I hate how nowadays teens are glorifying books about abuse, and normalize it by calling it “dark romance”
Now, all the books you’ll find are either plain p0rn or terribly written.
Those books are supposed to be for teens, but you could hardly find one that has no inappropriate scene in it.
And nowadays, books that will go viral are books that are very poorly written, with grammatical errors and things like that
The thing is, everyone now writes, but anyone cannot write a good book.
You could totally make Chat GPT write a book and booktok community would adore it
by Early-Objective4041
27 Comments
Have you considered telling the books to get off your lawn?
Your last paragraph got me curious…
Prompt: “Write me the prologue of a YA novel that would go viral on BookTok”
Chat-GPT:
>Prologue
>
>In the heart of the city, where shadows danced on the walls and secrets lingered in the air, there existed a place known only to a select few. Buried beneath layers of ordinary existence, it beckoned those with a hunger for the extraordinary, a thirst for the unknown.
>
>They called it The Veil—a clandestine realm hidden between the cracks of reality, veiled from the eyes of the oblivious. A world where magic thrived, where mythical creatures whispered in the wind, and where destiny and danger intertwined like ivy on an ancient castle.
>
>For seventeen-year-old Ember Stirling, the world had always been tinged with an otherworldly glow. Unbeknownst to her, the power she felt coursing through her veins wasn’t just a product of teenage imagination; it was a legacy, a birthright passed down through generations. She was a Veilwalker, a bridge between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
>
>Ember’s life in the bustling city of Astoria was ordinary, almost boring—until the fateful night she stumbled upon an enchanted portal hidden in the depths of an abandoned bookstore. Drawn by an inexplicable force, she stepped through the gateway, leaving behind the familiar and embracing the unknown.
>
>On the other side, she discovered a realm pulsating with magic, teetering on the edge of chaos. The Veil was unraveling, and Ember’s arrival sparked a series of events that would shake the very foundations of both worlds. Prophecies whispered her name, ancient powers awoke, and a darkness long forgotten began to stir.
>
>As Ember navigated the labyrinthine mysteries of The Veil, she found herself entangled in a web of alliances and betrayals. The fate of two worlds rested on her shoulders, and the line between friend and foe blurred like the colors of a sunset.
>
>Little did Ember know that her journey would capture the hearts of readers far beyond the pages of a book. In the age of social media, her story would unfold not only in the hallowed halls of literature but also in the pixelated glow of screens. BookTok would ignite with fervor as readers, young and old, shared their love for Ember’s tale—one that transcended realms, broke boundaries, and reminded them all that magic, in its myriad forms, was very much alive.
​
Chat-GPT seems to have generated a review. That, or the book is surprisingly meta.
Are we going to pretend that an entire generation of teens coming of age in the 80s weren’t obsessed with Flowers in the Attic?
Spoiler: teens have and are interested in sex, so, yes, it’s a common topic of teen books. Get over it.
This is just how teens are. If you’ve grown up then read books written for adults.
I grew up reading Danielle Steele novels. I read all the Flowers in the Attic. And the Interview with the Vampire books. While I disagree with books that glorify toxic and abusive relationships (looking at you, CoHo) I’m not one to judge what people read. As long as they read, who cares.
Do YA books have smut? Like full on sex on the page? Isn’t it just an adult book at that point?
YA as a genre does not have any smut in it (maybe fade to black stuff) but as soon as you lean into New adult and Adult novels you’ll find smut from my understanding
You just gotta curate your feed to things you’re interested in 🙂
>I hate how nowadays teens are glorifying books about abuse, and normalize it by calling it “dark romance”
That’s not a BookTok thing. That’s exactly what happened with Twilight 15+ years ago.
You can just type the word porn. It’s okay. No one will kick down your door and arrest you.
I don’t think this is a new problem, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem you’re currently having. I think what you need is to figure out which book recommendations to actually listen to. Different people like different books, and what I love about a series may be a turn-off for you and vice versa. BookTok obviously isn’t it for you, so I would strongly recommend you ignore books that blow up that way.
Put some work in to identify what you value most in a book (preferences in writing style, settings, character aspects, none of the above) and work on identifying books that have those things.
If a public library is available to you, I would recommend asking a librarian for book recommendations based on books you have enjoyed.
Just because your friend likes a book doesn’t mean you’ll like it. Even if they tell you how great it is, ask questions about the things that are important to you before you decide whether to pick it up. Your taste is obviously not lining up with the books that are most making a splash in your current media, so you need to find books in a different way.
Don’t read them, or don’t recommend them. Everyone grows out of those ages eventually. And probably more pertinently, people in the YA target age range are perfectly capable of reading regular literature. The great thing about books is that almost all of the ones written up to now are available to read still today.
Why read books from TikTok and then complain about it? Dark romance is a perfectly valid genre. Books can glorify whatever they want. There’s a whole genre of transgressive literature out there.
If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Don’t shake your fist at the sky, don’t try to start a book-banning campaign, don’t get up on a pedestal about it. Just avoid it and move on with your life and let people enjoy things.
As I agree with you that the quality might not be the best or that the most of the books recommended are similar (specially fantasy in booktok), i’m happy that booktok exists. Schools did nothing good for teens regsrding books. And I’ve seen lots of cases of people not reading because they disliked what they read in school. So if tik tok or instagram or yt is capable of encouraging people to read, I’m more than happy about it.
Also, you need to take into consideration that not all books recomended in tik tok are for teens ( example the pershepodes one), but the good thing is that you can train your feed to show books of your taste, and in case of doubt you can always search the trigger warnings in storygraph.
What types of books would you like to read? It sounds like you need some recommendations from outside of BookTok, because they just aren’t your thing. I know I felt similarly when I was a teenager and wasn’t super into the whole craze of Twilight and its knockoffs. I would be happy to point you in the direction of books that might be of more interest to you.
I don’t think this is a BookTok problem, but something that fits with what teens want to read.
Also, and this is coming from someone who has been working in the bookselling business for almost 17 years: I cannot be more happy for what BookTok has done for reading among younger people.
Thing is, as soon as teens start liking something, there are always people popping up complaining about their “bad taste”.
Yeah, that’s not new. At all. That’s a pretty standard part of the entire genre and has been for a VERY long time.
You need to find your booktok niche. Mine is historical fantasy. If all you’re seeing is dark romance, it’s because either a) you’re new to booktok or b) you haven’t given the algorithm enough about you to find what you like. Do I sometimes get SJM stuff? Yes. But more like 1 in 20+ videos.
Edit: it’s funny to me how people are so anti booktok. It’s a tool, it’s social media. If you don’t know how to use it, or use it in moderation ok so. But don’t discourage others just because they do things differently to you. Sheesh
Hey here’s an idea, stop reading YA and booktok recs if you don’t enjoy it. Plenty of books out there are fine for teens and still provide a fantastic literary experience. You may encounter sex scenes, but if YA’s treatment of that is unappealing to you, it might be a different story in other genres and more capable authors’ hands.
The Orange Man was right in trying to have it banned. It’s brain rot par excellence.
i mostly read classics and i only read young adults as a teen, but i think that sex is an important part of people’s lives and books should cover it all. The problem is not the subject of sex, which is actually a theme on which you could write thousands of books and never run out of ideas, but the fact that many authors these days can’t write. I’ve read some modern young adults and the sex scenes were the parts which sucked less. To remove sex from a book you have to make the protagonist a forever virgin, and that’s not realistic unless it serves a purpose in the story. Every teen has sexual impulses and if a book is directed to teens and talks about teens it has to talk about sex too. Teen age is literally the age right after puberty which is when people have the highest sexual desire lol.
I second the idea of asking a local librarian for book recommendations! Tell them you aren’t happy with the books recommended by TikTok. You want something in the YA genre with more substance. They will probably be thrilled to help you find something you enjoy.
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People can be attracted to naughty or taboo stories without ever intending on doing the same in real life. The more you tell someone that what they’re reading is “bad” for them, the more they’ll want to read it.
Without wanting to sound mean, YA was already a pretty shitty genre to begin with. I tried reading extracts of a John Green book and couldn’t wrap my head around how someone can not get bored by reading these.
Something I noticed too. Before I could blindly pick up a book based on the summary and book cover without doing much research. At worst it would be a slow book but good writing.
But I have had the worst experience esp 2022 where I blind bought tons and the writing was so so bad.
And I was a bit surprised. I know some books are not traditionally published so for those I don’t hold too much expectations as long as storytelling is good.
But I mostly bought from B&N and I was surprised. A lot of the books were just so chatacters could start banging by chapter 2.
And the thing is I don’t mind having those books. If I don’t like spice, I can just skip over it. But so much of the books were just that. You can’t skip because there is no other story.
I read 50% of the way through a book. So many banters, characters, so many words….and I asked myself…why don’t I feel anything? It’s got my fav tropes and all but the writing for so many of the books are so so dry. I feel zero emotions.
There was a reviewer once mentioned how booktubers reads books and checks off tropes etc and sell you the book. But they are not really reading it for the experience. More like just marking a paper idk how to explain it. But exactly how I feel.
I also feel like a lot of those poor writing recs are from channels I noticed where they are reading just to finish a book.
So you mechanically read 10 books a month just so you have something to talk about …do a haul…and I guess get paid. Which is fine for them. But for me as a consumer, I spent so much money not realizing this early on.
Now I do a thorough research (thanks to the amazing people who leaves thorough reviews) before committing to any books.
Each generation has their own bad and/or straight up harmful slop. Flowers in the attic, Twilight, etc. You’re just seeing more of these now because of social media. That doesn’t mean you have to read them though. I myself am not huge on the books that are most popular on tiktok, simply because I have different tastes. Like many other things, how much you enjoy a book is subjective. While your friend might enjoy a Sarah J. Maas book because the genre and subject matter appeals to them, that doesn’t mean you will too.
Also, for clarification, what you’re talking about is new adult. YA rarely features smut, and even if it does, it’s mostly just implied and not downright shown. Books like Fourth Wing and Throne of Glass are all new adult, which is why they’re allowed to have smut. It’s not ruining literature. Sure, it’s not exactly great, but some people who got into reading through these will eventually grow out of these and move on to read better books.
Since you mentioned that you like sci-fi and fantasy, I highly recommend books by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. They’re both wonderful writers, and Good Omens (written by the two of them) is one of my favorite books.
I think a lot of these comments are pretty unfair.
Yes this is nothing new but doesn’t mean it hasn’t gotten worse. People say get off Booktok without realizing that nowadays we have no idea what books are put out by Booktok if they don’t have a section. And it’s true a lot of the influence Booktok had literally is just porn without plot now and the amount of people who now write for Booktok because it brings in the cash it has really affected the book industry as a whole with its popularity.
Plus op didn’t seem disrespectful in anyway or mentioned any genre other than YA yet I see everyone talk about Dark romance or new adult or just romance. You are literally proving OP’s point when the only thing you can bring up is the most controversial genres in the book world right now.
Op is completely right, it’s hard to find new books that aren’t advertised by ghost writers or Booktok.
You can really use past examples like the 80’s now because there’s a bigger influence now.
You really can’t deny there is a problem when you can see people are finally noticing and pointing it out, there’s always been problems but you can’t ignore them when they’ve gotten bigger.
The comments against OP are really unnessecary.