Grumpy and sunshine. Fake dating. Enemies to lovers. Enemies to friends to lovers. Enemies to friends, back to enemies, to lovers. If you’re familiar with romance tropes and have a basic awareness of the internet, it’s likely you’ve heard of these popular book tropes. In years past, these tropes have been used countless times to put characters in situations readers are familiar with. This style of labeling has added useful language to discussions of literature. However, as short-form content has become king on social media, the language of tropes and niche genres is taking over most discussions.
Much of this phenomenon can be attributed to the rise of BookTok. In short, BookTok is the title for a massive community of literature-based creators on TikTok. It gets its name from other similar phenomena of past years like BookTube and Bookstagram. It has absolutely exploded in the last few years, reaching everyone from avid readers to people who haven’t picked up a book since high school. Common trends from BookTokers include sharing their ‘to be read’ piles or recommendations under certain genres. However, nothing is more popular than sharing books with common tropes.
A trope is essentially a theme or pattern that becomes commonly used. Tropes are most commonly recognized in romance media to describe the relationship between people and the situations they get into. Tropes are an easy way to identify what you liked or disliked in a story, making it easier to find or avoid other books in the future. If you love the idea of falling in love with your best friend, it’s much easier to find books by searching ‘friends to lovers.’
Similarly, extremely niche genres have been on the rise for similar ease of access. Instead of just being thrillers, novels can now fall under ‘feminine rage books.’ Again, romance particularly benefits from this as genres can become hyper-specific like mafia romance, office romance, time traveling to historical Scotland, and finding a very handsome husband romance. The list is endless.
Initially, it seems like these tropes and genres help us find stories we’ll enjoy. And that is true. However, when it comes to BookTok and sharing these categorizations, things start to get a little messy. Most clearly, we can see how books increasingly become defined by their genre. Instead of sharing what was actually enjoyable about the writing or characters, a book can be defined (and more importantly, marketed) simply because it includes enemies to lovers. This robs the story of any richness. You could simply put any characters into the trope and call it a day. More covertly, this allows publishers to push any book by its tropes alone. Whether or not it’s of any quality doesn’t matter. You’ll get a book deal if you choose the right trope to capitalize on. Your characters’ lives don’t matter, as long as they have to fake date each other. Finally, it pushes readers to only notice the surface-level structure of a book. No longer is there a deep discussion of the dynamics between characters or the prose of the piece, rather you share whatever you can fit into a 15-second TikTok.
Overall, this rise in categorizing and boiling down books to their base tropes is ruining the complexity and intricacy many books offer. Instead, the market is turning towards easily identifiable tropes with interchangeable characters. Rather than turning to this simplification, we need to appreciate and recommend books based on the entire work, not just the tropes we love.