The Electric Lit Staff Recommends Our Favorite Banned Books

Electric Literature is excited to announce our latest initiative to support the freedom to read. Through Banned Books USA, any resident of Florida can order books that have been banned or challenged in the state of Florida for free, plus the cost of shipping.

Of the over 800 books that have been banned and challenged in Florida, ~600 are available from BannedBooksUSA.org. The Electric Literature staff has selected some of our favorite books on this terrible list. Order one for yourself, or send it to a friend or relative in Florida.

Many of the books listed here give voice to marginalized, often silenced, communities, by telling authentic and rarely heard stories. Book bans serve nothing more than to disenfranchise vulnerable people, both socially and politically. Supporting the freedom to read is at the core of Electric Literature’s mission to keep literature exciting, relevant, and inclusive, and by partnering with Banned Books USA, we will help preserve access to some of the most vital literature ever written.  

If successful, the project will expand to other states. The cost of the books are covered by donations, including seed funding by tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Paul English. Additional funds are being raised from people concerned about the erosion of rights and freedoms that book bans represent; you can make an earmarked, tax-deductible donation here.

Banned Books USA is conceived of and sponsored by Paul English and Joyce Linehan, in partnership with Bookshop.org and Electric Literature.‍ Book orders will be fulfilled by Bookshop.org, and the project is administered by Electric Literature. Following Bookshop.org’s business model, 10% of the cover price of all books paid for by Banned Books USA will be donated to support Florida bookstores during our Florida pilot. In addition, one dollar for every order will be donated to the Florida Freedom to Read Project. For more information about book bans and the challenges against the books on this list, visit PEN America.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Banned from libraries through legislative challenge in the School District of Manatee County, Florida in October 2022.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro is the master of the slow build, writing novels that unfurl and reveal themselves gradually and elegantly until suddenly you’re sobbing all over the pages. Never Let Me Go is about three childhood friends—Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy—who attended an exclusive boarding school in the English countryside. After they are reunited in adulthood, Kathy looks back on that seemingly idyllic time with a new perspective. But Never Let Me Go is not a traditional boarding school novel; it’s a fierce and painful examination of the moral compromises that society makes in order to survive, interrogating the very essence of what makes us human.

— Halimah Marcus, Executive Director

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Banned from libraries in the Collier County Public Schools, Florida through administrative challenge in March 2023 and with additional bans and challenges in 28 other counties.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

When Toni Morrison published her seminal debut, The Bluest Eye, she said that she wrote the novel she wanted, and needed, to read—a novel where the least valued, least protected person in contemporary American society was taken seriously—the little Black girl. Pecola Breedlove, a young Black girl who is widely regarded as “ugly” because of her dark skin, wants blue eyes, which she associates with whiteness, and with being pretty, and loved, and protected. The Bluest Eye has long been controversial for it’s depiction of racism, incest, and child molestation, but as controversial as it is, it has been fiercely loved—for its beauty and humanity—for just as long.

— Denne Michele Norris, Editor-in-Chief

Marriage of a Thousand Lies by S. J. Sindu

Banned pending investigation in the Clay County School District of Florida, 2022-2023, via administrative/formal challenge.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

In this queer indie press novel, Krishnu is a Sri Lankan immigrant who was disowned by his family when he came out. His marriage to Lucky, an American citizen, enables him to live lawfully in the States. For Lucky, her relationship is a band-aid to the suffocatingly heteronormative pressure from her family and her community. When a trip back to Boston to care for her grandmother ignites a spark with a childhood flame, Lucky wonders if there is another path in life for her. A moving exploration on how much we’re willing to sacrifice for love and for family.

— Jo Lou, Books Editor

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Banned from libraries and schools in Volusia County, Florida through formal challenge in September 2022, and banned pending investigation from Santa Rosa County District Schools.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

Fun Home is a graphic memoir about author Alison Bechdel’s childhood and adolescence in a rural Pennsylvania town. Told non-linearly through striking and verbally sharp panels, Bechdel considers and re-considers her relationship with her emotionally distant father, Bruce, who ran the titular family funeral home and taught high school English. Shortly before his death, Bechdel learns that her father is a closeted homosexual. He dies, likely by suicide, not long after she comes out to her family as a lesbian, leading Bechdel to wonder about how her acceptance of her own queer identity impacted him emotionally, and how both of their lives could have been different. A New York Times Bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner, Fun Home was turned into an award-winning musical in 2013.

— Alyssa Songsiridej, Managing Editor

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

Banned pending investigation in the Clay County School District of Florida, 2022-2023, via administrative/formal challenge.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

This queer young adult novel, which won the Printz Award and was included in TIME’s 100 Best YA Books of All Time, is a story told in dual timelines. In the present, eighteen-year-old Marin has fled her California hometown, without notice or goodbyes, after the death of her grandfather. She arrives early for her first year of college in New York in a state of profound grief, refusing contact for months with everyone she knew and loved in San Francisco. When her best friend arrives for a visit over the winter break, the past Marin tried so hard to close breaks open. In flashbacks, Marin’s history quietly unfolds and it is revealed that her heartbreak is rooted more deeply than even she realized. We Are Okay reads with the propulsion of a plotted mystery, but make no mistake: it is a nuanced and compassionate interrogation of grief in the tradition of the best literary fiction. By investigating the definition of family and the complexity of loneliness, LaCour asks readers to consider the ways in which each of us cope with pain—or choose not to.

— Wynter Miller, Associate Editor

Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love

Banned from libraries and classrooms through formal challenge in the Clay County School District of Florida in July 2022.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

Julián Is a Mermaid is a children’s book as beautiful in its illustrations as it is in its message. It’s the story of a young boy who sees women dressed up as mermaids and becomes entranced by the idea of dressing up as one himself. When he fashions his own mermaid costume, he is unsure if his grandmother approves of his new look, only for her to surprise him with another piece for his costume. It’s a tender, joyful book about loving and being yourself.

— Katie Robinson, Social Media Editor

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Banned from libraries and classrooms in the Clay County School District of Florida, 2022-2023, via administrative/formal challenge.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

This acclaimed novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie interweaves the lives of Ifemelu and Obinze, classmates who fall in love at their high school in Lagos, Nigeria. Ifemelu moves to the US to study and escape a military dictatorship, where she encounters racism but also finds success for her blog posts about race. Prevented from joining her in the US after 9/11, Obinze struggles to make a life for himself in London before returning to Nigeria and becoming a wealthy property developer. When Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, the two consider reviving their relationship, although Ifemelu fears she has become an “Americanah,” a derisive term for a pretentious Americanized Nigerian. Americanah is an incisive and enlightening examination of race in the US, Britain and Africa and the downfall of the American dream.

— Eliza Browning, Editorial Intern

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay

Banned from libraries and classrooms through formal challenge in the Clay County School District of Florida in September 2022.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

An anthology of essays about rape culture curated by New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay, Not That Bad scrutinizes what it means to function under a culture where so many become victims of sexual violence. Published shortly after the sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein and the spark of #MeToo Movement, these vulnerable and heart-wrenching essays expose how rape culture, misogyny, and sexual violence permeates women’s lives—and how often these transgressions are deemed “not that bad” by the perpetrators themselves.

— Kristina Busch, Editorial Intern

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Banned pending investigation through formal challenge in Escambia County Public Schools, Florida in September 2022 and with additional bans and challenges in 13 other counties.

** If you are a Florida resident, or would like to send this book to a friend or family member in Florida, you are eligible to order this for only the cost of shipping via BannedBooksUSA.org.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s second novel begins with Oskar Schell, a Shakespeare-quoting nine-year-old, looking for the lock to the key his father left before his death on the morning of 9/11. The inventive young narrator’s search, through a fog of grief, spans all of New York City and takes him through the lives of strangers along his journey. Interwoven into the narrative is the story of Oskar’s grandparents, both survivors from wartime Dresden. One of them has forsworn speech and the other types her stories on a ribbonless typewriter, showing the chasm between language and experience which might just be equidistant to the one between love and grief. A New York Times bestseller, and a NYPL Book to Remember, this novel breaks your heart while simultaneously showing you the ways to mend it before it’s too late.

— Kyla D. Walker, Editorial Intern