Last fall, as I enrolled in spring classes for my last semester of undergrad, I realized I finally had time to take a fun class. So I chose to take ENGL 203: Topics in Reading and Writing: BookTok and 21st Century Reading. In short, this has easily been one of my favorite classes ever, and the rest of this article will explain why.
If you’re unfamiliar with the subject, #BookTok is basically a massive book club on TikTok where people review, discuss, and recommend various books. It has received criticism for promoting many of the same (somewhat mediocre or overhyped) books over and over again, but its effect on encouraging reading and bringing reading back to the mainstream is undeniable. People make videos not only about the content of books, but about buying books, the reading experience, blurbs to entice readers, and so much more. Part of this class involved reading popular BookTok books and examining the impact of BookTok on pop culture and media.
I also have to add the disclaimer that I still have yet to download TikTok (I’m cowering from the outrage even as I type this sentence), despite taking a semester-long class on it. Sometimes our homework was simply to scroll through BookTok or watch assigned TikToks for class, so I’m honestly amazed I haven’t given in yet. That said, one aspect of the final for this class is to make a TikTok promoting a book we chose to read, so I might just have to.
Onto the class itself! One of the first things we did was take a Buzzfeed quiz about what BookTok books we were. (I got Cemetery Boys and They Both Die at the End). This sparked some interesting discussion around different people’s tastes in reading, though we quickly found that most of the class were those of us who’d grown up reading a lot of YA dystopia, Wattpad romances, and fantasy series—aka, my kind of people.
We had three books to read this semester. One was set in the syllabus: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which is honestly one I’d consider a quintessential BookTok book. I mean, the number of edits, aesthetics, TikToks, and commentary on this book alone speaks volumes. This book definitely experienced a resurgence thanks to TikTok, since it was originally published back in 2011 but exploded in popularity after 2020. I had already read it in 2021, so I got to re-read it for this class, and I actually found myself liking it more the second time around.
On the academic side of the class, we read this book in the context of affective vs. paranoid reading, which is the idea of how the non-textual aspects of reading (emotional responses, context of the novel, etc.) affect your reading experience. TSOA is definitely a good book to examine in this case because of the devastating ending, even if you know the story of Achilles and how it ends.
The next book was one that we voted on as a class, and we ended up picking Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Again, a book that I’d already read, but since season 2 of Shadow and Bone on Netflix was coming out this semester, I was absolutely on board with rereading this one too. The whole Grishaverse is also pretty popular on TikTok, and for good reason, considering the increased popularity of the series due to the Netflix show (which is phenomenal, I might add). With this book, we looked at identification or disidentification with characters—essentially how relating to or not relating to a character affects your reading experience in different ways. Again a great pick for this subject because of the diversity of characters, not only in terms of race, but LGBTQ+, disability, and neurodivergent representation.
The third unit, on fanfiction and fan culture, was by far my favorite. To start this off, our professor gave us a trivia quiz around fanfic related topics. Some of the questions were “Which of these is not a popular fanfiction website?”, “What is the title of the Harry Styles fanfiction that was turned into a published novel and 4-part movie series?”, and “What do these acronyms stand for: Y/N, OTP, WIP, AU, OOC?” I can’t tell if it’s embarrassing or a flex to say I immediately knew the answers to most of those questions.
The icing on top of the cake for this unit was the writing assignment, which involved writing our own fanfic using characters we’d read about in the semester, along with a more academically-focused reflection piece. To be completely honest, I have been in an awful writing slump for so long, and having to return to my roots as an author (by writing fanfic, lol) helped kickstart the creative part of my brain that loves writing once again. I chose to write about Nina and Matthias from Six of Crows, who are such a fantastic example of enemies to lovers, my ultimate favorite trope. (Apparently I almost made my professor cry, which is one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received on my writing).
Our final assignment is to make a TikTok promoting a book of our choice that we read during the semester and to write a Goodreads review for the same book. I chose to read Whistleblower by Kate Marchant, which is a book that was just published in March of this year and was originally a Wattpad novel—it’s actually still my favorite book on that platform. I haven’t decided yet what I’m doing for the TikTok, though I have a couple ideas. I could lean into the humorous aspects of the book, I could focus on the aesthetics (the main characters are a journalism student and star quarterback, so lots of potential there), or I could make a silly little POV video like the one below about Whistleblower and totally expose myself in the process.
Beyond the unbelievably fun aspects of the class, we also had a lot of readings on the reading experience and BookTok itself, which sparked some fascinating class discussions. I remember one day talking about unhinged author’s notes to sexism and representation in the publishing industry to furries (don’t ask how we got there). It was a great time, but it was also so educational because of the relationship to modern literature that so many of this generation are interested in. The reframing of reading and using modern examples definitely helped keep me interested in the topics of discussion, especially in the context of BookTok and what books are considered popular nowadays.
Overall, this class was such a high note to end my semester and undergrad career on. It was actually my last class ever, and it was incredibly bittersweet to walk out of that classroom and reflect on my last four years at KU. I’m thankful to my professor for making the class so interesting and to my classmates for having such thought-provoking but hilarious class discussions. (I also have to thank our professor specifically for not putting Colleen Hoover on the syllabus, though we did talk about her insane popularity as a result of the phenomenon of BookTok.)
Consider this long-winded article the equivalent of a Goodreads review for this class. 5/5 stars.