By Nancy Slim | Staff Writer

At the start of every new year, all avid readers are quick to set a reading goal for themselves to complete by the time the year ends, but things have been different recently. When and why did readers go from genuinely enjoying their reads to merely racing to complete their reading goal? I found myself asking this same question when I was short on two books to complete my own reading goal as I stopped and asked myself: what makes this so important?

After the 2020 lockdown, a lot of bookish platforms on the internet flourished as people resorted to reading during their everlasting free time. Booktube and Bookstagram gained hundreds, if not thousands, of new participants. A whole new phenomenon of exclusively online bookstores stemmed from the very high demand for books combined with the lack of any open bookstores or libraries. People were getting back into reading; either revisiting old beloved books that they haven’t touched in years and relying on familiar emotional landscapes, or exploring new genres that they haven’t read before and widening their horizons. Meanwhile, current readers were overconsuming new content and raising their reading goals by overfeeding their TBR (to be read) lists. That was how Booktok – the bookish side of TikTok – came to exist, as books, authors, and publishers were undergoing a rebirth.

Soon enough, the demand for new books started to exceptionally increase. Recently, readers have been taking to their Booktok accounts to talk about their recent favourite books, their most anticipated releases, and their favourite tropes. The hype for a new book or a certain author would exceedingly escalate for a month or so, then die after that. This would not last long because with every new publication, the hype would get revived, so the Booktok famous authors would RUN to their laptops and quickly type up the newest manuscript they could come up with. In a year, they’d publish another book to feed the fans, and the cycle continues. Readers would consume those most recent books in no time, selling them out in a matter of hours, and then forgetting about them once the newest sensation hits. Authors are now getting paid more and books are getting published faster, so has TikTok really turned the publishing world into fast fashion?

This question has recently flooded Booktok and stirred up a serious conversation about the quality of our readings and our overconsumption habits when it comes to books. It is as if readers are racing to see who has a higher number of read books on Goodreads, but paying no attention to the quality of books that they are reading. Some Booktok users even admitted to finishing a book and not remembering anything from it the next week because it simply didn’t leave an imprint on them. They said that reading books from the same author, or even a different one who writes about the same tropes, felt as if they were reading a copy-paste version of other books. Examples of this are the different tropes that have been gaining popularity on Booktok for the past two years: enemies to lovers, found family, or academic rivals, among others. 

Nowadays, authors are limiting themselves to these tropes that are popular around the internet and basing their whole book on them rather than writing an actual plot with developed characters. Other users would argue that they aren’t seeking any serious knowledge from books, but are rather reading or even skimming books for leisure. They’re seeking easy books to read and overlooking any problematic issues that come along the way as their newfound obsession with different tropes keeps them entertained when they read the same story over and over again but with different characters. It’s like the rom-com obsession but on pages: you know how the story starts and ends but you’re just there for a good time.

The question asks itself: is reading truly ever that serious? To some people, it’s solely a hobby that helps them enjoy their time and blow off some steam. However, to others, books and words are their entire life. They are their passion and even their careers. How could we ever compare authors who put their hearts and souls into books that take years to write, edit, re-edit, and then get published to authors who publish a book with the same plot but in a different format yearly? 

Authors such as Markus Zusak and Donna Tartt, who take years to finalize their books and polish them off before publishing, have gained popularity over the past years because of their extremely well-written books that take up to a decade to be revised before they get published. Those authors end up winning critically acclaimed awards for a reason. Unlike other authors who have just recently gained Booktok popularity and are putting out one book after another in no time, prioritising quantity over quality. In fact, one of the most known publishing imprints under the name Red Tower Publishing has admitted to publishing “bingeable” content on a “rapid release schedule” in a recent interview. That is only one example that backs up the claim of Booktok users who have been speaking up about how the publishing scene has been looking a lot like fast fashion culture recently.

What once started as a way to kill time during quarantine has now developed into a longer-term trend of promoting the overconsumption of books and reading for the sake of merely competing with our Goodreads reading goals. So much pressure has been put on readers who simply want to devour books and knowledge but are forced to subconsciously race with time to finish their reading goals and score a high number to flaunt amongst other readers. That is all because of the ever-growing demand for more books while overlooking the quality of their content. That in-and-of itself is a crime against literature and the publishing scene. Low-quality books are being pumped out more and marketing has never been this effective. Promoting not only the books themselves, but also the overconsumption of books. So, as the market gets flooded with copy-paste versions of different yet oh-so-similar books, readers’ goals keep rising, while the quality of their reading content may be declining.

Sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-08/fourth-wing-and-iron-flame-author-rebecca-yarros-needs-a-reality-check