Yes, What Girls Are Made Of Is Banned!

Elana K. Arnold’s National Book Award finalist alternates between two stories: Nina, a sixteen-year-old willing to reshape herself entirely to keep her boyfriend’s love, and a retelling of the Virgin Mary’s story that questions how culture has used the Madonna figure to police female sexuality. The book examines what happens when girls are taught that their value lies in being desired, and what it costs to perform the version of femininity that boys and men expect. Arnold writes about sex directly and without apology, treating Nina’s body and choices as her own even when those choices are driven by desperation.

What Girls Are Made Of was challenged 12 times in the 2024-2025 PEN America data, with bans concentrated in Florida school districts. As the third Arnold title on the ban lists (alongside Damsel and Red Hood), the pattern is clear: Arnold’s feminist examination of female bodies, sexuality, and violence consistently triggers removal efforts. The challenges cite sexual content and language. Arnold has argued that the discomfort adults feel reading her books is precisely the point: if we can’t talk honestly about what girls experience, we can’t protect them from the forces that harm them.