For those of you who don't know, "BookTok" is the word used to describe the community of book lovers on TikTok. Various communities and niche topics are described on the platform as "___tok", like once I was on Bob Duncantok and didn't know how I wound up there. There are smaller communities within BookTok dedicated to specific fandoms and such, but the umbrella term for everyone posting book content/engaging with it is BookTok.

I hope that made sense. I didn't realize how much of the TikTok lingo was engrained into my brain until I tried to describe that.

I'm not really a connoisseur of the community myself, but I've noticed a lot of backlash surrounding it on other platforms like Twitter and Tumblr, so I wanted to discuss my thoughts as well!

THE PROBLEMS PEOPLE HAVE

+ Note: these are not my opinions nor are they proven facts. They are the arguments of others and I am sharing them. I will say what I agree/disagree with later on.

1. IT PROMOTES OVERCONSUMPTION. Lots of popular content creators within the community have huge bookshelves with HUNDREDS of books, often used as the backdrop in their videos because they're pretty and it relates to their content. You can usually see a thumbnail image of someone sitting in front of a bookshelf and assume they will be talking about books.

Some feel that doing this promotes overconsumption because people see others with such gorgeous, rainbow shelves and want something similar. They purchase tons of books that they may or may not ever read. The cycle never ends and they just keep buying more, all to fill up that shelf (or shelves) and make it just as pretty.

2. THE POPULAR BOOKS AREN'T "ACADEMIC" OR "CHALLENGING" TO READ. If you've ever walked into a bookstore, or any place that sells books, and seen a display related to popular BookTok novels, you may have noticed that the majority of them are contemporary/romance books. Some argue that these books are so easy to binge read because they don't require the same amount of analysis and thought as, say, classics.

Content creators will occasionally do "binges" where they post videos of them reading 3-4 novels a day, or in a week. Zipping through stories this fast doesn't allow for any digestion of the story since your only goal is to finish it and get to the next one.

3. THE BOOKS ARE ALL THE SAME. "Enemies to lovers" with two straight people who end up together in the end is one of the most popular tropes in the community. There is little variety in the types of stories hyped up on the platform. They are all essentially the same basic plot with minor changes. There aren't any new ideas.

One person on Tumblr says: "the worst part, to me, about the booktok phenomenon is not necessarily that people aren't reading books that are actually challenging but the fact that people aren't reading books that are different. The homogenization of what people are reading these days created by the vacuum of booktok is harmful to the publishing industry in the long-term and a disheartening monopoly of individual thought in the short. there is nothing wrong with enjoying lighter reads or whatever (but you cannot, for everyone's sanity, act like they are interchangeable with more complex books for grown ups) but by god read something new. think with your brain instead of blindly following the display at barnes and noble or the most recent post of your favorite uninteresting 25 year old with rainbow shelves and harry potter mugs."

Another person: "the commodification of aesthetics and the downfall of literacy is the reason people have shit critical thinking skills. simplifying everything down to popular tropes or forcing your favorite things into boxes labeled as 'that girl' or freaking out over books and movies and songs that were created with the intention of going viral on tiktok is not doing anyone any good and using the answer of 'yeah i know but it's all for entertainment'is not even close to a decent response."

4. THERE IS LITTLE REPRESENTATION. Again in reference to popular books, the ones that are promoted the most usually feature white, straight main characters who are able-bodied and cisgender.

5. IT ENCOURAGES AUTHORS TO PUMP OUT NOVELS FASTER. Colleen Hoover (who I will reference many times throughout this chapter), one of the most popular authors on BookTok in the adult contemporary/romance sphere, has published 24+ books since her debut in 2011. Blowing up on TikTok gets you tons of sales and definitely helps you make bank. Despite her being around for 12 years, I didn't know about her books until I saw them on BookTok-related displays. Most of her novels have the same structure with a few things changed.

Using her as an example, critics argue that BookTok not only encourages authors to pump out books while they're still relevant in the community, but it also reduces the overall quality of the work. Instead of rapidly publishing new and interesting stories, authors usually stick to what has sold before— essentially selling the same story in different fonts.

6. NOT EVERYONE HAS EQUAL ACCESS TO BOOKS. Reading is a privilege and so is having a library you can visit to rent books even if you aren't buying them. Some people argue that BookTok shames people who don't read.

7. MOST OF THE BOOKS CELEBRATE TOXIC MASCULINITY.

Also from Tumblr: "It makes me sick when their aggressiveness and possessiveness is treated as romantic. It makes me sick when these shitty men forcibly grab women, invade their personal spaces, and render them helpless by 'purring' in their ears, every. single. fucking. time. .... Why is it that we can have so many fantastical, impossible, and wondrous magical forces, creatures, and peoples, but we can't have men who aren't possessive, abusive, or controlling? Why is it that male characters, have to be so innately dominant, abusive, and violent? Why do they have to be so fit and muscular and strong?"

8. THEY MAKE UP EXCUSES FOR HORRIBLE MALE CHARACTERS.

This person was mocking the overarching opinions on BookTok:

"yeah kidnaping is actually okay if the kidnaper is hot, man can be vain and arrogant if they are hot, actually the only people who shouldn't be vain is other women because women who actually care about their appearances are whores and bitches the opposite of my self insert badass protagonist who is the most beautiful of them all but also acts like she is ugly to be relatable, there are gods that are little baby angels and bitch gods and I will ignore any myth that portray my baby god as evil, speaking of ignoring myths do you like faes because I will butcher faeric myths so much it will make twilight vampires accurate, also there are no hot evil people hot+evil = morally grey"

MY THOUGHTS

WHEW. WHERE TO BEGIN.

I feel like there are subgenres of BookTok that I don't have a problem with. I love how people are reading more and how it's gotten popularized recently. As a person who was made fun of for how much I read in middle/high school, it's great to see it being "cool" to read!

HOWEVER. I do see the problem with a lot of these books. I'm going to continue using Colleen Hoover as an example because I know the most about her.

I had literally never heard of this bitch before Verity was released and someone doing a chaotic review of it came up on my TikTok feed. I was like, "Oh, interesting," and found a free PDF to read online. Finished it that night. Thought it was really interesting.

But MAN. Colleen's most popular book, It Ends With Us, features a very unhealthy relationship. People aware of this book may remember when it was turned into a COLORING BOOK and people thought that was distasteful, so she canceled its release. But it's getting made into a movie with Blake Lively even though the main character (whose name is like ... Lily Blossom Bloom or something) is supposed to be in her early 20s.

I haven't actually read any of Colleen's books aside from Verity, but I did watch a video of one of my favorite YouTubers, Nicole Raifee, read Ugly Love, and it was very entertaining (not the book. the book was trash. but Nicole reading it was funny). She also has a video of her reading November 9 and comments on how annoyingly similar the plots and characters are. Like Colleen just changed some of the names and shifts the plot points and BOOM! new book. Not to mention that it's borderline incestuous (main male character has a sexual relationship with his step sister, resulting in her getting pregnant when they're like 16-17, and yes, the scenes of them getting it on as minors are written out).

Yet her books are marketed as being amazing and the pinnacle of literature somehow.

I do notice that almost all of the books that are circulated by BookTok (or put on BookTok shelves in stores) are very similar, and have very little representation. Most of the romance books are written by white women, with white protagonists, who are heterosexual, thin, and beautiful. The man is typically Huge and Masculine and the girl is just a Tiny Baby. Which just feels so infantilizing that it makes me want to barf (looking at YOU, Ali Hazelwood).

Plus, oh my God, the way trashy men are romanticized !!!! SOMETIMES A MAN ISN'T MORALLY GREY. SOMETIMES, HE IS JUST A FUCKING ASSHOLE. You just think he's morally grey because he's conventionally attractive.

I see the point with overconsumption. Lots of BookTok people have hauls where they buy hundreds of dollars' worth of books and then ... never read them. Like, I am not immune to the struggle of trying to read the books I already have before I buy new ones. But it feels like some of these accounts are buying books solely to film a haul and make more content. This then encourages their audience to also buy a ton of books... and the cycle continues.

I rarely see people talking about renting the books from their local library or something. They almost always purchase them as physical copies. Which, like, I get! I love marking up my copies. But I also acknowledge the fact that I can't possibly buy ALL the books I want to read, so I utilize my library.

I also get the point about popular creators being privileged for their ability to buy all these books, but I don't agree that BookTok as a whole shames people who don't read. It's a community for people who enjoy it, and being like "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO DON'T ENJOY IT!!!" is kinda weird. Like... then just ... don't ... read. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you read a BookTok book.

It grinds my gears when people assume that just because a book is circulating around BookTok, it automatically makes it a trash book. I have read tons of books that are popular within the community, and while there have been some that I thought were overhyped, I also found some of my favorites. The good books get looped in with the "bad" ones, and everything is shit on as a result.

Here are some books that are popular on BookTok that I, personally, have enjoyed (some of which I read before they were popularized on BookTok):
— A Court of Thorns and Roses
— Throne of Glass
— The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
— Daisy Jones & The Six
— The Silent Patient
— Circe
— The Spanish Love Deception
— It Happened One Summer
— The Song of Achilles
— Red, White, and Royal Blue

Like I said, I'm not very involved with the community, so I'm not 100% sure which books are the most popular on there, but these are the ones that I see on BookTok shelves in stores the most^.

What are your guys' thoughts? Let me know !! I'd love to hear from people who are more involved in the community than I am.