“5/5 stars…couldn’t put the book down.”
“1/5 stars…don’t waste your time.”
“Why would you ever read that?”
“Why would they ever cast that actor as the character?”
From creating videos on book reviews to sharing recommendations, #BookTok is becoming a known platform with 38.5 million posts. When scrolling through TikTok, more specifically BookTok, it is slowly fading from joyful book reviews into rude comments that are destroying the once vibrant community of book lovers.
It started as a simple way to recommend and discuss your favorite books, but it has now turned into a toxic community with more negatives than positives.
As an avid book reader, I have often turned to BookTok to help find my next read. Recently, I have noticed how harsh the comment sections have been toward the content creator. If a review is against the common opinion of a book, the commenters are not afraid to let the creator know their opinion is not wanted.
Another issue that always stands out to me is the over-hype for certain titles, which leads to a sole focus on popular books that overshadow lesser-known authors and titles. I don’t want to see anymore Colleen Hoover recommendations, and I think many readers would agree. It is getting to the point where every book recommendation is a book I have already read before or seen multiple times on my feed. Yet, the same book recommendation videos continue to get countless likes, while the more unpopular titles struggle to get a couple of likes.
Going back to the hateful comments, this is becoming a contributing factor to why a diverse collection of books is not being recommended. People who’ve never even read the book are speaking out against titles based on assumptions provided by top creators. Oftentimes, the hate for these books is based on a blurb of information that was provided.
If you’re gonna hate on something, at least read the book first before you start talking trash about the title.
Additionally, I have often felt compelled to read a certain book just because of its reoccurrence on my feed. However, I am not always impressed by the book that was overly hyped to read. More times than not, the book is poorly written and has an easily predictable storyline. This is why a wider variety of books needs to make its way onto BookTok.
Even when I dislike certain books or authors that seem to have taken over my feed, I am not waiting to write a hateful comment that trashes the content creator for liking a book that seems to be written for Wattpad. Instead, I keep those opinions to myself because, guess what? Everyone likes to read something different, and that’s completely fine. So, instead of writing hateful comments, can we as BookTok agree to keep our harsh comments to ourselves because not everything needs to go online—that’s what your friends are for.
Continuing the talk about hateful comments includes strong opinions about the casting of actors or actresses for a book’s characters. A perfect example of this was the recent casting of Blake Lively for Lily Bloom in “It Ends with Us.” Despite your opinions surrounding this book or movie, I was embarrassed by the way BookTok reacted to the casting for it.
Once the cast was released, countless videos were made hating on the portrayal of Lily Bloom. Was Blake Lively how I pictured the character as I read the book? No. But each person has a unique interpretation of a book character that is shaped by our imagination, so of course, we can’t all have our ideal book character come to life.
There are certain characters I am so excited to see come alive on the screen, and that means I’m not going to hate the actress portraying the character. Instead, I’m going to appreciate the fact that there was an actual adaptation of one of my favorite books. It’s one thing if the plot of the book changed due to the movie and another if it’s a picture-perfect actor portrayal. Let’s choose our battles wisely because no matter how much you complain, it’s not going to be the deciding factor that changes the actor.
Don’t get me wrong. It is so cool to see all of these new readers inspired to read just from a video on TikTok. I am a firm believer in the importance of literacy… yes I’m an English major. With BookTok, discussions about literature are more easily accessible to create or even participate in. In a way, it has now created one big book club, for better or for worse.
Luckily, not all of BookTok is falling into this toxicity. One of the greatest things to come out of BookTok is the opportunity it provides to rising authors to promote their books. Alex Aster is a great example of a content creator promoting her book through TikTok.
There are still BookTok creators whose sole purpose is to promote and recommend a variety of different books. So, fellow book nerds, let’s encourage a positive side of BookTok that promotes literature and is a safe space to share all of our unique book tastes.
