Why reading uncomfortable stories still matters

A teenage girl in Utah was sexually assaulted during her freshman year in high school. She went looking for a book to help her process what happened. The book was What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold, a story that deals honestly with female sexuality and the aftermath of trauma. Instead of finding comfort on the shelf, she found nothing. The book had been banned.
That girl is now a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed in January 2026 by the ACLU of Utah. She’s joined by the estate of Kurt Vonnegut, award-winning authors Arnold and Ellen Hopkins, and another anonymous high school student. They’re asking the court to declare Utah’s Sensitive Materials Law unconstitutional and return the banned books to school library shelves.
Here’s what that student said in the lawsuit: “For many Utah students, the first place we recognize our own lives and identities is in a library book. When those books disappear, students notice immediately. It sends a clear message about whose stories matter and whose do not.”
Humans have been connecting over shared stories since we first gathered around fires. It’s how we learn and grow. It’s how we process experiences too overwhelming to face directly.
This isn’t philosophy. It’s neuroscience. Research from Dr. James Pennebaker at the University of Texas shows that when we encounter narratives that resonate with our own experiences, our brains process them almost as if we’re living them ourselves. MRI imaging confirms it: Reading about experiences activates the same brain regions as having those experiences.
Story isn’t escapism. It’s simulation. It’s practice. It’s a safe container for working through things that feel too big to face alone.
That teenage plaintiff wasn’t looking for pornography. She was looking for proof that she wasn’t the only one. She was looking for a story that could help her make sense of something senseless. But the state of Utah decided she didn’t deserve access to it.
Utah now has 22 titles banned from every public school. Of the 22, 17 are written by women. The pattern is clear: books about female experiences, sexuality, mental health, trauma, and identity are the targets.
And here’s the absurdity that should make everyone pause: Utah law allows 16-year-olds to consent to sexual activity. The state trusts them to make real decisions about their actual bodies. But those same teenagers are forbidden from reading a book that contains a single passage describing that activity.
I live in Sanpete County, and I’m proud of something that doesn’t make headlines. North Sanpete School District is one of only 22 districts in the entire state with zero book challenges on record.
This isn’t because our community doesn’t care about what kids read. It’s because our community trusts teachers and librarians to do their jobs.
In November 2022, concerns arose about a book assigned in a concurrent enrollment English class at North Sanpete High School. It dealt with topics perceived as difficult with homosexuality being the main issue. The class was a college-credit course and parents had already signed permission slips.
A small group of parents went to a school board meeting asking to have the book banned. When the school board called a second meeting on the issue, the community showed up. Former students wrote a letter of support that gathered nearly 400 signatures. One parent told the board that he had complete trust in our educators to make those decisions.
The meeting drew the largest turnout the district had ever seen. Teachers were supported. The book stayed and the challenge failed.
That’s what local control looks like when it works. Librarians and teachers (who are trained to curate age-appropriate materials, who know their students and who understand context) making decisions for their communities.
But House Bill 29 overrides local decisions. If a handful of districts ban a book, it gets pulled statewide. Communities like ours no longer get a say.
I’m Mariah Tyler Moore. I’ve written eight published novels, three manuscripts, and over 125 publicly released lyrics. My fiction work has been acquired by the Clark County Library District in Las Vegas, Nevada. I write about found families, unlikely heroes and the messy business of being human.
My writing often deals with trauma, chronic illness, neurodiversity and sexuality. These are exactly the topics being targeted by this ban.
I don’t write about hard things because I enjoy controversy. I write about them because people live through them (because I lived through them). Teenagers experience trauma. They struggle with mental health. They have questions about sexuality and identity and bodies. Pretending otherwise doesn’t protect them. It just leaves them alone with experiences they have no framework to understand.
I’m not alone in this. I reached out to authors across genres to hear why they write what they write. As memoir and poetry author Jason Metsa put it: “If a piece transmits and lands, it can make someone feel less alone when they need it.”
Margaret Feuerman, an epic fantasy author and teacher, told me: “As a teacher, I despise book bans. How do we learn to think if our prejudices and comfortable thoughts aren’t challenged?”
And E.N. Chanting, who spent 11 years working in a public library, said simply and powerfully: “Books don’t hurt anyone unless you throw them.”
Young adult author Huckleberry Rahr emphasized why representation matters beyond just seeing yourself: “People who come from very different places should have access to situations they may not know about or understand. It is a way for us all to grow both intellectually and emotionally.”
And science fiction romance author Nicole Johnson pointed out: “Literature should make us uncomfortable. It is meant to challenge our emotions and our thoughts. [It] helps us learn to be uncomfortable with the things in the world we might have the power to change.”
Similarly to these authors, I process my own mistakes, emotions, and trauma through writing. The act of putting words onto the page changes something in my brain. The catharsis isn’t just in my mind. It’s physiological and measurable. And it leads to growth I hope to share with others.
That’s why most writers write hard stories. Not to corrupt but to connect.
If these laws continue expanding, my work will end up on a banned list. And then how will my messy, authentic stories help anyone?
When people ban writing because they personally disagree with it, they’re saying their perspective is more valid than others. They’re saying that humans can only find comfort and connection in sanitized stories. They’re deciding whose pain deserves acknowledgment and whose gets erased.
Empty shelves don’t protect anyone. They just guarantee that the next teenager who needs a story to help her survive will find nothing.
Sanpete proved we can handle these conversations locally. We showed up. We listened. We trusted our educators.
The state took that power away anyway.
I don’t know how this lawsuit will turn out. But I know all stories matter. Even the hard ones. Especially the hard ones.