordy. While I loved certain characters, others were unlikeable, which is honestly true of most books. The book’s ending also caught me completely off guard. If you read this book, I would love to know your opinion! Please let me know in the comments.

Next month, we will be reading domestic fiction!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – June

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on queer fiction. Our main title for June is Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn’t happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames’s boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she’s pregnant with his baby—and that she’s not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he’s been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can’t reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel. – One World

Looking for some other queer fiction? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – May Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a graphic novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. (Actually this was a re-read for me.) Personally, I feel Persepolis should be required reading for all people as it deals with difficult subjects, but also bears witness to history that should never be ignored.

Marjane Satrapi is the daughter of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran’s last emperor. Her childhood is threaded through with the history of her country, Iran. Satrapi grew up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. In Persepolis, she talks about the Iranian experience from the 1950s through the late 1970s. The overthrow of Mossadeq and the seating and unseating of the Shah take place during this time. She also witnesses the triumph of the Islamic Revolution and the effects of war with Iraq. Satrapi’s parents aren’t afraid to sit her down to give a lesson on history especially when she asks questions or says something that catches them off guard. In addition to the history talks, Satrapi details daily life in Iran and the many contradictions between her home life and public life.

Persepolis is told in black-and-white comic strip images which add to the harshness of her stories and to the seriousness of war and political repression. The first time I read this book, I remember being struck by the vivid descriptions of her childhood and her family. This graphic novel was first published in English in 2003, so I was just starting my teens when I read it for the first time. I was close in age to Satrapi (she is ages six to fourteen in this book), but our childhoods were incredibly different. It’s difficult for me to distill my feelings about Persepolis into a couple paragraphs. Please pass this graphic novel to someone in your life. Maybe they’ll get something out of it that will change their lives just like it changed mine.

Next month, we will be reading queer fiction!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!