Yes, The Upside of Unrequited Is Banned!

Becky Albertalli’s The Upside of Unrequited follows Molly Peskin-Suso, a seventeen-year-old who has had twenty-six crushes and exactly zero relationships. When her twin sister Cassie starts dating a girl named Mina, the family dynamics shift, and Molly finds herself drawn to Mina’s friend Reid. The novel is set in a family with two moms, a detail that Albertalli treats as entirely unremarkable, exactly as it should be. Molly is plus-size, anxious, and deeply lovable, and the book is fundamentally a romantic comedy that happens to feature a queer family structure.

The Upside of Unrequited was challenged 9 times in the 2024-2025 PEN America data, with bans in Florida and Tennessee school districts. The challenges cite LGBTQ+ content, primarily the depiction of Molly’s two moms and her sister’s same-sex relationship. Albertalli, who came out publicly as bisexual in 2020, has become one of the most challenged YA authors in America across multiple titles (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat). The Upside of Unrequited is notable because the book’s actual romance is heterosexual; it’s banned because the protagonist has a queer family. That distinction reveals how broadly the anti-LGBTQ+ book challenges cast their net.