With the growing popularity of the social media app, TikTok, various subcommunities have been created to help users find the content that is best catered to on your “For You” timeline. One of those subcommunities– the one I find myself frequenting the most– is BookTok. With a focus on Young Adult fiction, fantasy and romance, BookTok showcases creators discussing, making jokes about and reviewing the books they have read. BookTok has become so popular that there is now a section in Barnes and Noble devoted solely to books that are popular in this community.
But with so many books and so many suggestions, which are actually worth your time? I have read my fair share of books from this subcommunity and I have many opinions, so here I will be delving into some of the most popular books from BookTok and expressing my thoughts.
Obviously, I am using my own opinions to write this piece, so just because I might have a different opinion than you does not make either opinion invalid! The greatest thing about reading to take away different perspectives from the same work. Feel free to agree or disagree as you please.
“The People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry
I feel like it is important to start off with this one as it was the first BookTok book I ever read. This romance novel features a friends-to-lovers trope that follows Poppy, a travel journalist, as she rekindles a friendship with old college friend Alex. While the storyline, friendship and characters were cute, I felt incredibly underwhelmed by this book.
It is a great book if you are unfamiliar with the romance genre, as it is a slow-burn and very intricately showcases a relationship as it develops over time. The one thing I really couldn’t get behind was the climax. There was a huge build-up to this one event, the reason that the friendship between the protagonists fell apart, but I was left disappointed. It wasn’t a huge reveal or plot twist, and I couldn’t help but feel like Emily Henry came up with the plot of a romance but didn’t know how to wrap it up. While I did find some things to love, the overall peak of the plot left me wanting more.
“It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover
This book took me on an emotional rollercoaster in the best way possible. When I first started reading, I was bored by the cliches and actually cringed at the romance. But as soon as the relationships in the book started to develop, I was hooked. This book had an incredible take on domestic abuse within relationships that forced me to reevaluate everything I thought I knew. Colleen Hoover also writes scenes inspired by her parents, and the emotional connection she shares with the plotline is extremely apparent.
There is not much I can say about the plot without spoiling it, but I recommend looking at the trigger warnings before reading. It definitely dives into some sensitive themes. While I loved the direction Hoover went with the book, I understand it is not for everyone. Overall, I felt like this book had my heart in a chokehold the whole time and I very highly recommend it.
“The song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller
Moving on to a historical romance, “The Song of Achilles” is an adaptation of the Iliad told from Patroclus’ perspective. The book was purposely written in a way that can be understood by anyone, regardless of if you read the Iliad or even know anything about Greek mythology. Even though I understand why people love this book, it just wasn’t for me.
I admittedly don’t know much about Greek mythology, so I constantly found myself lost in the sea of characters and backstories. Also, one common review I heard about the book was to be warned of the tragic ending, but I found it challenging to see the ending as tragic when the ending of this story is known by anyone who already knows about Achilles and Patroclus. This dramatic irony made it really hard for me to connect to the characters as I knew their fates, and thus I was left feeling very indifferent to the novel’s ending.
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I decided to finish off this review with a bang – the only book I gave five stars to this year. This book is told from two perspectives – one from the autobiographical telling of celebrity Evelyn Hugo, and the other from a journalist as she struggles to figure out her connection to the star. As someone who would love to be a journalist, I loved the back-and-forth story between Evelyn’s life and the writer, as well as finding out the parallels between their lives.
I was so enthralled at Evelyn’s ability to always be in control of her situations. I thought Taylor Jenkins Reid’s writing style was incredibly captivating and really made me feel like I had been taken back to the 1960s to relive Evelyn’s complicated life. The title refers to “the seven husbands” but it really isn’t about them. It’s the story of her life and how each one was a chess pawn in her master plan. This is a book I wish I could read for the first time again, and I cherish its beautiful lessons about self-worth, loyalty, sacrifice and tragedy.
Whether you have read the titles listed above or not, I highly recommend taking a look into the content BookTok has to offer. Finding these books has rekindled my love of reading in ways I didn’t expect. And who knows? Maybe your new favorite book is just one TikTok away.
