Why Is 'Speak' Considered A Banned Book In Some Schools?

Ella James has spent most of her life being overlooked, underestimated, or laughed at. At school, she’s the girl in the oversized hoodies. The girl people make jokes about. The girl no one chooses. After years of disappointment, Ella has learned not to expect much from anyone—especially not from Beckett Cross. Popular, confident, and seemingly perfect, Beckett has always been everything Ella avoids. He’s the kind of boy who belongs at the center of every room while she’s spent years trying to disappear into the background. Then a family emergency forces Ella to move in next door. Suddenly, the boy who barely notices her at school becomes impossible to avoid. Inside his home, Beckett is different. Kinder. Softer. Protective in ways that leave Ella questioning everything she thought she knew about him. But every morning when they walk back into school, the walls go back up, leaving Ella trapped between two versions of the same boy. One who looks at her like she’s special. And one who acts like she doesn’t matter. As feelings grow and old insecurities refuse to stay buried, Beckett finds himself facing a truth he never expected: somewhere between late-night conversations, family dinners, and stolen moments, Ella became the first person he looks for. But loving Ella means more than feeling something when nobody is watching. It means choosing her when everyone is. And for a girl who’s spent her entire life feeling like someone’s second choice, that may be the one thing she can never compromise on. A slow-burn emotional romance about self-worth, first love, healing old wounds, and learning that being seen can be the scariest—and most beautiful—thing of all.

Note: This is a super erotic +18 pages of her diary. Read at your own risk. When the thunder rolls and the lights flicker, Lexi writes, and nothing is off limits. Trapped between the walls of a religious household and the firestorm inside her own body, Lexi is a quiet 21-year-old woman with a loud, unfiltered diary. Orphaned at twelve and raised by her aunt and pastor uncle in a small Georgia town, Lexi lives in the shadows — but her fantasies, frustrations, and forbidden desires fill every page of her private journal. Naked Pages: The Diary of Lexi is a confessional coming-of-age erotica told from the perspective of a young woman exploring her sexuality in secret. From heartbreak and betrayal to late-night cravings, self-discovery, and unexpected temptation, Lexi’s journey is messy, raw, and deeply honest. She’s not searching for love — she’s chasing something real: connection, pleasure, and control over her own story. As she transitions into a new life in Atlanta, surrounded by new people and new dangers, Lexi’s entries grow even bolder. And every chapter she writes pulls us deeper into her unfiltered world — full of heat, heartbreak, and hard truths. This is more than just her diary. It’s her freedom.

My sister was autistic. The doctors called it "severe sensory overload." The rule was simple: No sudden noises. Ever. So my whole life was set to mute. I never wore heels. I never raised my voice. I wasn't even allowed to laugh. It was all to keep her from having a meltdown. My father, Victor, the Don of the Castellano family, would grip my shoulder. His face was a mask of apology. "Sera, you're my good girl. Protecting your sister is our duty. You're healthy and strong. You can sacrifice a little for her, can't you?" That day, I was on the second-floor terrace and accidentally knocked over a pot of white roses. The sound of it shattering sent my sister, who was sunbathing in the garden below, into a meltdown. For the first time, Victor glared at me like I was the enemy. He roared, "Can't you just be quiet? Do you want to drive her insane?" My sister backed away in terror, right into a glass table, and let out a piercing scream. Victor charged past me, a blur of rage and panic. He slammed into me on the stairs as I was running down to help. I lost my footing and crashed chest-first into the sharp corner of a wrought-iron banister post. Pain exploded in my chest. I opened my mouth to scream, but only silence came out. My family swarmed around my shrieking sister. No one even glanced at me. My lungs filled with blood. I was drowning on the floor. They all thought my sister, the one with autism, needed the family's comfort. They thought I just took a fall. That I could wait. They were wrong.

Promise was born into silence — a silence woven from an oath made before she could speak. Her village called it tradition. Her mother called it survival. But to Promise, it was a prison. She dreamed of Lagos, of lights and cameras, of a life that stretched beyond clay walls and whispered fears. Yet when the truth of her birth is revealed, everything she longs for seems impossibly far. The elders insist she must never leave. Her mother pleads with her to stay. And the weight of generations threatens to bury her voice. Between love and loyalty, fear and freedom, Promise must choose whether to surrender to a curse or defy it — even if it means breaking her world apart. The Girl Who Broke the Silence is a sweeping tale of tradition and defiance, of love and survival. It is the story of one girl’s fight to claim her name in a world that tried to silence her.

[I don't want to die, but I'm tired of picking myself up every time I fall. Won't you please carry me?] Emilie is bullied because of her selective mutism. The popular girls at her college think she is a freak who won't survive the real world since she won't speak up for herself. One day, they steal her clothes at a pool party and force her to venture out dressed in only a towel. She knocks on a random door without knowing it's Brandon Brooks's home. He is the most popular guy at her college - rich and attractive - and she is convinced he won't help her. Brandon thinks she is a loser like everyone else, but there is one thing Emilie doesn't know about him: he isn't heartless.

I'm born with severe allergies, the kind where a whiff of pollen can trigger a full-blown asthma attack. But my mom, who is also the principal of my school, insists that I go on a field trip to the botanical garden with the rest of my class. I plead with her, my eyes reddened, but she stays as cold and hard as ice. "You've got all your meds, don't you? It's just a little thing. Why are you being so dramatic? I'm the principal, so I have to treat every student the same. If anything, you have even more reason to go, so people don't think I'm playing favorites!" To show what a good relationship I have with my classmates, she publicly commands me to get into the flowerbeds and pick flowers to be given to the top student in our grade, Rachel White. The moment I get close to the flowers, I start coughing and wheezing violently. A crushing sense of suffocation floods over me. Mom doesn't look worried in the slightest. Instead, she bites out, "Penelope, how long are you going to keep this act going? You're doing this on purpose to cause trouble for me and embarrass me, aren't you?" She has no idea that my throat is already swelling and closing up. Every breath I take feels like I'm swallowing broken glass. It looks like I won't be a problem for her anymore.