The BookTok Controversy

 

What was once known as a wholesome platform dedicated to sharing literature between home-bound individuals during the covid-19 pandemic has quickly turned into an online community obsessing over poorly written novels. 

The so-called “BookTok,” is a common TikTok hashtag within the online book community begun by a creator named Cait Jacobs (known on TikTok as @caitbooks). As of October 2024, this hashtag has over 38.8 billion posts, and well over 180 billion global views, pertaining most to those 10-30 years in age. Despite reading being considered a relatively niche topic, BookTok became the perfect space for anyone to easily share book recommendations, reviews, advertise self-published novels, discuss plots and characters, and much more. Furthermore, due to its being trendy, it reintroduced literature to thousands of new readers, growing the amount of individuals both posting and interacting with videos, and therefore making a constantly revolving community.  

The books primarily circulating BookTok during 2020 were of the YA or NA (young adult or new adult) fantasy or dystopian genres, though quickly grew to include classical books, murder mysteries, romances, and much more. It brought attention to books long-forgotten, and positively influenced book sales. The popular bookstore, “Barnes & Noble,” even dedicated an entire center-table with some of the most popular BookTok favorites, such as, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Legendborn, The Poppy War, The Song of Achilles, The Cruel Prince, etcetera. 

However, in the past year or so, BookTok faced a drastic shift in terms of discussed content and books, changing the hashtags premise, and causing many readers and literature-enthusiasts to leave the community. When authors such as Colleen Hoover and Sarah J. Maas began growing in popularity, so did a specific genre. Their books brought about a very specific type of romance, one which I can only describe as a mix of Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, and the Tinkerbell film series. What I mean by this mixture is that their books are incredibly easy to read, and often recommended to 12-17 year olds, despite the book’s contents being better-suited for 16+ at the least. (Though, as a side note, I will say that a FEW of Sarah J. Maas’s books are fine for 12-14 year olds, but it's only a few.) Furthermore, Colleen’s books contain concerning quotes and romanticize domestic abuse, and so much more. I won’t state any specific quotes due to their vulgarity, (but if you look up “weird Colleen Hoover quotes” on tiktok, or “Colleen Hoover controversy” on google, you’ll find plenty.) 

I have never read a Colleen Hoover book, so there is little I can say without quoting others who have criticized the books, but many readers report their disgust with the author’s writing on apps such as Goodreads, or social media. There have also been numerous articles written on Hoover’s books, which give summaries on her books and explain how, with the way her books are written, readers are clearly meant to associate themselves with the main character, and feel content with the main character’s (relatively questionable) decisions. A popular example is when Lily Bloom, (the mc in It Ends With Us, one of Colleen’s most famous novels which also has a movie adaptation), happily co-parents her child, with her abusive ex-husband, as he receives no judicial or social consequences for his horrific actions whatsoever. Colleen has stated that she believes the scene should be interpreted as inspiring, and powerful, as Lily felt powerful enough to leave him in the first place, but I would like to argue otherwise. If the author's intent was to create a book where a domestic violence victim impactfully grows as a character to divorce the abuser, showing them contently co-parenting a child that was created as a result of abuse is (in my opinion) a horrible way of depicting that. Now, some readers call this book "raw,” “emotional,”  or “compassionate.” But I believe that while the book does show an incredibly realistic situation that could very much happen in real life, it lacks the intended message, which from my understanding, is to not fall victim to such abusers. Lastly, because these books are also often targeted towards younger audiences on social media, they may not fully understand exactly what these books are meant to portray and possibly begin romanticizing the relations between characters themselves due to the naivety of younger individuals, which is basically what happened within the BookTok community. 

Since so many Booktok users are within the 10-18 age range and romance was already a trending genre, many of these young readers picked up Colleen's books for themselves, and quickly made her into a trending sensation. From what I can gather, many fans believe her books to be the pinnacle of romance, and many videos contain (somewhat young) readers wishing they experience the same type of romance as the main characters in the books, despite the abusive dynamics within that romance. And so, this surge of videos celebrating this book has completely changed the nature of current-day Booktok. 

These books’ increased popularity has resulted in an influx in similar books, ones seemingly created on a whim to satisfy the ever-growing amount of individuals indulging in this specific sub-genre of romance. Many of these new books contain repeated plots with little to no originality, yet are being highly praised by this new BookTok community. Two of the (somewhat newest) most well-rated novels which match this criteria are Fourth Wing, and Icebreaker. While I have yet to read the latter, I have read the former. Fourth Wing, written by Rebecca Yarbos is a romance novel concerning Violet Sorrengail and her going to the Basigath War College where she prepares to fight alongside dragons for the better of her nation, but becomes enthralled with one of the older students whom everyone fears due to his father, who was conveniently captured by Violet’s family. Before deciding to read this book, I heard many incredible reviews, ones which compared Fourth Wing to other previously popular BookTok books which I had really enjoyed, such as The Cruel Prince. Ultimately, because so many had read this book and had only positive comments, I decided to give it a read, only to find that it was completely sold out for roughly three months, due to how many were buying it. At that point, I just knew it had to be good. However, when I finally got my hands on it, I was fairly disappointed. There was nothing special about it; I mean, sure, it was not HORRIBLE, but I truly expected better, in that, I expected more originality. Last time the entirety of Booktok praised a book had been with (at least from what I remember) The Cruel Prince, which I, to this day, still love because of its intertwinement of a unique government system, alongside well-developed character arcs, plot twists, and overall magical-feeling writing style. Fourth Wing, however, was the most basic romance novel ever written, except it had a war school and dragons. Overall, this book just showed how much BookTok had changed, as no longer do people genuinely care about good literature, since the most popular BookTok TikToks now only concern these new types of mainstream, copy-paste-plots. 

Practically every super popular book now consists of the same type of characters, character arcs are non-existent, and it is all the exact same genre. This is what a large BookTok has become. It's sad imo. Bring more relatively good books back to BookTok and stop the production of these new, awful, boring novels. 

Anyway I think that's all i wanted to say this kinda turned into a rant about booktok and stuff- this is kinda getting a bit long–uhhhh IG THAT'S IT BYE BYE YALL THANKS FOR READING!!!!

- Karina