OPINION: The BookTok Sensation
The fast-fashion of the publishing market |
Ava Pusztai, Staff Writer |
BookTok is a fast growing community of TikTok users centred around the love of reading. Over the past five years, it has become a sensational social media movement introducing audiences to books they otherwise would never read. Further, it has encouraged people to read in a generation gone digital in which dopamine is available at the swipe of a screen.
However, the mass effect of BookTok has led to a notable decline in the quality of books being published. It is more common now to find typos in published works that fall under the category of “BookTok Romance” as well as a general lack of originality.
The “Trending on BookTok” table at Indigo is littered with books of the same colour scheme, art design and plotlines. We see people casting judgment over other readers’ book choices, something that can be attributed to the passionate and tight-knit world of BookTok. Now, more than ever, reading is about the consumption of products as opposed to enjoyment.
Books for young adult and teen audiences frequently act as forms of unofficial sex education. Within this comes a distorted view of romance and relationships as the popularity of the “bad boy” trope has gone completely off the rails in these novels. Themes of unhealthy relationships including power dynamics, mistreatment and violence are now a favoured trope in fiction for young adults. As such, most ideas surrounding sex are founded through the consumption of media—such as romance novels.
The pre-BookTok era of the Twilight series carries an inherent purist view of sexuality. Think of how the characters Edward and Bella are unable to have any form of sexual contact before marriage and when they do, Bella gets pregnant immediately. The sole reason for Bella and Edward to have sex was to produce children as opposed to any other form of intimacy. Having this be read and consumed by a young audience who is beginning to experience sexuality teaches them that sex is meant for copulation and nothing else.
Now, sexuality in new-age romance novels has gone in the other direction entirely. What is causing most books on BookTok to peak interest is what the audience and influencers refer to as “spice rating.” Meaning, that the amount of sexual content in the piece directly increases the rating, resulting in the read being more favourable.
The expressions of sexuality in novels for young audiences have become dangerous in which romance tropes are beginning to be centred around abuse or a romanticization of threatening behaviour. The demand for novels that exhibit almost exuberant amounts of sex has led to an extreme downplay, and almost a sense of shame, regarding what is referred to as “vanilla sex.” The shock value of the intimacy is what is drawing these readers in. The more brutal or violent the sex written about is, the more people wish to read it.
Some romantic tropes even involve stalking, possessiveness to a fault, and in some cases, breaking and entering. This has happened before BookTok with television series such as You and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, where we see pop culture romanticizing danger. BookTok knows this, and is capitalizing on it at a rate faster than television or film can produce.
And it continues to sell.
Books specifically associated with BookTok are being released at an uncommonly quick pace. A couple of years ago, it was common to have to wait a year at the absolute least for a sequel to a novel. Now they come in the span of months.
Author Ali Hazelwood, best known for her Kylo Ren and Rey fanfiction published under the title The Love Hypothesis has released a total of 12 books since her earliest publication in 2021. That means that over the last five years, Hazelwood has written, edited, published, and marketed at least two books a year. She released four books in the year 2022 alone.
A quick glance at the covers explains that they are not exactly original or different from what she has previously written. They follow roughly the same romance plot, just in different environments and slightly different characters. Similar notions are seen through romance writer Emily Henry whose romcom novels have continued to take TikTok by storm since the viral reaction to her earlier novels Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation. Since the publication of Beach Read in 2020, Henry has had five books released, and promises of another one in April 2025.
This does not mean that the books are only being written at uncommonly quick paces, it also means that everything else that is required to sell a book (specifically pitching and editing) is occurring quickly. The consumption and selling of books have become more relevant than the book itself—often when a book strays from the BookTok formula, it is deemed to be slow and boring.
Despite this, BookTok has reaped some positives. The tech generation has begun to read again, and they read for personal reasons as opposed to academic necessity. The elitist mentality BookTok can adopt regarding classical works of literature is just as harmful to the community and discouraging to readers. People are not meant to feel better or worse because of what books they choose to read.
The important thing is this—people are reading. The world is a cruel and dark place at times and the escapism provided by these novels is what helps them sell. The romance trope is nothing new, it just comes in phases. In the digital era, these phases just happen to align with media trends.
Harlequin novels on a shelf frequently adorn the same framework and cover style, this has now shifted into cartoon boy-meets-girl fantasies and that is perfectly fine. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the books that are popularized by BookTok—they are popular for a reason.
Readers should be wary of the content they consume, however, because these books often don’t display healthy relationship dynamics. Reading is an activity that people are meant to enjoy and look forward to, and BookTok has provided this sanctuary for readers, bringing light to the hobby of reading in a world completely dominated by screens and quick dopamine rushes. It’s good that people are reading, but remember that the worlds inside of these books are not real, and therefore not realistic to idealize.
Ava Pusztai is a Staff Writer at The Reflector 2024-2025.
