stop reading bad books

on viral booktok books & loss of personal reading taste

You only need to spend five minutes in the online book space before you’ll hear the phrase ‘BookTok is ruining reading!’. The same handful of criticisms are regurgitated about it again and again: BookTok is a cycle of the same five books, everyone on BookTok is a performative reader, BookTok is a cesspool of anti-intellectualism, BookTok creators are promoting overconsumption with their huge book hauls. There’s a growing pattern of videos across the internet with titles like ‘I read the most popular BookTok books so you don’t have to’ or ‘Are BookTok books worth the hype?’, which usually end with the creator left disappointed and lamenting that they will never take a recommendation from BookTok again.

Every time I watch one of these videos, I have the same thought: maybe you’re just reading bad books. Or at least, books that aren’t for you.

There is no smoke without fire, and many of the criticisms levelled against BookTok are true. I myself have even expressed similar sentiments about it (for instance, in this post). But I have also taken issue with the treatment of BookTok as a monolithic entity, as if there aren’t diverse creators sharing unique book recommendations on the app.

It can’t be denied that ‘mainstream BookTok’ does heavily focus on fantasy and romance book recommendations. These are two genres I don’t naturally gravitate towards, so I simply don’t pick them up. When I first joined BookTok, it was a very niche corner of the app that was just beginning to grow, and when I noticed it skewing towards the young adult and fantasy genres, I sought out different creators who had the same reading tastes as me.

Thanks to BookTok, many authors have enjoyed an explosion of popularity and sales, and many others are seeking their own moment in the sun. But this urge for algorithmic favour and virality has led many to point to a decline in the quality of books being read and recommended - and in fact, even produced.

Of course taste in books is inherently subjective, but this anti-critical, ‘let people enjoy things’ mentality has made people fearful of labelling a book ‘bad’. And the fact is, some books can be bad. Especially when they’ve been written with the hope of becoming THE next BookTok book, relying on familiar, easily-marketable tropes and formulaic plots.

But publishers have taken note of the power of BookTok and ran with it, shifting the publishing model to keep pace with the creator economy. Authors, especially those who find success on BookTok, are now expected to release a new book every year, sometimes even more frequently. It’s an age-old tenet of late-stage capitalism: quantity over quality, sacrificing good art for the sake of commerce.

This shift towards favouring viral books is especially noticeable among book creators and influencers. Many have become locked into a cycle of reading and reviewing whatever books are viral on BookTok on any given week. It is understandable: their livelihoods rely on keeping up with the algorithm, but I do always wonder whether their love for reading will start to wane.

I’m in no way an innocent bystander here. I’ve fallen victim to viral BookTok titles too, picking up books I’ve seen on my FYP only to walk away disappointed. My content undeniably performs better when it features the most popular, ‘buzzy’ books of the moment. I’ve even toyed with the idea of reading some of the big BookTok titles, because despite knowing I probably won’t like them, the content will probably perform well. But even if the content is doing well, my reading experience won’t be enjoyable - so it makes it hard for me to see the point.

The crux of this issue seems to be the loss of individual taste. Media we consume is beginning to blend into one homogenised mass. Especially the books we read, or the books we’re told we should be reading. There’s always pressure to keep up with the trends, to not have FOMO, to be up to date with the newest book release each month. But what are we trying to prove? Is it worth trying to keep up with the most popular books if it actually makes us not want to read at all?

Luckily, it’s a problem that can be fixed. One of the main gripes I have with the criticism that ‘BookTok is the same 5 books!’ is that it often comes from people who haven’t made the effort to find diverse and niche creators to get book recommendations from. It can take a while to curate personal taste, but it’s a task worth doing.

Obviously, we can still read popular books - there will always be popular books, and that's how classics are born. And it is fun to read the buzzy books of the year and contribute to the conversation, but it’s also fun to walk into a bookshop and pick up something just because it sounds good, not because you’ve seen countless people talking about it online. Especially if that book becomes a new favourite.

Some of my favourite books from the past few years are ones I never thought I’d pick up, like Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Leah reading what is essentially a sci-fi book and rating it 5 stars? Wonders will never cease). But as my personal reading taste evolves and I become a little more adventurous, I’m excited to reach for titles I haven’t heard of before. I like a ‘sad girl in the city’ book as much as the next person, but with this viral book fatigue, I’m eager to read something different.