Utah’s State Board of Education snuck yet another title onto their list of books that are banned from all public schools statewide.

• John Green’s award-winning Looking for Alaska became the 28th title banned across the state and the ninth title to be banned in 2026 alone.
• This comes despite a lawsuit filed against the state of Utah ’s book banning law, challenging the legality of Utah’s “sensitive materials” law.

Per the state’s list of banned books, Green’s title was added March 2, the same day that four other titles were removed.

• However, Looking For Alaska was not actually on the list at that time; it appears to have either been added sometime after March 12, or the date on the list was meant to be March 12, not March 2.
• Either situation points to the inability of the state to keep accurate records—this is the second instance of a book being added to the list quietly. 

Despite claims this is about “local control,” schools in the state are forced to follow the decisions made in other districts.

• There are 42 public school districts in Utah, but only nine districts have accounted for the book bans.
• Among those, Davis has been included in 27 of the bans and Washington, 26.
• Nebo and Toole have accounted for eight bans, with Alpine and Jordan school districts each accounting for seven.

That is: two school districts in the whole state account for the vast majority of bans.

This won’t be the last time Utah bans a book from public schools across the state. Anticipate seeing more titles being added in the coming months-and, hopefully, we’ll also see action taking place in the lawsuit challenging this law and practice. 

Read more about Utah’s book banning law and the full list of censored titles here. - KJ

Weirdness is a feature, not a bug, when we’re talking about Jade Song and Mieko Kawakami.

• With I Love You Don’t Die, Song, who turned mermaid tales on their heads in 2023’s Chlorine, returns with a story about a young woman whose obsession with death takes her life in unexpected, unnerving directions. Pitched as "in the vein of Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh," this one is sure to contain multitudes.
• Kawakami made best-of lists and inspired BookTok chatter in 2020 with Breasts and Eggs. Her new novel, Sisters in Yellow, translated by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio, is a sharp and spiky exploration of sisterhood, friendship, betrayal, and sacrifice set in 1990s Tokyo.

Also hitting shelves:

• 🧠 Memoir meets self-help in an exploration of overcoming social media addiction and reclaiming attention
• 🍴 Comfort food recipes from a Palestinian American cook
• 🔦 The latest installment of Elle Cosimano’s uber-popular Finlay Donovan series
• ⛓️‍💥 Ibram X. Kendi analyzes great replacement theory and authoritarianism

🔓 Unlock our New Release Index and see hundreds of upcoming titles when you join All Access.

Small books. Big impact. — This month, ThriftBooks is turning the spotlight on the fast-paced, pocket-sized favorites that readers can’t resist. From edge-of-your-seat thrillers to swoon-worthy romances and unforgettable classics, these mass market paperbacks prove that great stories don’t need a big format to stand the test of time.

It’s one of the most consistently banned books in America, considered controversial since its publication over 50 years ago. It was sex-positive long before that term ever existed, a novel that spoke to and about teen sexuality with unprecedented honesty.

Forever... by Judy Blume is a classic young adult read about first love, losing your virginity, and the thrills and fears of growing up, one we have Blume’s own daughter to thank for at least in part. Frustrated that sexually active girls in the books she was reading were always met with punishment, she asked her mother why there weren’t any books where " two nice kids do it and nobody has to die." Blume knew then that she needed to write this book, and so she did. She dedicated it to her daughter and changed the game, well, forever.

🎧 Listen to Jeff and Rebecca discuss what made Forever... radical in 1975 and why it’s still being banned and challenged today, and why every teenager should read a book like this on Zero to Well-Read. —VD

Stacey Lee didn’t set out to write a Gothic novel when she wrote her latest book, Heiress of Nowhere. But an idea came to her, and she leaned into the story.

“It wasn’t that I disliked the gothic. I just disliked how it made me feel: uncomfortable, unsettled, as if someone had whispered my name in a dark hallway. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the gothic isn’t necessarily about ghosts. It’s about pressure—feeling watched or boxed into a space you can’t quite escape.

And that part, I recognized immediately.

As a Chinese girl growing up in America, I understood confinement intimately. Not the supernatural kind—though sometimes it felt close—but the social kind. I was one of the only Chinese kids in my elementary school, which meant I attracted an amount of attention I absolutely did not want. I fielded a daily barrage of questions that ranged from culturally confused to creatively racist.”

Discomfort and dis-ease, they’re hallmarks of the genre. Lee believes this is exactly why young people are drawn to the gothic. 

“Adolescence is one big shadowy mansion: parts of your life are locked away from you, adults are watching, and the rules feel arbitrary. You’re supposed to find yourself while staying firmly within a boundary someone else drew. The gothic simply makes that atmosphere literal.”

Among some of the books Lee highlights are those that make readers sit with discomfort:

• Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft: “Sent to an isolated mansion to heal a wounded enemy soldier, a young healer finds herself under the increasingly dangerous control of the estate’s master. Her real prison is loyalty—binding her to a queen and a military order that exploit her obedience.”

• The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson: “In a small Southern town obsessed with its image, a biracial girl hides half of herself to survive the racism woven into every rule—including the town’s first “integrated” prom. Her constraint is erasure: shrinking herself to stay safe even as the truth threatens to break free.”

• The Silence of Bones by June Hur : “An indentured teen assistant works for the police bureau in 1800s Joseon, investigating a homicide in a system where every glance is judged. Her constraint is enforced quiet—she must navigate rigid hierarchies without the freedom to speak her truth.”

Read Lee’s guest piece with additional recommended reads here. - KJ

Picture book favorites, now available as board books.

Edwina and The Pigeon Needs a Bath have a new look. Brand new board book editions bring beloved, award-winning storytelling to babies and toddlers for the first time.

They’re durable, perfectly sized, and just as charming as ever. Whether for a baby shower or a bedtime shelf, these are the gift picks of the season.

Book lovers are leaving the comfy confines of their couches and heading out on literary-inspired adventures in record numbers.

New research from Skyscanner and EF Ultimate Break indicate that more than half of young travelers are interested in visiting destinations from books they’ve read. While the numbers from these studies aren’t a perfect match, they point in the same direction: the kids want to get away.

A few options for taking your love of books off the page and into the world:

• ACOTAR fans can visit the Swiss landscapes that inspired Prythia on EF Ultimate Break’s nine-day trip that kicks off with a book club dinner and weaves the world-building from the series into real-life destinations like Meggenhorn Castle.
• Beach bunnies have options, too, thanks to Tradewind Aviation , which offers flights to Nantucket, where you can channel Elin Hilderbrand vibes, or Martha’s Vineyard, the setting of both We Were Liars and Summer Sisters.
• Reading is a spiritual practice when you travel with Common Ground Pilgrimages , offering small-group trips designed to help readers discover themselves through a text.
• Authors join the trip on many itineraries from John Shors Travel. Meet Jamie Ford in China or Kate Quinn in Boston, among other options.

🧳 You can even treat yourself to a high-end book-themed handbag to hold all of your books and things as you explore.

Felicia Day is an actress best known for her web video work, including creating and starring in The Guild. The Lost Daughter of Sparta is her third book and her graphic novel debut. Below is an excerpt about her inspiration behind the book.

According to ancient sources, the goddess Aphrodite was angered by King Tyndareus of Sparta, so she cursed all his daughters to betray their husbands. That curse included, surprisingly, the infamous Helen of Troy. 

Helen has always been an enigma to me. Was she a gorgeous but misunderstood mean girl? Victim of assault? Unrepentant adulterer and war-bringer? There’s no consistent interpretation. But it had never occurred to me that Helen could have been forced to create all that chaos because of a curse. 

I’ve read Madeline Miller’s Circe and many other novels exploring modern interpretations of ancient Greek female characters, and I love all of them. So with this tidbit of knowledge I’d found, I thought I might have an interesting angle on writing about Helen herself. So I started researching. And through that research, I stumbled upon something I found even more interesting: the existence of my soon-to-be hero and lost youngest sister of Helen, Philonoe. 

The earliest mention of her is from Catalogue of Women, whose fragments survive from the sixth century BCE: 

And Phylonoe whose body was most like the immortal goddesses. 

Her . . . the arrow bearing goddess 

Made immortal and ageless for all days. 

“Made immortal”? But . . . why?! 

This throwaway line from more than twenty-five hundred years ago lit my brain on fire. Despite searching every archive, blog, and academic article I could access, I couldn’t find any more information on this Spartan princess. In fact, the only thing I could find was a single blog entry highlighting the fact that no one knows anything about her. It was a mystery dying to be interpreted. 

I set out to create a hero’s journey for a female hero of ancient Greece, with a story as epic and romantic as Hercules’s, Theseus’s, Perseus’s, or Jason’s. I aimed to justify a mention of a character whose authentic history had been lost to time, like the stories of so many women in the ancient world. Accompanied by the brilliant art of my collaborator, Rowan MacColl, I couldn’t be prouder of the story we’ve told.

Excerpted from THE LOST DAUGHTER OF SPARTA by Felicia Day. Copyright © by Felicia Day. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

Score up to 80% off at the ban.do warehouse sale. Snag all the whimsical decor, silly stationery, and bookish accessories your heart desires. Shop the warehouse sale now while supplies last!

Did you know? Rustin was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. The citation read:

Bayard Rustin was an unyielding activist for civil rights, dignity, and equality for all. An advisor to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted nonviolent resistance, participated in one of the first Freedom Rides, organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad. As an openly gay African American, Mr. Rustin stood at the intersection of several of the fights for equal rights.

🐶 Cozy up with these romance novels featuring adorable animal characters.

📚 Check out the most viewed books at Barnes & Noble this week.

🎧 Catch up on everything you need to know about the book that inspired One Battle After Another.

🧛 Watch Sinners, then read these great books.