Julianna Bambina '24
Do you know what BookTok is? Perhaps you have never heard of the trending term BookTok. It is a community on TikTok where readers from around the world review and talk about books that they have read. People share their reviews, recommendations, and favorite books. People recommend books, authors, and genres they enjoy to their audience. BookTok primarily consists of women and teen content creators eager to share books in the romance genre.
On BookTok, people make short videos showing books they have read, are currently reading, or want/plan to read. They also post videos of themselves talking about specific books they like, such as explaining they found it captivating because of a plot twist.
They share their feelings about a book or an author and their honest opinion. This feedback makes it very helpful for other readers because it can convince someone to buy the book and read it themselves or to buy a book from a new author they haven’t read from before.
Women also share videos showcasing their bookshelves neatly organized or categorized in some way. Another big thing people share on BookTok is videos of their books annotated, whether it be parts that are highlighted, dog-eared, or annotated with sticky tab page markers. Some people even go as far as matching the transparent sticky notes with the color of the cover of the book.
When posting the video, people use many hashtags to share their video with a larger audience so the content can grow and be seen by more people. On TikTok, you can search #BookTok and watch videos that have the hashtag in the caption. Right now on TikTok, there are 29.4 million videos with #BookTok in the caption of the video. An exponential amount of hashtags are trending on BookTok that people use in their captions.
People discover other people, books, authors, and even other books by the same author, through these hashtags. Due to BookTok, more books have been sold since people are hearing about their good reviews.
Authors have significantly benefited from BookTok since they are being recognized, discussed, and are having their books sold in large quantities. An author who has been hugely talked about on BookTok is Colleen Hoover.
If you read books or have seen BookTok, I’m sure you’ve heard/seen her name before. Hoover and her books were trending and became so popular as people shared their mixed thoughts and opinions on her and her many books. Personally, I have read ten of her books so far and I love her, the books, and the style in which she writes them.
BookTok started sometime in 2020 during the pandemic when people were stuck at home and had a lot of free time, and people picked up reading as a hobby to pass the time. Over the years, BookTok has gained billions of views from people all around the world who come together and bond over their love for books.
BookTok has a huge influence on today's popular books and book trends. A recent TikTok trend within the BookTok community was for women and teens to make videos giving a silent book review. This included thousands of females joining the trend to show themselves holding books and giving their reactions to them, but without speaking at all.
For example, some people would smile and make a heart with their hands to show they loved it without saying it. This trend was amusing and engaging to watch since some people were so dramatic with their reviews that they could make one laugh.
As someone who loves to read, I enjoy BookTok very much. I use an app called Goodreads where you can categorize books into read, currently reading, want to read, or other categories you create. This app has become popular on BookTok. People can learn about the app and download it because they know that if they see a book on BookTok, they can add it to their want-to-read list, remember it, and store it for later, allowing them to buy and read it.
Bookstores around the world are filled with books that are trending on BookTok. My current favorite book is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I love this book so much because it has plot twists that left me absolutely shocked. The way she writes is so captivating and makes you want to just keep reading and reading.
I think Reid is an amazing author and how she wrote the book is so engaging. I struggled to start the book in the beginning when being introduced to the setting of the story, but as I continued reading, I quickly understood why this book was so popular. There aren’t just words on a page since she includes many newspaper articles by different companies and goes back and forth in the timeline of the story, while also keeping it in chronological order.
I definitely recommend this book to anyone and encourage them to pick it up because you won’t regret it; I promise you, your jaw will be on the floor. So if you’re interested, check out BookTok or The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
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