Booktok trades literary revival for brain rot, trivialization

#BookTok has grown its trend with over 200 billion views on TikTok, a spotlight that has triggered both constructive and detrimental consequences. On one side of this double edged sword, more people are being called to the reading world, authors are getting more exposure, and established readers are finding more recommendations. However, these pros quickly turn toxic when books being recommended are comprised of dark topics hiding behind heart-shaped illusion.

Labeled by many as “dark romance,” this genre of twisted love stories raises concerns over those sucked into the world of BookTok. Without the rose-colored glasses of ‘romance,’ many of these topics are glorified versions of assault and abuse. This causes the erasure of serious subject matters that happen to many people off the written page. This hinders the progression of movements that bring awareness to the reality of violence; the same acts of violence that are dubbed “romantic” in these books.

This thematic controversy stems from how it affects real world progress against such relational violence. A largely recognized, and long tenured, example of this would be It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. Shining in the glare of BookTok’s spotlight, many seem blissfully unaware of the damage they are acquiring in regards to how they see love. It can be especially detrimental to domestic abuse survivors, due to how much it romanticizes the physically and emotionally abusive nature of the main character’s relationship.

While the book had the potential to offer a perspective of how damaging these relationships are, Hoover distorts it into a love triangle, with attempts to somehow excuse the abuse as a plot device. It is a harmful representation of an abusive relationship. To reinforce this, Hoover’s intentions when writing were not to educate, but rather to entertain. She claims this book is different, yet the education is lost within a romantic plot, which offers little insight into an accurate portrayal of domestic abuse. The execution of this acclaimed “education” is poor, especially due to how easily it is misinterpreted by a considerable size of its audience. This is furthered when considering that Hoover’s books are especially popular among a teenage audience who is highly susceptible to misinterpreting such dark topics.

This can also be seen with books such as Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton, which romanticizes sexual assault. Carlton does provide a trigger warning at the beginning which details the book’s mature content, but it leaves out the biggest red flag of all and plays it off as a “dark love story”. Sure, some enjoy twisted books such as these as a sort of coping mechanism, but the book has become far too popular for the wrong reasons. Similar to the craze around Hoover, Haunting Adeline fans are aspiring to have relationships such as those displayed in the book, despite their abusive manner.

Growth in popularity for this sub-genre comes with serious consequences. Tropes depicted in this famed genre are generally not used for enlightenment and the aim of the spotlight tends to ricochet off of in a ‘romantic’ angle. Instead of downplaying themes that many real people are victims to, more productive methods would be to use writing as an opportunity for informative storytelling; using talent as a catalyst for positive change. 

by Madison Malecki

Published April 29 2024

Oshkosh West Index Volume 120 Issue VII