Beyond the BookTok loop

Throw a TikTok audio at me and I might understand what it’s referring to, but usually I’ll just stare at you in confusion—this is a regular occurrence with my younger sister.

At 24 I’m classified as Gen Z, but I’m very much on the cusp. When I was a teenager, everyone smoked cigarettes, not flavoured vapes, I don’t have an iced coffee addiction, and as I must warn my friends: no, I don’t have TikTok. So for those of us who are Gen Z, but don’t have the app, where do we hear about the books we want to read, what’s trending? And how might publishers and booksellers better reach us?

I’ve always read for enjoyment—aside from a brief period at university where reading was the homework. Before it was easy to buy books online, I would usually just walk into a bookshop and look for something that stood out to me (the very definition of judging a book by its cover). The design and blurb did the talking.

Now, though I’m still loyal to bricks and mortar, I buy many of my books online. This means I usually need to have a better idea of what I’m searching for, as I don’t find that the "top charts" or "suggested" lists ever really hit the spot. This is, I think, why so many young people turn to tailored recommendations on sites such as TikTok and Goodreads that adapt to their data—the algorithm gets to know them like a good friend. It’s a parasocial relationship, in which users follow their favourite "bookfluencers", because they trust that their recommendations will be nuanced enough. 

However, I find myself pulling away from the TikTok hype, because if that book is made for the masses, how do I know that I’m going to enjoy it? I don’t equate online influencers with the right level of trust. Instead, I rely on my own revolutionary method: I ask my peers in real life what they’re reading, because young people love sharing their discoveries. 

I may think that my bookshelf is personal and "out of the loop", but many titles have snuck in there that are recommendations based on online hype

So what have my IRL algorithms served me lately?

Never have I heard more people talking about a book than A Court of Thornes and Roses, the inescapable Sarah J Maas novel. I’ve had it recommended by a close friend who told me she’d read all 400 pages in a day, and by colleagues at work who hope it will be turned into a TV series. It pops up in conversations everywhere.

So does the new Elizabeth Gilbert novel—the one that didn’t even make it as far as publication—after a barrage of criticism flooded the book’s Goodreads page before it even came out. The outrage was centred around the narrative, which follows a family in Siberia; Goodreads users found it inappropriate, given the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the book has now been pulled indefinitely. I can’t seem to escape chat about this book that doesn’t yet exist, even though I’ve remained away from the sites where the debate blew up.

And here’s the thing: as you may have noticed, I may think that my bookshelf is personal and "out of the loop", but many titles have snuck in there that are recommendations based on online hype—R F Kuang and Eliza Clark being two examples. Because while I love a good in-person recommendation, many of my friends are recommending to me based on their own BookTok tastes, or second-hand (even third-hand) BookTok gossip. The tides of BookTok opinion are far-reaching, and I’m evidently still touched by them—even if these ripples reach me via real-life word of mouth.

So what started out as a story against Gen Z homogeneity has become one about the inescapable reach of TikTok. Perhaps publishers aren’t doing enough to reach Gen Z through other avenues, or perhaps social media trends are so powerful they’ll inevitably conquer all. My advice to the book industry? If you want to widen the diversity of the books my generation are buying, you must work hard at highlighting the titles that aren’t surfacing on TikTok in bookshops (and maybe other, more unexpected, spaces). Otherwise, I’m concerned that although I’m still holding out on the vaping and iced coffee, my bookshelf will look exactly the same as everyone else’s I know.