Personal Essay: BookTok changed the way I read

by SOPHIA TOMPKINS

Staff Writer

Last year, I set a reading goal of 12 books and reached it in March. Why? I was drawn to BookTok, a community on TikTok that focuses on books and literature, and content creators review and recommend them. When I was bored, I would put “book recommendations” in the search bar and scroll for 30 minutes to an hour, adding books to my To-Be-Read pile. 

This pile sat untouched for a very long time, mostly due to the overwhelming nature of it. However, finding a recommendation for a book I already had reminded me of why I originally picked it up. It relit that desire to read it that maybe disappeared while it was just sitting on my shelf. I wanted to read the book again, and after I read one book I wanted to read another.

Scrolling became irrelevant; the book sitting underneath my bed was all I could think about. Every night, I read a couple of chapters before falling asleep, turning on my phone flashlight when my roommate turned the lights out. I started speeding through books that I once thought were enormously long like “The Inheritance Games” and “Assistant to the Villian” like nobody’s business. 

When I was done reading I would search for BookTokers who had also read those books. I found some of my favorite creators this way. Pretty soon BookTok was consistently on my For You Page. It was a welcome addition and something I looked forward to every day. 

Ashley, @wickedreads, who is trying to read their To-Be-Read pile faster than new books come in the mail, gave me a constant stream of books that were coming out soon that I could look forward to. Lexi, @newlynova, who gave us rapid-fire and almost completely nonsensical book reviews every month, had reviews that felt real and made a lot of sense to me. 

Rachel Skye, @rachelskyereads, who gave us “Read these books if you liked,” gave me book recommendations that fit better with what I was already reading. Jaysen, @ezeekat, who had the biggest collection of books and wasn’t reading half of them, reminded me of myself and made me feel less bad about collecting books and not reading them right away (I’m working on it.). 

Emma Skies, @emmaskies, who posts many different bookish content, felt relatable to me and reminded me that it’s okay to stop reading a book you don’t like. @Lynmoore read books and then watched the adaptations afterward. I found this creator because they posted “Poorly convincing you to read this series” about “Shadow & Bone,” one of my favorite series. 

I found book journals through BookTok and have had one ever since. I use my book journal to track many things, from monthly readings to different book challenges to my To-Be-Read pile and books I want to buy. I also use my book journal to plan out what I want to read that month. I use the challenges I created as a guide for the books I want to read each month. 

As a very indecisive person, picking which books to read each month is challenging. I sit in front of my piles of books whenever I want to read something new and never pick something because I want to read them all. Reading books was slow for me. Reading twelve was rare, and reading twelve before March was even more so. 

For most of my life, I would not have considered myself a big reader. I read more than the rest of my family that’s for sure, but not by a lot. I read maybe four or five books a year. Going into 2024 I knew I wanted to read more, I had a growing To-Be-Read pile with no end in sight as I found more books to add to the list. I wanted to start knocking books off the pile rather than having it grow and grow. The task seemed overwhelming, not something I could do easily, so I decided it would be best to start slow.  

In 2024 I read 48 books, something I never thought possible before BookTok. I started DNFing (Did Not Finish) books, preventing reading slumps, which helped me read more. I found books that I would be interested in rather than reading books my parents thought I would be interested in. I started a book journal and kept track of what I was reading and what I enjoyed. 

I am excited to see what is next for BookTok and the community. What book recommendations I get from my favorite creators and what next is discussed among the community.