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Christopher Boan writes for BetTennessee.com and has been covering sports and sports betting for more than seven years, with experience at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
Tennesseeās Most Infamous Challenged and Banned Books
Itās long been said that the best way to expand your world view is to immerse yourself in a good book. That is getting harder and harder to do in some states that are banning novels more and more.
Most of those books have to do with āmatureā themes such as LGBTQ+ and gender-based topics, which have been deemed to be out of bounds for young adults by Tennessee officials.
World Book Day is Tuesday, April 23. To acknowledge it, BetTennessee.com took a break from Tennessee sports betting to compile a top 10 list of the favorite banned or challenged books for Tennessee residents.
Using a list of the top 13 most banned and challenged books, according to the American Library Association, we used Google Trends to see how often those books were searched in Tennessee. The search period was between March 8-April 8, 2024.
Tennesseeās Most Popular Banned Books
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Which Banned Books Are the Most Popular?
At the top of the list when it comes to search volume around books that are banned in the state, you will find Sarah J. Maasā 2015 young adult romance novel, āA Court of Mist and Fury,ā which is part of the authorās āA Court of Thorns and Rosesā quintet of novels, which were released between 2015 and 2021.
The series made its way onto The New York Times Best Seller list, while also getting picked up as a TV series by Hulu, with āA Court of Mist and Furyā being the second novel that Maas released way back in 2016.
Maasā novel beat out Stephen Chboskyās āThe Perks of Being a Wallflower,ā which redefined the young adult literary genre in 1999 by chronicling the thinking of an adolescent boy named Charlie, who navigates his own sexuality, in addition to drug use, sexual assault and topics surrounding mental health.
Chboskyās novel finished No. 2 in Tennessee among the banned books list, with a search interest score of 28. Maia Kobabeās āGender Queerā was third at 12, Toni Morrisonās seminal novel āThe Bluest Eyeā was fourth (10) and āAll Boys Arenāt Blueā by George M. Johnson was fifth (7).
Throw in āOut of Darknessā by Ashley Hope Perez (5 search interest score), Ellen Hopkinsā āCrankā (4), āLooking for Alaskaā and āThe Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indianā (3 each) and Jonathan Evisonās āLawn Boyā (2) and you have the full list in the Volunteer State.
If you are looking for other stories of general interest in Tennessee, try this: What Is Tennesseeās Top Beer Brand?
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