@@accordingtoalinaI heard recently (in a Jack Edwards’ video) that cats on Japanese covers have cats on the covers to signal that they are a “cozy” read. Even if a cat doesn’t actually appear in the book.
Seriously. You would think they were the only contemporary Japanese fiction in translation not named Murakami if you didn't know where else to look. I feel like it is just another way of othering Japanese fiction. 2020-2022 everyone was calling it weird and 'quirky" including literal crime novels and now the everything is "cozy and quaint".
Y’all, don’t be turned off by all Japanese novels with cats on the cover or in the title. If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura is a deeply philosophical read and gives an extremely in depth analysis (albeit, with some comic relief) of a man dealing with his own mortality. A book can be great and have a “cute” cover too 🤨
My gripe is books that only contain praise at the back and no synopsis. I don't even care what the book is about, I will hate it on principle if it doesn't give me a synopsis on the back cover.
If it's paperback the synopsis needs to be on the back, if it's a hardcover the synopsis needs to be on the inside of the sleeve when you open the cover
this! there are so many books I didn’t even bother with because there is so little information on the cover/under the cover. another useless design choice is giving a small description of author themselves and even smaller mention when the book in question was written.... it's interesting but don't make me want to buy or read anything
If this helps anyone: 1. 2:50 cartoon book covers for romance books 2. 7:10 age gaps romance books 3. 7:50 reading challenges 4. 11:13 special editions and book merch that has nothing to do with books 5. 11:25 commodification of books 6. 14:20 greek myth retellings 7. 17:40 UA-cam hate-read videos
As someone who used to watch a lot of “reading the worst booktok romance” style videos, I think one thing that motivated me to watch negative reviews was the fact that I wasn’t actually reading a lot so watching positive book videos stressed me out made me think about how many books I wanted to read but wasn’t reading whereas negative videos let me relax and join in on the hate without worrying about actually reading books
I agree! I think this is a totally valid take from her, but I enjoy those “hate” UA-cam vides, they’re fun to watch and also they literally do what they say: they tell you all about a book that’s become popular and that way, you don’t have to read a book you don’t feel particularly drawn to but you do get to know what what people are talking about when they reference them. It’s fun!
As someone who watches book critiques/rants, yes, those creators do make reviews of stuff they like. That content just doesn't do as well on UA-cam so the algorithm won't show it to you. Also, it's validating when you end up hating a book that everyone's been hyping to find a video of someone tearing it apart. Makes you feel like maybe you aren't the crazy one after all.
Yeah this is the problem. People flock to those hate read videos and the views of the positive review videos are significantly less. So, creators are incentivized to do videos ranting about terrible books if they want to get people to watch. Then more people looking to join booktok/booktube will also buy those terrible books to rant about so they can get their own channels off the ground. Then more sales money for authors of terrible books.
i also appreciate when youtubers dissect exactly why the book failed for them, like reads with rachel does, so it’s not just a “this book sucked and i hated it” rant.
@@anishinaabae Reads with Rachel is actually exactly who I was thinking of XD. Nothing drives her up the wall more than comments like "do you even like books?" when she has a whole playlist of stuff she liked
i do kind of wish that second hand books would become more of a signifier of coolness. not that i’m thrilled that everything has to be a trend, but if we’re going to do trends, at least let them be sustainable ones instead of encouraging people to buy multiple copies of the same brand-new book and a million little “bookish” tchotchkes
I agree! Also: using your public libraries, they are a great place where you don't have to consume anything (except a yearly fee which is often less for one year than what you pay for one hardcover book), you can get recommendations from librarians and discover books you maybe wouldn't have come across otherwise 😊 And if you read a book that you really enjoy, you can still buy a copy for yourself 📚
Yesss, 90% of my personal library is second or third hand, bought on Vinted or found on the street. It's amazing and feels even better than buying a new edition
No please No! They'll hike up the prices of my dearly beloved yellowed, moth ball smelling, annotated books. This happened to charity shopping over a decade ago. The prices have never returned to their original affordable prices. 😢
I love sustainability, but please use your library if you can. When you get a book second or third-hand, the author doesn't get anything. However, they get a very small fee when you borrow it from the library. In the UK it's only £1. It's really helpful for authors.
Capitalism turning every hobby into a rat race against others, and *yourself* year-to-year (i.e the endless growth we all love to denounce) is my #1 factor for tracking my reads on a dumb excel sheet. No external tracking, no prompting, nothing. Just inventory to unload my memory. The independance + privacy is worth the slight effort in upkeep.
I like the reading challenges that are set up on StoryGraph where you have a goal other than how many books you read. For example, the StoryGraph Read the World Challenge is a great way to find new books and diversify your reads
I'm ready to never see a "Telling you if you should read these popular Tiktok books with a simple yes, no or maybe" short again. They've become recycled content showcasing maybe 10 per video of the same 30 books over, and over, and over again with the literal goal of not saying anything about them. It does nothing but diminish nuance and thoughtful conversation.
Huhh? I never thought those were "rage bait." I like watching people deconstruct and point out the flaws in books that people happily ignore. Cuz that's usually what those videos are. It's not rage bait if it's a genuinely terrible book. They aren't just going "yay lets shit on this author for no reason!" The majority of the comments on those videos are discussing the legitimate flaws in the books. I usually only watch negative book reviews cuz the content is more thorough and thought out. And passionate too. Positive book reviews are usually "its cute, its good, they have chemistry" but nother deeper. I need an obsession level thesis on why the book is so good or I'm not gonna care. Tell me about the themes, the emotional impact, the personal resonance. Tell me about the design and the foreshadowing and the little details that get overlooked. I never see positive views that have the same passion and detail as negative ones.
Yeah, I actually find those videos usually have decent writing advice and suggest interesting alternatives. Also, I think a lot of the themes in those books genuinely deserve to be critiqued, so long as the critique is nuanced. Also, (movie not book), I loved seeing Clockwork Reader hate on Poor Things while still understanding the point of it.
I don't think they're rage bait either, but they do feel like "I'm gonna hate read this book that 20000000 other people have already made criticism videos on because I need views".
Same. And I think people don't want to delve too deep in positive reviews coz they'd need to get into spoiler territory, and viewers usually don't want to get spoiled.
I agree with many of the points you made, especially the reading challenges and special editions! I’m personally tired of romantasy. So many of the romantasy books feel like cash grabs to me now.
I just look at their covers and they all look the same. The lettering, color, symbols, even the titles all sound AI generated. You could make a bingo card or drinking game out of all the clichés with nothing new to offer
What’s so depressing about many of those books is that it feels to me like publishers throw new or inexperienced authors to the wolves by not editing their books enough but rely on the pretty editions selling anyway. That’s just leaving readers with the impression that the author isn’t talented when the truth might be that they were not supported enough when it came to improving and polishing their work.
I also feel like reading books because they're popular takes so much fun out of reading. My friends do that a lot and try to get the right books as fast as possible to be up to date but in return they mostly have 2-3 star books on their book lists, I did that too but now i try to be more mindful of what I am actually gonna like and i like reading way more because it doesn't feel like a competition anymore
I think that the trouble with most people might be, as is the case with me as well, is that people don't know their taste in books that well. After 4-5ish years of reading, I still struggle with this heavily. So taking recommendations from your favourite creators on the internet almost seems like getting recs from a good friend (para-socialism). Also, I feel like reading "popular" books can be slightly addicting in the sense that you'll read (for example) 2 books back-to-back that are 5 stars, so you'll think "oh, so THAT is my taste!", so you'll keep taking recommendations from the internet because you had a good experience putting your trust into it previously, only to end up reading a bunch of 2 or 3 star books in a row.... but you always keep waiting for that sweet-sweet feeling of reading a 5 star again, like an addict, so you keep going back for more.
I hate that people feel this pressure. Once I unplugged from all of that and tried out books that appealed to me (could be completely unknown/unpopular), I actually found enjoyment. Never would've guessed I'd be into victorian/gothic horror or modernist feminist literature if it weren't for venturing outside of what's trending online.
I do have a couple issues with the points you made. •I felt as though you made the romance genre out to be frivolous (purely for entertainment and not much else). Bell Hooks discusses this at length in her book “All about Love” and talks about how much intellectual value ‘love’ has. •The other thing I sort of don’t agree with fully is tracking, goals, and challenges - basically gamification of hobbies. I am neurodivergent and if I didn’t set any goals for me, or gamify my hobbies, I would just keep switching from one thing to the next. There is a lot of value to gamification for neurodivergent people. •As for special editions, I think it’s definitely capitalism but for people who read on kindle and only buy books they really love, it can be a super fun thing. I do think that there needs to be moderation for sure. I do think that Sally Rooney’s books fall into the category of wanting people to pick the cover they enjoy most and not every book. (Don’t come for the queen man I have faith in her 😢) •I think the youtube content regarding popular problematic books is actually quite interesting when made critically. The clip you showed had people like Clockwork reader and Nikki, both of whom go into great detail about why this type of book is garbage and do in fact recommend good alternatives. I think adding that clip wasn’t fair to them at all because it paints them in a certain light. I’ve seen those videos and they are solid commentary videos. Also, Withcindy (another book content creator on YT) reads popular shitty books but engages with them differently aka in a comedic way and comedy has a lot of value as well. All the creators that I have mentioned are avid speakers for different social issues and belong to marginalized groups within societies. They are openly Pro-Palestine and Nikki in fact created the youtubers for Palestine program which fundraised giant amounts of money. The point being, when they talk about bigoted books, they have good reason to, and not just rage bait. Well, those were my two cents.
I also want to add that Sally Released all of her book covers at the same time not in increments by first releasing a plain cover and then going in with prettier covers to entice people who already bought the book to go buy it again - which is typically where the capitalism aspect of the publishing industry comes in. Again, do NOT come for the Queen.
I agree with all of your points, especially the gamification of hobbies one bcz I've had trouble in the past keeping up w my hobbies but storybook helped me a lot cz I forget about books I read and then lose the integrity I have while recommending then to others, and the last point as well, Cindy and the clockwork reader are some of my most favourite book content creators bcz both of them go in depth about topics that seem controversial to say out on the internet and they've given me incredible alternatives to shitty books, I read Rebecca by Daphne du maurier and was left in awe of the book and that's just the way they both gained my respect (Cindy is an important part of the book/writer content creators as well bcz she researches and reads and watches things to improve her craft and as a writer her insights are incredibly relatable as well as enlightening, and ofcourse her comedic commentary is hilarious)
Cartoons aren't just for children, there are plenty of cartoons for adults. 🤷♀️ When these covers started coming out my reaction was "finally romance novels look presentable instead of having naked sweaty torsos on them!" Although they have become a little too samey at this point
I understand what you mean, but I think the real problem is that really explicit novels are being marketed in a way that appeals to a really young audience. A parent or kid could easily mistake the innocuous cover as something appropriate for them. Trust me, I love cartoons, I just don’t think explicit romance novels need art that can mislead a younger reader!
@@Readerforfun101as a classmate of said ‘younger readers’, I don’t think it’s the kids being mislead, just the parents. The kids know exactly what they’re doing getting those books. It’s even a game to them, watching their blissfully unaware parents get spicy romances.
Some of them really do look like YA. I tend to prefer YA over romance as I don't really like heavy romances and smutt and have almost picked up some of them. Also some have content that shouldn't be read by impressionable teens and the covers should reflect that
I got one of these books included in a book order on accident, I didn't know about this trend and when I opened a random page it was full on explicit hardcore sex scene (the word deepthroat was used). It looked like a Hallmark cartoon movie cover, blew my mind that there was no warning of what was inside at all.
Tracking on goodreads definitly does not make me "obsessed" with numbers. My memory is just shit and I like having a list of what I read and what I thought about it. I also like having a list of the physical books I have on my shelf and haven't read yet, cause I mix them all and they are all theough my house😹 (I set my "goal" low, cause I don't care and I never buy books from amazon.. )
ok devil's advocate, I don't think many of the "hate-read" videos are true ragebait. many of them are very well-thought-out critiques! as someone who is in a creative writing-adjacent role (localization), I find these to actually be quite helpful in learning how to improve my own writing.
@emiliapawny4746 yeah, same with Savvy Writes Books whose Colleen Hoover video was in the thumbnail. her vid was actually a really good analysis of how parts of CoHo's writing would work for other genres, but not the one she's publishing in, and why certain scenes don't work together to achieve what the author likely intended. having watched the video myself, I wouldn't call it a "hate-read" so much as it was a "let's see what we can learn from this popular book-read"
tbh i feel that a lot of greek myth retellings have a very surface level, pop cultural understanding of the myths they’re adapting and the cultures they’re depicting. i very rarely get the sense by reading the text that these authors are familiar with the mythological figures they’re playing with like dolls, even if logically i know they likely are because of their degree or something similar. edit: i think you’re entirely missing the point of the “i read this bad book so you don’t have to” videos. they’re for entertainment. if you know what you’re getting into, it’s just *fun* to read a bad book - especially with someone else, like nicole rafiee - and it’s *fun* to make jokes about it and it’s *fun* to share that with other people who agree.
I‘m so intrigued by your talking style. The way you gently criticize without making others down! Your thoughts are really inspirational! Thank you Alina!
Hi Alina, I agree with many of the points you made in your video, however I’d like to shine a different light on UA-camrs reading problematic books. many of these videos are actually very informative & enlightening. I’ve heard a lot about dark romance and especially this book ‘haunting Adeline’ (which to me is more straight up horror than dark romance, but that’s a conversation for another time). there was this in depth video essay on this book and why it was problematic that I think raised a lot of awareness about heavy topics such as how these books romanticise/glamorise SA, non-consent and why this is harmful. If there weren’t any people who read these books and then summarised it to you, I think many people would have to pick the book up themselves even though it may trigger them and definitely wouldn’t end well. It is definitely not just rage-bait content. also they highlight the difference between normal situations and what is normalised in the certain book, but wouldn’t be normal in real life. many people after reading these books have the takeaway that the relationship portrayed was healthy. we need people out there who are willing to expose problematic books and inform us on topics we may be confused about.
I kind of like the cartoonish romance book covers, but my best friend absolutely HATES them. She worries that parents who don't read but are totally supportive of their young reader might mistake something like a Tessa Bailey or Elle Kennedy book that has one of these types of covers as age-appropriate for their 12-year-old, when those books are generally quite spicy. She feels like the marketing of these books is purposely deceptive, as you said, to appeal to all ages, when these books are, generally, written with an adult audience in mind. She also worries that these deceptive book covers put too much pressure on booksellers to make sure that a younger customer or their parent are properly informed about a book before the purchase is made, lest they get in trouble for selling an inappropriate book to minors. Also, your thoughts on reading challenges are spot on. I have an acquaintance who reads 80 books a year, which sounds really impressive, but ask her anything, literally anything about the last book she read, and she could barely tell you anything about the plot, much less the characters. What's the point? There is a 13-year age gap between me and my husband, so I guess, obviously, age gap romances don't bother me, unless we are talking about one of the partners being underage or if the relationship poses ethical questions like student/teacher, boss/employee. My first year of university, there was a beloved professor who got in trouble for having relationships with two of his students. Because he was tenured, he was not let go, like he should have been. He was transferred to an administrative position, where he had less interaction with students. Meanwhile, the two students were kicked out of the university because they were taking part in a "sex for good grades" arrangement with the professor. More than you wanted to know. Anyway, I always love your videos, and I think the UA-cam algorithm led me to your videos because I watch The Book Leo, and I appreciate that.
As a bookseller, your friend is spot on - we constantly have problems with young kids wanting to buy romance that’s wayyy to mature for them but we have no ability to ID customers like a video game store can so we have to just try and warn them (and when young teens shop alone and parent often isn’t their to veto it) - then we get mad parents coming in blaming us for telling it to them. Either give us full responsibility with an ID system or none at all. Also a lot of adult readers complain they all look the same too, so nothing seems original and cool because everything is just ‘tall cartoon man and smol cartoon girl’ ( a lot of the popular designers also reuse the exact same design and face and just change the clothes and hair for different authors), at best it’s lazy and at worse it’s dangerous.
And now a lot of YA covers are actually following the romance cartoon trend too bc they want to catch the eye of older young adult readers but it all works to make it very blurry for people. There’s some cartoon covers I like so I don’t think they should never exist but I think the overwhelming amount in that style is more the issue
A bookseller here and your friend is right there. Some time ago we had a guideline to not sell these books if the Parents aren’t around. But the company I’m working for decided to cancel this rule and now 12 years old are allowed to buy Haunting Adeline at our bookshop …. But this topic started years before the cartoons-book-cover trend. We had many young people who bought YAOI mangas. One day a teacher come to our bookstore with one of those mangas. She said she took it away from their 13 year old students who were reading these at a school trip.
@@BleistiftSchwert - Thank you for letting me know. I started reading yaoi (and adult horror) at 14, but I know every parent is different about what their children are allowed to read and watch. Parents ultimately need to be engaged to make those choices because it is not fair placing that burden on booksellers, teachers, and librarians. Thank you also for what you do.
Thank you for what you do! Bookstores are my happy place. I have to admit, while the covers of romance novels were cheesy in the 80's and 90's, it was obvious that those books were written for adults. If I was a young person today, I would need resources like BookTube, BookTok, and Goodreads to help me understand who some of these books are intended for, especially those books that are shelved in the BookTok or Trending sections.
I know that some people are probably just making the “reading shitty booktok books so you don’t have to” as rage bait, but there are also people who make those types of videos and really explore the nuance of the content of the book and explain WHY it’s harmful/problematic and not just making fun of corny writing. Weirdo Book club’s rant reviews of haunting Adeline and hunting Adeline come to mind. She’s not just shitting on the books but she’s providing very interesting commentary on how the dark “romance” in those book are harmful and she has other videos on her channel praising dark romance books that depict consensual kink in a healthy way.
Goodreads is actually one of these tech startups from a time before social media platforms became just another place where people try to make you buy stuff you don't need or get yet another subscription that you don't need either. Like many of these companies it started with good intentions and was sold to a big cooperation later on. Amazon didn't invent anything, they pretty much kept the original design too.
I started tracking the books I read in a notebook in the 9th grade because a girl from my middle school book club told us about how her older brother had started years ago. Now, after some years, I really enjoy looking back at it. It is not for anyone to see, although sometimes family members take a look at it. I think the hand written format makes it really special, and I find good reads really complicated to use. I simply write the date when I finished the book, its author and title, and add a mention if I read it in another language, or if it is poetry, theatre or an essay. If for school or when I am chatting with friends I need to give examples of books I read, I just browse this notebook, and with the title, the date, the other books I read around the same period, I remember a lot of what I read, and what I thought of the book at the time. On the subject of book challenges, I feel the same ! The only thing I always follow is reading one book a week, however long it might be. John Fish made an extremely inspirational video about it, I highly recommend it. Reading one book a week forces you to keep a moment of your day to read in an age where distractions are everywhere, and if I happen to spend more than a week to read a book, I don't panick, as sometimes durind my holiday I read more ! Also, a year always has 52 weeks, so its not an exponential challenge :)
2:53 Since the first book with cartoonish cover was released I hated it so much, I didn't think anybody would be so much into that but it kept growing and growint to the point where all books had pretty much the same cover.
Another trend I’m tired of in books and the book community is describing middle aged characters in a negative way. I read a book recently that described a wrinkled woman and said she must have been at least 40! Please! I am 45 and people don’t believe my 18 year old is my actual son. We don’t shrivel up and die at 30. Also, I’m nowhere needing a rheumatologist.
on the topic of reading challenges, i personally love things like Book Riot’s read harder challenge or even the NoveList reading challenge. yes, it’s tied to a certain number of challenges which means there is a reading goal, but i like that they get you to try and read new things. it’s less about the number of books you read, and more about expanding your horizons. i think that this is how reading challenges should be!! i feel like it promotes engaging more with the books you read as opposed to just reading a flat number
As a writer who dabbles with mythology in almost every story I write, the issue with modern retellings is they all “have to” have a point, a lesson, or some twist on the original myth that is intended to convey a message. And if that doesn’t happen, then it is seen as a lesser story or not valid in the genre. It reminds me of how Christian movies are not about the story but about spreading a message and proselytizing over having a compelling idea. When I write a myth retelling, it’s not always a retelling with modern sensitivities in mind or having a focus on “updating” the idea. Sometimes it’s just to retell the story in my own voice, connect two ideas together, tell it from a new perspective (like the antagonist POV) or just to have fun with it. But sharing these as “retellings” gets faced with the attitude that because they aren’t feminist enough, “modern” enough, or that there isn’t even gender bent characters that the story is invalid or not worth anything. Myths have been retold over centuries and millennia from the times when they were part of true oral traditions, and sometimes they were just told to entertain, not just convey a message or lesson or moral to the audience.
I can't thank you enough for speaking about the competition aspect that has grown in the reading community. I even feel, personally, that in my close friendships that competitive feeling is lurking in there and it is so uncomfortable, people really think that reading 100 books a year means that you are superior or an intellectual, and it really bothers me not enough people talk about it more often. It has been difficult even for myself to step away from this kind of thinking, because I don't want to ruin the hobby that brings me comfort by making it bring me more and more stress! Great video! Keep them coming I love your commentary 💚
The cartoonish romance books are so misleading. On one side you have heartfelt & pretty serious romance books getting categorized as “rom com” solely because of their bright cartoon covers and then you have books with several spicy chapters getting cartoon covers that are wayyy too innocent for the contents that are on the inside
People complained about the spicy romance novels with half-naked men on the cover because it’s “inappopriate” and “what if a child sees this” but if a spicy romance novel has a cartoony or understated cover it’s all “omg what if a child opens this book because of its DECEIVING COVER” like wtf do these people want. They won’t be satisfied until spicy romance books are locked behind glass and you have to show ID to buy them. I’m so done with this discourse fr
I just wanna old book covers like those you find on books from 70-s to like 90-s back 😭 They were actually interesting at the very least! Also bodice rippers covers are pretty cool and I would definitely recommend checking out one of the most prolific artists in that regard, Elaine Gignilliat.
Omg they need to bring those covers back. Growing up my mother read nothing but romance novels and the covers in particular are what stands out most to me about the genre.
imo romance novels, especially spicy ones, should have some sort of a hot man/couple on the cover, at least to convey what the book is about. If a book with a naked man on the cover makes you uncomfortable, you shouldn't be reading them anyways. And if you dont want people in public seeing you read books about naked men, you can always either buy one of those fabric book covers or make one yourself from old scrap paper/newspaper/whatever. A romance novel can have a more cartoony cover if it's suitable for younger readers and/or if it's mostly fluff, fluff books do give off a cartoon characters drawn cover, but books with the steamiest gangbang do not
@@phrok I find them so interesting because back in the 80s they used to be hand painted with oil paint??? Like someone would actually get actors to pose and draw them in oil and add like, the flowers and the flowy fabric and everything??? And then in the last few decades as computers got involved in book cover design these books now just have the worst photoshopped covers ever (trust me I work at a bookstore I've seen so many canva-made-using-stock-photos covers)
Totally agree with all, apart from the last point about UA-cam. I love that sort of content. yes, I will never read something like that because those books make me feel like my brain is leaking out of my head. but I’m nosy. I want the drama. I laugh out loud for an hour to those UA-camrs reading out shitty passages. It’s my favorite guilty pleasure. Sad it attracts more views, but yeah, I watched like 20+ videos about Coleen Hoover (and never will buy it myself)
I can’t speak for anyone else, but the “gamification” of certain things- book challenges for the year included- excites me and encourages me to read more and discover new stories and topics that I otherwise wouldn’t. You mentioned that reading a lot doesn’t make you a well read person. I disagree. I think it makes you better in discerning ideas, themes, metaphors and deeper meanings in text that you might otherwise miss. Just like eating more and a wider range of food helps you determine what’s good and what’s not, reading a lot and widely can help you determine good writing from bad and what you like and what you don’t.
I have to disagree with the cartoon covers on romance books. I feel like it provides discreetness that some people who read physical books want so they aren’t embarrassed about reading in public. I also think they are meant to follow the minimalism trend of art that has been prevalent this year. I get the opposing points but these are just some reasons that I feel like they’re okay
I'd have to disagree on that last point. Sure there are some videos that offer no critique or insight on the bad books they're reviewing, but as someone who's currently in the middle of writing a book or someone who's just genuinely curious, those kinds of videos are insightful. It's not particularly rage bait, especially because most of the creators have genuine advice to give about the works they are critiquing. I also wouldn't put some of the blame on the audience either; creators don't put NEARLY as much effort into their positive reviews as they do the negative ones. When a creator comes across a good book, they speedrun the review and list all the things they like, video ends. When a creator comes across a bad book, I have a 2+hour video to play in the background, letting me do something else while they thoroughly breakdown the book to its core and recommend writing tips/advice or better books. Positive review videos just do not have the same passion/comedy/time put into them as the negative reviews do. I think the audience impact at that point has to be so unfathomably small when the values are just not the same. Positive reviews on average give less content overall...so how can you put the blame on viewers for not engaging with projects that actively give them less to enjoy?
Just as people want to make smut for women acceptable, I want to make it acceptable that animation is NOT just for kids. The art of these books isn't even "cartoonish", it's just drawn. A good chunk of these are literal photos turned into silhouettes so it's as realistic as you can get. At this point we're arguing about pastels being included in romance covers. That's the same reason I see literal first graders talk excitedly about Helluva Boss (which should be 16+). It's not the fault of the artstyle itself. This is also why the animation category in the oscars is treated like a joke and we got Boss Baby winning over legendary Japanese animated movies like "Kimi no nawa" and "Koe no katachi". Why people feel less uncomfortable seeing the disney live-action remakes even though the animated ones are superior in every way. Why parents usually only watch animation with their kids. It's a visual medium, not a genre.
I track my reading in my notes app 😭 literally just by month, title of book, and rating. I downloaded fable this year but deleted it after a few weeks. The apps don’t make me feel good.
Alina, normally I agree with most of your takes and even in this video I agreed with quite a few of them, however I do think it's unfair to say that the people who all post rage reviews of books they didn't like normally don't post positive reviews when that's just factually not true. I do think that it is the case when it comes to channels that aren't normally booktube channels, but when it comes to other ones mentioned like savvy and a clockwork reader, it is simply the fault of the algorithm for only pushing their negative review videos. A clockwork reader, savvy, and reads with Rachel, all are creators who regularly post a balance of videos with different opinions and positive and negative results, but it's often the UA-cam algorithm that makes it so that their rant reviews are the only ones that are seen but if you took a few minutes just to scroll through their videos you would find that that is not the case. I'm all for having different opinions and book trends that you want to not see in 2025, but at least have it be factually correct. It is not fair to those creators who make plenty of videos of positive reviews to say that they don't.
Ok but I’m addicted to those “I read blank book” bc I’m so curious to know what happens in these books but don’t want to waste time reading them. Esp bc a lot of the people I watch specifically have really great, in depth analysis and criticism that bring up thought Provoking convos ! That’s definitely not the case for everyone, many are definitely just for views. Specifically I like savvy a lot, I think hearing their insights
Congratulations on 40+ thousand subscribers! I'm so glad more and more people are finding and loving your channel. For the record, I loved both of the videos in which you talked about the books you've read and loved and I really like those kinds of videos from other creators I follow as well. However, what I usually don't watch are in depth analyses of just one book if it's a book I'm interested in reading or even if it is a highly praised book (in case I want to read it in the future). On the other hand, I would watch half an hour long video about a notorious booktok hit I'm not interested in if I like the creator's personality and takes because it's a fun way to learn about what everyone is talking about regardless of whether they're loving or hating it.
"She should be at the club, he should be at the rheumatologist" 💀 I would never be able to participate in a reading challenge - not only do I not have enough time I often read quite long books (and often non-fiction). Also everyone in my real life tells me they think I've read a lot of books already so I don't think I need to set myself any more optional and, most likely, unreachable goals. Congratulations on 40k!!
Man, the age gap point really hit home for me. I read both Intermezzo and Cleopatra and Frankenstein this year, and it's safe to say that *especially those* aspects of both books were far from my favourite.
There are women who desire older established men as partners. Only recently people became obsessed with monitoring age gaps in people relationship. It’s so outrageous that a full grown adult in her mid 20s can’t date someone older than
To your point about there being an app for every hobby, it also makes a performance out of your hobbies because then you can share your stats and/or progress on social media. We share everything from our reading challenges to our Worldle streak and exercise. And this only perpetuates the competitiveness that these apps create.
I also have a thing against 'Reading 150 books this year' or these other ridiculous challenges, yet I still like to have structure and I want to get back into reading literature properly, so I am going to set myself a loose schedule for my reading for 2025 and see how it goes - I think I will appreciate getting to go through books in a more structured way, yet still not feeling pressured like those challenges do. Reading lists are incredibly useful
re: greek myths. I'd actually love to see more, but GOOD ones. I'm tired of the ones with no heart and surface level feminism. Madeline Miller is the only one I've seen do it well. But I love Greek myths and reading the source material is often hard or difficult to find, and I love to see how people reinterpret and expand on different characters. If these things were done well, I'd have no issue.
Have you read older novels in that style? Like German author Christa Wolf with "Cassandra" or "Medea", published in the 1980s. In her books, she links the ancient myths to societal issues she was experiencing, like living in the Democratic Republic of Germany
@maika0395 they're on my tbr! at the moment I'm looking for psyche/eros and icarus novelizations/retellings but sadly haven't found any that hold promise for me :(
Thank you for deconstructing various publisher marketing and online influencer trends. Your analysis has helped me understand some of my reading and BookTube viewing decisions. I’d like to share a couple of personal reflections: 1) I read for entertainment and information, mainly the former. I keep track of and rate the books I’ve read on Goodreads primarily as a memory aid. While I find the end-of-year data mildly interesting, it does not influence my reading choices; I will not select shorter books over longer ones to increase my Book Count, nor set and prioritize a Reading Challenge for myself. What if I set my goal too high? Does that mean my Family Time Goal and Personal Fitness goal must needs suffer so I can attain it? 2) I tend to prefer viewing true book/series reviews over rage rants or other click-motivated topics (the worst include those in which an influencer dwells on, and drills down into, their view/like/subscribe stats 🤮). When I watch a book video, I basically want to learn what specifically you liked about an author’s work, what didn’t quite work for you and why, so I can make a good choice according to my personal reading preferences. Sounds simple. How did reading for pleasure get so controversial and complicated?
I agree with everything you've said but I just love having a Goodreads goal. If I'm not going to reach it I lower it but I actually read way past it this year (I definitely didn't read many intellectual books though as most of them were smutty romance and fantasy books 😂).
Last year I wrote for a student magazine and I hate to admit I am guilty of falling for most of these trends and writing "listicles" with the same books everyone on the internet talks about 😅
I'm reading a book now called "Invisible Rulers" that focuses on how propaganda and conspiracy theories are amplified in the modern world. Sadly, it makes me think that we are unlikely to turn the online conversation into something more nuanced considering nuance doesn't get amplified and rarely gains traction. I've heard a similar analysis of religious movements, where the most extreme and restrictive movements were often the ones with the highest adherence. Obviously some nuance is possible, but it usually comes from creators who started early and have already established a wide and loyal audience. I'm sincerely hoping we can break the trend eventually. A lot of people have talked about BlueSky and recommended it as a platform not yet bogged down by rapacious algorithms that try to trap you on the platform. I plan on joining it and have some hopes. Because we really need a change.
Ngl a lot of these points came off as "holier than thou." For example, trashing Greek myth retellings then admitting you were a fan of them? Demeaning the romance genre as simple, mindless reading? Big generalization. And I must admit, I don't like romance or Greek myth retellings in most cases, but I get why people like them. Not everything has to be "nuanced and thoughtful." Also, the "hate-reading" genre of UA-cam has produced some incredibly valuable critique of problematic stuff in current literature trends, which seems to be exactly the same thing you were trying to do with this video. So I don't see why you are so strongly against it? Sorry, but I personally feel there were a lot of misses in this video.
I don’t really fall into any of the categories you mentioned, but this video is giving “I’m better than you and here’s why” energy. It just feels like you’re tearing down other readers and their interests. I’ve seen other UA-camrs make videos like this and none of them have done it so (what feels to me) snarky.
Every single UA-camr who does the bad book videos mentions at some point that nobody watches their positive reviews. They have them but the views are bad And as someone who enjoys rant reviews but never has time to read books - a positive review has no value to me while a rant review can be very funny. Like yeah it’s cool that someone wrote a good book, but I already know good books are all over the place… I gotta read the 60 books on my shelf first though And if you want UA-cam to be your job, well, putting out content that has an audience and gets recommended is necessary.
Reading challenges and gamification are kinda crazy to me when it’s people putting huge goal numbers out to get eyes on them. I think a modest challenge is great to get the ball rolling (that’s how I got back into reading, having a goal helped motivate me and by the time I passed that modest goal I had re-developed the habit) but 365 books in 365 days types, I wonder if they’re even enjoying themselves at that point because I’ve marathon read books just cause I couldn’t put them down and I did like nothing else all day lol. I do like the apps though just cause I love the StoryGraph moods data and tracking my TBR is made easy.
Not so much a trend, because I don't really engage with them especially when it comes to books (by this I mean I don't participate in them as in make my own content nor do I enjoy watching them), but there are some things I want to change in the new year. I have certain spending rules, and since my main hobby is reading I have quite a few surrounding books. One of them is that I am only allowed to buy 4 books a month, and if they cost above a certain price they count as two. This is good because it makes you think about the books that you are buying, and plan ahead. Plus it prevents me from impulse buying because nine times out of ten I don't end up reading the book or I don't enjoy it. That changed this year because I got a kindle, and because I wanted to make sure I was using it I decided to add four ebooks to the ones I am allowed to buy. I am going to change it to three physical and three ebooks, because I did not read a lot of books every month this year but also because I am not buying that amount of books every month. I don't feel like I need that rule anymore, so I am going to change it. It doesn't help that I am happy with the books I got that I don't feel the need to buy more at the moment. I don't really feel like this is going to be a challenge or much of a change. It just that two would feel too few for me.
Honestly, romance books with discrete covers are so much better to me and they're just superior. I like when they have certain things on the cover and you discover their meaning while reading the book or just some beautiful scenery. However, I wish people would stop making romance seem only like a "palate cleanser" genre because it's not. And I agree with the reading challenge. It's just evil and it must die, in my opinion. I stopped doing it for three or four years now and I found out that I actually read more when I don't have to put pressure on myself to finish X number of books to meet a stupid yearly goal.
Another thing that I'd like to point out with cartoonish illustrations on romance books is that they're misleading. An impressionable young reader could literally just purchase that book out of curiosity, piqued by the bright book covers and unaware of how raunchy and toxic it could be. Packaging these kinds of books in a cute and bright sort of way is unsettling because there's nothing cute about the stuff that are being written there lmao
I don’t have the means to house or buy book atp in my life, but once I can, my plan is to only buy books that I’ve already read, LOVE and know I will one day like to read again or loan out to people when they visit, plus a small stack I cycle out of unread books. So if I read one and it’s not a “forever fav” I can just give it away, donate it etc ! Having to move multiple times with a bunch of books I didn’t even care about rlly put my habit into perspective lol
I’ve been watching your videos for some time, and I find them really interesting, and I appreciate your nuanced views on bookish trends, so thanks for that! Regarding the last part of your video about rage bait video / thoughtful review video, the UA-cam algorithm does love the first and hate the second. For the last couple of months, I tried to find new UA-camrs to follow, because the one I used to like were doing more vlog contents and reading all these really trending romance/romantasy books, which I have no interested in (I don’t mind that they like it, everyone has their own taste), but it was so so hard to find good book reviews. All UA-cam recommends is either reading challenge vlog, big unhaul, hate on some booktok trend and “I read this popular book so you don’t have to”. I had to play a lot with the algorithm and blacklisted the big booktube channel just to get rid of the nth reading of Fouth wing. Now I just type in the search bar a book or author I like + book review, but the algorithm still recommends me the rage bait/challenge videos in my feed. I feel that for a small channel, if you want to be pick up by the algorithm, you have to give in to the popular booktube video, sadly…
I love putting cute clutter on my bookshelves, but most all of my decor are 2nd hand or other little things I got. Pictures of my dad are a big thing, stuffed animals (including some from my and my partner's childhoods), and even some old holiday decorations. You can make a cluttered and pretty bookshelf without engaging in this strange capitalist dance. Some of them are from when I did buy book boxes, but I kept them because I like them. My favorites are little things from local artists that I got from Renaissance fairs or art markets.
18:53 YES. I watch a lot of media analysis content and I find this aspect to be quite frustrating. For every popular movie that is found lacking, I wish they would supplement at the end with a movie they felt was a good example. Or just make a dedicated video of a film they did like. I think it comes to what you said-negativity gets more clicks (people like to collectively hate something)-but I think it’s more vulnerable to share something you like because people might be rude about your experiences
I'm not a fan of the cartoon romance covers at all, but some of them aren't so bad, for instance I don't think the covers for Emily Henry books necessarily seem "childish" or looked aimed towards young adults, but the cover for Icebreaker made me immediately assume it was YA, and until someone finally mentioned that there was some super spicy scenes in it I was certain it was YA because that cover just looks like a million other YA romance covers
I agree with all of these, especially the book challenges. I see so many people say they read like 50 to 100+ books all year round and it makes me think they really don’t read it. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to think about what I just read before jumping into a new story with new characters/worlds. Plus, you have to have almost no other life obligations to read 100 books in a week.
This may be cheesy, but speaking as a book lover a bit older than you, I’ve been very proud of your work here and the growth of your channel. Keep it going, dude, you’re so great.
When you said you don’t recommend books because it says a lot about yourself, that genuinely perplexed me. How do you get an audience without reviewing books? I thought that was the whole point (as well as getting your audience to recommend books). I’m a 63 yo guy, and I want to subscribe to channels (I just do UA-cam, not other platforms, as I don’t like social media in general, because the algorithm manipulates the type of “bad behavior’ you’re discussing in just the way you discuss. OK, I found my answer,by looking at your channel. All your videos seem to be about booktok (like booktube, except TikTok based, I guess). Given that, it seems you channel is focused on social media, rather than books, and simply used the subject of books to discuss what social media platforms do regarding that subject. If you are really interested in books and want to have conversations about them, rather than focusing on social media controversies, that might help get you out of those trends you seem not to like. First, though, you have to be willing to let us, as viewers, know what type of books you like and will be reviewing so that we can subscribe to channels that share our interests. I hope you give this some consideration, as you seem like a thoughtful person that I would join if your interests coincide with mine. Thanks.
I will scream from the rooftops about how good Storygraph is. Goodreads sucks in comparison. Storygraph got different types of challenges, a buddy read feature, great stats visualization. Everything people wish goodreads had but doesnt. Storygraph downplays the social feature, which some folks may not like, but i love it.
you illustrated so well the now common occurence of recording hobbies. I literally have an app that tracks everything, even bowel movements… Love your take on the cartoon covers! It tricks unbeknownst parents and puts explicit content in the hands of a far too young audience. As a marketing girlie, there’s WAY too many book marketing trends that are more insane than we realize. Aside from the tropification of the publishing industry, it is not NORMAL that 12 years olds can purchase “spicy” books, that’s what ao3 is for tbh😅
Agree on all of these except Greek myth retellings bc I love them (or the idea of them bc some are definitely flops), but I also want more diverse mythology retellings to become more popular ✌
While it is excessive, I don’t mind all the special editions of books purely for aesthetic reasons because you can simply just choose to not buy them. What I do hate is when those special editions have “never before published chapters” in ONLY those editions. That is ripping off readers imo.
I'm very aware I watch rant reviews for entertainment purposes. Does it indirectly contribute to the "bad book"'s sales or mentions/presence? Yes. But I also watch reviews that suggest line rewrites or plot edits. I'm not actually invested in those books or retain enough info on them to listen to every rewrite, but hey, I feel like I learn something about writing a little bit each time. I know youtube's algorithm makes it hard to get views on positive reviews, plus reviewers rarely wanna spoil books they like, and I also don't wanna get too spoiled of a book I want to read, so positive reviews also tend to be shorter. In the end, people don't have to read books for the merit, they can read for fun, and I also watch negative book reviews for fun. Eh.
the greek retellings have definitely lost its luster for me and i’ve only just started my fourth one so i’m not sure i have it in me to finish, but i love the use of greek mythology outside of a strict retelling like in The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov but that may be because he’s the only award winning bulgarian author i’ve heard of that has published works in english.
I think that in reading challenges, the community is the thing. Plus some people, myself included like to make lists and track everything since the school doesn't give that completionist dopamine anymore. 😂 Personally my reading renaissance happened when I found booktube through reading challenges in 2016, so I might be bias. But it is a damm good feeling to finish a good book AND track it finished as well. 🎉
My second book's on sale for the remainder of the year and I'm working on my third. But part of me still wishes I could write succesful fiction (I write education books for teachers), so I find all this fascinating.
I do get annoyed by the cartoon covers and I do think that it appeals to young tweens/teens (8-13yos) too much and many parents who don’t know about books would just think it’s an innocuous ya book. But I do also think that it’s not the publishing industrys responsibility to change how the book covers look despite many people saying ‘ it’s too childish and kids will read it!’ because ultimately it’s the parents faults. Why should authors to stop using cute cartoon covers for their adult romances just because some parents aren’t competent enough to check what media their children are consuming? It’s so easy to check what your kids are reading and a simple Google search would tell you that the book is full of smut. Parents need to take a bit more responsibility imo.
Finally a video that says truth, I will be honest and here is my little story, I have always read books but in my second native language which is french. Years ago I was enjoying each book, and no rush, I also used to watch french booktubers and they were all focusing on reading and learning a lessons from each novel. One day I made up my mind to learn English for fun and I ended up to speaking it fluently, and then I started reading in English, at the time bookstagrams were rare, but through years I grew stressed because of challenges that were spreading, I lost the track of reading and I felt super slow, so I gave up on reading, I read barely I might say, even though reading has always been my favorite hobby. I recently got back to read eventually and I don't listen to "some" booktubers and bookstagramers, I watch them but not comparing myself to anyone, I even read bad reviewed books cause I might like them. So read what you want and what the pace you can keep, reading is personal❤❤❤
8:10. The comparison isn’t well chosen. While yes, one can mindlessly read through books and take nothing from them, eating something or taking pictures requires so much less of an effort. Reading engages the brain and I highly doubt a person with no intentions to understand a book, its characters, themes, etc. will finish a 'good‘ book. Well-read is also a loose term. What’s the exact definition of it? Which books does one 'need' to have read in order to be a part of this vague group? Yes, taking a photo with your phone doesn’t make you a photographer, just as much as standing in a garage won’t turn your body into a car. However, depending which books one reads can indeed make you a 'well-read' person.
I have to confess I love old school romance book covers tho lol But at this rate I would even prefer the 2000s shitty photoshop covers over the cartoon ones
To add to the reading challenge point, I've had discussions with people suggesting they add some other reading goal or reading habit they'd like to work towards alongside their goodreads reading goal, for example reading more local authors or experimenting with another genre or even doing a no reading challenge to simply enjoy the books. The response is that having something to show their accomplishment at the end of the year is the driving force (the GoodReads congrats you met your reading goal and the number set underneath). To me, it comes across as performative and seems to take away from the experience of reading. Over the least few weeks, people have been mentioning the need to pick up short stories and novellas and quick reads to bump their numbers up and it bothers me so much. Is there any point to a reading goal if you're going to skim read shorter books to reach the goal before the end of the year?
its entertainment and pretty harmless since there actually is constructive criticism, u turn something most people dont like and dont see the value in, into something they can think of as valuable even if solely as silly entertainment. it even promotes the author, makes them better known (for better or worse). if u dont see the reasoning or value in something, dont mean it dont exist
how many more cosy Japanese fiction set in bookshops or cafes, how many more feminist retellings of ancient myths
Stop I recently started to discover all these Japanese books about cats???? What is up with that
This is the first time I'm hearing about Japanese books set in bookshops or cafes and I'm very interested.
@@accordingtoalinaI heard recently (in a Jack Edwards’ video) that cats on Japanese covers have cats on the covers to signal that they are a “cozy” read. Even if a cat doesn’t actually appear in the book.
Seriously. You would think they were the only contemporary Japanese fiction in translation not named Murakami if you didn't know where else to look. I feel like it is just another way of othering Japanese fiction. 2020-2022 everyone was calling it weird and 'quirky" including literal crime novels and now the everything is "cozy and quaint".
Y’all, don’t be turned off by all Japanese novels with cats on the cover or in the title. If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura is a deeply philosophical read and gives an extremely in depth analysis (albeit, with some comic relief) of a man dealing with his own mortality. A book can be great and have a “cute” cover too 🤨
My gripe is books that only contain praise at the back and no synopsis. I don't even care what the book is about, I will hate it on principle if it doesn't give me a synopsis on the back cover.
Right? I don't care what George RR Martin or even Barack Obama had to say about this book. Tell me what it's about, thank you!
It’s one thing when they use praise that actually gives you some info about the book, but vague positive phrases are not helpful lol
If it's paperback the synopsis needs to be on the back, if it's a hardcover the synopsis needs to be on the inside of the sleeve when you open the cover
"Electrifying!" - Vladimir Putin
this! there are so many books I didn’t even bother with because there is so little information on the cover/under the cover. another useless design choice is giving a small description of author themselves and even smaller mention when the book in question was written.... it's interesting but don't make me want to buy or read anything
“She should be at the club, he should be at the rheumatologist.” IJBOL🤣
If this helps anyone:
1. 2:50 cartoon book covers for romance books
2. 7:10 age gaps romance books
3. 7:50 reading challenges
4. 11:13 special editions and book merch that has nothing to do with books
5. 11:25 commodification of books
6. 14:20 greek myth retellings
7. 17:40 UA-cam hate-read videos
Timestamps are always helpful thank you
This was actually very helpful for me because I dislike video introductions. Thank you ☺️
Thanks
As someone who used to watch a lot of “reading the worst booktok romance” style videos, I think one thing that motivated me to watch negative reviews was the fact that I wasn’t actually reading a lot so watching positive book videos stressed me out made me think about how many books I wanted to read but wasn’t reading whereas negative videos let me relax and join in on the hate without worrying about actually reading books
I agree! I think this is a totally valid take from her, but I enjoy those “hate” UA-cam vides, they’re fun to watch and also they literally do what they say: they tell you all about a book that’s become popular and that way, you don’t have to read a book you don’t feel particularly drawn to but you do get to know what what people are talking about when they reference them. It’s fun!
As someone who watches book critiques/rants, yes, those creators do make reviews of stuff they like. That content just doesn't do as well on UA-cam so the algorithm won't show it to you. Also, it's validating when you end up hating a book that everyone's been hyping to find a video of someone tearing it apart. Makes you feel like maybe you aren't the crazy one after all.
Yeah this is the problem. People flock to those hate read videos and the views of the positive review videos are significantly less. So, creators are incentivized to do videos ranting about terrible books if they want to get people to watch. Then more people looking to join booktok/booktube will also buy those terrible books to rant about so they can get their own channels off the ground. Then more sales money for authors of terrible books.
i also appreciate when youtubers dissect exactly why the book failed for them, like reads with rachel does, so it’s not just a “this book sucked and i hated it” rant.
@@anishinaabae Reads with Rachel is actually exactly who I was thinking of XD. Nothing drives her up the wall more than comments like "do you even like books?" when she has a whole playlist of stuff she liked
i do kind of wish that second hand books would become more of a signifier of coolness. not that i’m thrilled that everything has to be a trend, but if we’re going to do trends, at least let them be sustainable ones instead of encouraging people to buy multiple copies of the same brand-new book and a million little “bookish” tchotchkes
I agree!
Also: using your public libraries, they are a great place where you don't have to consume anything (except a yearly fee which is often less for one year than what you pay for one hardcover book), you can get recommendations from librarians and discover books you maybe wouldn't have come across otherwise 😊
And if you read a book that you really enjoy, you can still buy a copy for yourself 📚
Yesss, 90% of my personal library is second or third hand, bought on Vinted or found on the street. It's amazing and feels even better than buying a new edition
No please No! They'll hike up the prices of my dearly beloved yellowed, moth ball smelling, annotated books.
This happened to charity shopping over a decade ago. The prices have never returned to their original affordable prices. 😢
I love sustainability, but please use your library if you can. When you get a book second or third-hand, the author doesn't get anything. However, they get a very small fee when you borrow it from the library. In the UK it's only £1. It's really helpful for authors.
@@afroironknight very true, maybe using the library really is the only way to escape the cycle altogether
Capitalism turning every hobby into a rat race against others, and *yourself* year-to-year (i.e the endless growth we all love to denounce) is my #1 factor for tracking my reads on a dumb excel sheet. No external tracking, no prompting, nothing. Just inventory to unload my memory. The independance + privacy is worth the slight effort in upkeep.
I’m seriously considering a spreadsheet for myself!!!
me too!! oh my god it feels like every bookish community and app is just trying to consume consume consume.
Capitalism doesn't turn anything into a rat race, it's people who do that. If you participate, it's your fault and yours alone
This is why I love my physical reading journal, it’s so fun and creative and nothing is pushing me to make it besides my own motivation
@SaveEurope my apologies for needing money to survive
I like the reading challenges that are set up on StoryGraph where you have a goal other than how many books you read. For example, the StoryGraph Read the World Challenge is a great way to find new books and diversify your reads
Storygraph is great!!!! Let's talk more about goodreads alternatives
I agree. The StoryGraph challenges are a wonderful way to branch out and try new authors, genres, etc.
Yeah, I did the BookRiot’s Read Harder challenge which is a list of specific prompts to fulfill, not a numerical challenge.
Unrelated: I love your username!
@@dannygoldson603 thank you! I’m super proud of it 😅
I'm ready to never see a "Telling you if you should read these popular Tiktok books with a simple yes, no or maybe" short again. They've become recycled content showcasing maybe 10 per video of the same 30 books over, and over, and over again with the literal goal of not saying anything about them. It does nothing but diminish nuance and thoughtful conversation.
Huhh? I never thought those were "rage bait." I like watching people deconstruct and point out the flaws in books that people happily ignore. Cuz that's usually what those videos are. It's not rage bait if it's a genuinely terrible book. They aren't just going "yay lets shit on this author for no reason!" The majority of the comments on those videos are discussing the legitimate flaws in the books.
I usually only watch negative book reviews cuz the content is more thorough and thought out. And passionate too. Positive book reviews are usually "its cute, its good, they have chemistry" but nother deeper. I need an obsession level thesis on why the book is so good or I'm not gonna care. Tell me about the themes, the emotional impact, the personal resonance. Tell me about the design and the foreshadowing and the little details that get overlooked. I never see positive views that have the same passion and detail as negative ones.
Yeah, I actually find those videos usually have decent writing advice and suggest interesting alternatives. Also, I think a lot of the themes in those books genuinely deserve to be critiqued, so long as the critique is nuanced. Also, (movie not book), I loved seeing Clockwork Reader hate on Poor Things while still understanding the point of it.
This!
The tone the criticisms are given in is important. Destructive versus constructive criticism.
I don't think they're rage bait either, but they do feel like "I'm gonna hate read this book that 20000000 other people have already made criticism videos on because I need views".
Same. And I think people don't want to delve too deep in positive reviews coz they'd need to get into spoiler territory, and viewers usually don't want to get spoiled.
I agree with many of the points you made, especially the reading challenges and special editions! I’m personally tired of romantasy. So many of the romantasy books feel like cash grabs to me now.
I just look at their covers and they all look the same. The lettering, color, symbols, even the titles all sound AI generated. You could make a bingo card or drinking game out of all the clichés with nothing new to offer
What’s so depressing about many of those books is that it feels to me like publishers throw new or inexperienced authors to the wolves by not editing their books enough but rely on the pretty editions selling anyway. That’s just leaving readers with the impression that the author isn’t talented when the truth might be that they were not supported enough when it came to improving and polishing their work.
I also feel like reading books because they're popular takes so much fun out of reading. My friends do that a lot and try to get the right books as fast as possible to be up to date but in return they mostly have 2-3 star books on their book lists, I did that too but now i try to be more mindful of what I am actually gonna like and i like reading way more because it doesn't feel like a competition anymore
I think that the trouble with most people might be, as is the case with me as well, is that people don't know their taste in books that well. After 4-5ish years of reading, I still struggle with this heavily. So taking recommendations from your favourite creators on the internet almost seems like getting recs from a good friend (para-socialism).
Also, I feel like reading "popular" books can be slightly addicting in the sense that you'll read (for example) 2 books back-to-back that are 5 stars, so you'll think "oh, so THAT is my taste!", so you'll keep taking recommendations from the internet because you had a good experience putting your trust into it previously, only to end up reading a bunch of 2 or 3 star books in a row.... but you always keep waiting for that sweet-sweet feeling of reading a 5 star again, like an addict, so you keep going back for more.
I hate that people feel this pressure. Once I unplugged from all of that and tried out books that appealed to me (could be completely unknown/unpopular), I actually found enjoyment. Never would've guessed I'd be into victorian/gothic horror or modernist feminist literature if it weren't for venturing outside of what's trending online.
I do have a couple issues with the points you made.
•I felt as though you made the romance genre out to be frivolous (purely for entertainment and not much else). Bell Hooks discusses this at length in her book “All about Love” and talks about how much intellectual value ‘love’ has.
•The other thing I sort of don’t agree with fully is tracking, goals, and challenges - basically gamification of hobbies. I am neurodivergent and if I didn’t set any goals for me, or gamify my hobbies, I would just keep switching from one thing to the next. There is a lot of value to gamification for neurodivergent people.
•As for special editions, I think it’s definitely capitalism but for people who read on kindle and only buy books they really love, it can be a super fun thing. I do think that there needs to be moderation for sure. I do think that Sally Rooney’s books fall into the category of wanting people to pick the cover they enjoy most and not every book. (Don’t come for the queen man I have faith in her 😢)
•I think the youtube content regarding popular problematic books is actually quite interesting when made critically. The clip you showed had people like Clockwork reader and Nikki, both of whom go into great detail about why this type of book is garbage and do in fact recommend good alternatives. I think adding that clip wasn’t fair to them at all because it paints them in a certain light. I’ve seen those videos and they are solid commentary videos. Also, Withcindy (another book content creator on YT) reads popular shitty books but engages with them differently aka in a comedic way and comedy has a lot of value as well. All the creators that I have mentioned are avid speakers for different social issues and belong to marginalized groups within societies. They are openly Pro-Palestine and Nikki in fact created the youtubers for Palestine program which fundraised giant amounts of money. The point being, when they talk about bigoted books, they have good reason to, and not just rage bait.
Well, those were my two cents.
Completely agree on the romance and problematic books thing.
Yeah I watched all of Cindy, Clockwork Reader and Nikkis videos and they make really good points. Saying they're ragebaiting is pretty shitty.
definitely agree on that sally rooney point btw
I also want to add that Sally Released all of her book covers at the same time not in increments by first releasing a plain cover and then going in with prettier covers to entice people who already bought the book to go buy it again - which is typically where the capitalism aspect of the publishing industry comes in. Again, do NOT come for the Queen.
I agree with all of your points, especially the gamification of hobbies one bcz I've had trouble in the past keeping up w my hobbies but storybook helped me a lot cz I forget about books I read and then lose the integrity I have while recommending then to others, and the last point as well, Cindy and the clockwork reader are some of my most favourite book content creators bcz both of them go in depth about topics that seem controversial to say out on the internet and they've given me incredible alternatives to shitty books, I read Rebecca by Daphne du maurier and was left in awe of the book and that's just the way they both gained my respect (Cindy is an important part of the book/writer content creators as well bcz she researches and reads and watches things to improve her craft and as a writer her insights are incredibly relatable as well as enlightening, and ofcourse her comedic commentary is hilarious)
Cartoons aren't just for children, there are plenty of cartoons for adults. 🤷♀️ When these covers started coming out my reaction was "finally romance novels look presentable instead of having naked sweaty torsos on them!" Although they have become a little too samey at this point
I understand what you mean, but I think the real problem is that really explicit novels are being marketed in a way that appeals to a really young audience. A parent or kid could easily mistake the innocuous cover as something appropriate for them. Trust me, I love cartoons, I just don’t think explicit romance novels need art that can mislead a younger reader!
@@Readerforfun101as a classmate of said ‘younger readers’, I don’t think it’s the kids being mislead, just the parents. The kids know exactly what they’re doing getting those books. It’s even a game to them, watching their blissfully unaware parents get spicy romances.
Some of them really do look like YA. I tend to prefer YA over romance as I don't really like heavy romances and smutt and have almost picked up some of them. Also some have content that shouldn't be read by impressionable teens and the covers should reflect that
I got one of these books included in a book order on accident, I didn't know about this trend and when I opened a random page it was full on explicit hardcore sex scene (the word deepthroat was used). It looked like a Hallmark cartoon movie cover, blew my mind that there was no warning of what was inside at all.
Meanwhile in German publishing romance novels all have the same canva looking vague pastel swirls with gilded fonts
Tracking on goodreads definitly does not make me "obsessed" with numbers. My memory is just shit and I like having a list of what I read and what I thought about it. I also like having a list of the physical books I have on my shelf and haven't read yet, cause I mix them all and they are all theough my house😹 (I set my "goal" low, cause I don't care and I never buy books from amazon.. )
I also just love lists lol.
It’s six years at this point but no more “A x of y and z”
meanwhile i'm here and cartoon covers are my absolute favorites
And that’s completely fair!!
ok devil's advocate, I don't think many of the "hate-read" videos are true ragebait. many of them are very well-thought-out critiques! as someone who is in a creative writing-adjacent role (localization), I find these to actually be quite helpful in learning how to improve my own writing.
A lot of Reads With Rachel's reviews go into a more in-depth analysis. Same with Rachel Oates
@emiliapawny4746 yeah, same with Savvy Writes Books whose Colleen Hoover video was in the thumbnail. her vid was actually a really good analysis of how parts of CoHo's writing would work for other genres, but not the one she's publishing in, and why certain scenes don't work together to achieve what the author likely intended. having watched the video myself, I wouldn't call it a "hate-read" so much as it was a "let's see what we can learn from this popular book-read"
@@Baguettish well, looks like I gotta check it out
How are we gonna talk about cartoon covers but not AI garbage art covers?😂
I guess these are still a relatively new tbh. These two trends can superimpose too, waiting for the slew of garbage AI cartoon covers.
tbh i feel that a lot of greek myth retellings have a very surface level, pop cultural understanding of the myths they’re adapting and the cultures they’re depicting. i very rarely get the sense by reading the text that these authors are familiar with the mythological figures they’re playing with like dolls, even if logically i know they likely are because of their degree or something similar.
edit: i think you’re entirely missing the point of the “i read this bad book so you don’t have to” videos. they’re for entertainment. if you know what you’re getting into, it’s just *fun* to read a bad book - especially with someone else, like nicole rafiee - and it’s *fun* to make jokes about it and it’s *fun* to share that with other people who agree.
So true about the retellings. And the characters all read like they're from the 21st century with the mindsets and beliefs of suburban teenagers.
the fact that nobody talks about the book called Hidden Signs of the Universe by Olivia Cooper speaks volumes about how people are stuck in a trance.
I‘m so intrigued by your talking style. The way you gently criticize without making others down! Your thoughts are really inspirational! Thank you Alina!
Hi Alina,
I agree with many of the points you made in your video, however I’d like to shine a different light on UA-camrs reading problematic books. many of these videos are actually very informative & enlightening. I’ve heard a lot about dark romance and especially this book ‘haunting Adeline’ (which to me is more straight up horror than dark romance, but that’s a conversation for another time). there was this in depth video essay on this book and why it was problematic that I think raised a lot of awareness about heavy topics such as how these books romanticise/glamorise SA, non-consent and why this is harmful. If there weren’t any people who read these books and then summarised it to you, I think many people would have to pick the book up themselves even though it may trigger them and definitely wouldn’t end well. It is definitely not just rage-bait content. also they highlight the difference between normal situations and what is normalised in the certain book, but wouldn’t be normal in real life. many people after reading these books have the takeaway that the relationship portrayed was healthy. we need people out there who are willing to expose problematic books and inform us on topics we may be confused about.
I kind of like the cartoonish romance book covers, but my best friend absolutely HATES them. She worries that parents who don't read but are totally supportive of their young reader might mistake something like a Tessa Bailey or Elle Kennedy book that has one of these types of covers as age-appropriate for their 12-year-old, when those books are generally quite spicy. She feels like the marketing of these books is purposely deceptive, as you said, to appeal to all ages, when these books are, generally, written with an adult audience in mind. She also worries that these deceptive book covers put too much pressure on booksellers to make sure that a younger customer or their parent are properly informed about a book before the purchase is made, lest they get in trouble for selling an inappropriate book to minors.
Also, your thoughts on reading challenges are spot on. I have an acquaintance who reads 80 books a year, which sounds really impressive, but ask her anything, literally anything about the last book she read, and she could barely tell you anything about the plot, much less the characters. What's the point?
There is a 13-year age gap between me and my husband, so I guess, obviously, age gap romances don't bother me, unless we are talking about one of the partners being underage or if the relationship poses ethical questions like student/teacher, boss/employee. My first year of university, there was a beloved professor who got in trouble for having relationships with two of his students. Because he was tenured, he was not let go, like he should have been. He was transferred to an administrative position, where he had less interaction with students. Meanwhile, the two students were kicked out of the university because they were taking part in a "sex for good grades" arrangement with the professor. More than you wanted to know.
Anyway, I always love your videos, and I think the UA-cam algorithm led me to your videos because I watch The Book Leo, and I appreciate that.
As a bookseller, your friend is spot on - we constantly have problems with young kids wanting to buy romance that’s wayyy to mature for them but we have no ability to ID customers like a video game store can so we have to just try and warn them (and when young teens shop alone and parent often isn’t their to veto it) - then we get mad parents coming in blaming us for telling it to them. Either give us full responsibility with an ID system or none at all.
Also a lot of adult readers complain they all look the same too, so nothing seems original and cool because everything is just ‘tall cartoon man and smol cartoon girl’ ( a lot of the popular designers also reuse the exact same design and face and just change the clothes and hair for different authors), at best it’s lazy and at worse it’s dangerous.
And now a lot of YA covers are actually following the romance cartoon trend too bc they want to catch the eye of older young adult readers but it all works to make it very blurry for people.
There’s some cartoon covers I like so I don’t think they should never exist but I think the overwhelming amount in that style is more the issue
A bookseller here and your friend is right there. Some time ago we had a guideline to not sell these books if the Parents aren’t around. But the company I’m working for decided to cancel this rule and now 12 years old are allowed to buy Haunting Adeline at our bookshop ….
But this topic started years before the cartoons-book-cover trend. We had many young people who bought YAOI mangas. One day a teacher come to our bookstore with one of those mangas. She said she took it away from their 13 year old students who were reading these at a school trip.
@@BleistiftSchwert - Thank you for letting me know. I started reading yaoi (and adult horror) at 14, but I know every parent is different about what their children are allowed to read and watch. Parents ultimately need to be engaged to make those choices because it is not fair placing that burden on booksellers, teachers, and librarians. Thank you also for what you do.
Thank you for what you do! Bookstores are my happy place. I have to admit, while the covers of romance novels were cheesy in the 80's and 90's, it was obvious that those books were written for adults. If I was a young person today, I would need resources like BookTube, BookTok, and Goodreads to help me understand who some of these books are intended for, especially those books that are shelved in the BookTok or Trending sections.
I know that some people are probably just making the “reading shitty booktok books so you don’t have to” as rage bait, but there are also people who make those types of videos and really explore the nuance of the content of the book and explain WHY it’s harmful/problematic and not just making fun of corny writing. Weirdo Book club’s rant reviews of haunting Adeline and hunting Adeline come to mind. She’s not just shitting on the books but she’s providing very interesting commentary on how the dark “romance” in those book are harmful and she has other videos on her channel praising dark romance books that depict consensual kink in a healthy way.
Goodreads is actually one of these tech startups from a time before social media platforms became just another place where people try to make you buy stuff you don't need or get yet another subscription that you don't need either. Like many of these companies it started with good intentions and was sold to a big cooperation later on. Amazon didn't invent anything, they pretty much kept the original design too.
I started tracking the books I read in a notebook in the 9th grade because a girl from my middle school book club told us about how her older brother had started years ago. Now, after some years, I really enjoy looking back at it. It is not for anyone to see, although sometimes family members take a look at it. I think the hand written format makes it really special, and I find good reads really complicated to use.
I simply write the date when I finished the book, its author and title, and add a mention if I read it in another language, or if it is poetry, theatre or an essay. If for school or when I am chatting with friends I need to give examples of books I read, I just browse this notebook, and with the title, the date, the other books I read around the same period, I remember a lot of what I read, and what I thought of the book at the time.
On the subject of book challenges, I feel the same ! The only thing I always follow is reading one book a week, however long it might be. John Fish made an extremely inspirational video about it, I highly recommend it. Reading one book a week forces you to keep a moment of your day to read in an age where distractions are everywhere, and if I happen to spend more than a week to read a book, I don't panick, as sometimes durind my holiday I read more ! Also, a year always has 52 weeks, so its not an exponential challenge :)
2:53 Since the first book with cartoonish cover was released I hated it so much, I didn't think anybody would be so much into that but it kept growing and growint to the point where all books had pretty much the same cover.
Another trend I’m tired of in books and the book community is describing middle aged characters in a negative way. I read a book recently that described a wrinkled woman and said she must have been at least 40! Please! I am 45 and people don’t believe my 18 year old is my actual son. We don’t shrivel up and die at 30. Also, I’m nowhere needing a rheumatologist.
Shrivel up? You made me laugh 😆 I am 56 by the way.
on the topic of reading challenges, i personally love things like Book Riot’s read harder challenge or even the NoveList reading challenge. yes, it’s tied to a certain number of challenges which means there is a reading goal, but i like that they get you to try and read new things. it’s less about the number of books you read, and more about expanding your horizons. i think that this is how reading challenges should be!! i feel like it promotes engaging more with the books you read as opposed to just reading a flat number
As a writer who dabbles with mythology in almost every story I write, the issue with modern retellings is they all “have to” have a point, a lesson, or some twist on the original myth that is intended to convey a message. And if that doesn’t happen, then it is seen as a lesser story or not valid in the genre. It reminds me of how Christian movies are not about the story but about spreading a message and proselytizing over having a compelling idea. When I write a myth retelling, it’s not always a retelling with modern sensitivities in mind or having a focus on “updating” the idea. Sometimes it’s just to retell the story in my own voice, connect two ideas together, tell it from a new perspective (like the antagonist POV) or just to have fun with it. But sharing these as “retellings” gets faced with the attitude that because they aren’t feminist enough, “modern” enough, or that there isn’t even gender bent characters that the story is invalid or not worth anything. Myths have been retold over centuries and millennia from the times when they were part of true oral traditions, and sometimes they were just told to entertain, not just convey a message or lesson or moral to the audience.
I can't thank you enough for speaking about the competition aspect that has grown in the reading community. I even feel, personally, that in my close friendships that competitive feeling is lurking in there and it is so uncomfortable, people really think that reading 100 books a year means that you are superior or an intellectual, and it really bothers me not enough people talk about it more often. It has been difficult even for myself to step away from this kind of thinking, because I don't want to ruin the hobby that brings me comfort by making it bring me more and more stress!
Great video! Keep them coming I love your commentary
💚
The cartoonish romance books are so misleading. On one side you have heartfelt & pretty serious romance books getting categorized as “rom com” solely because of their bright cartoon covers and then you have books with several spicy chapters getting cartoon covers that are wayyy too innocent for the contents that are on the inside
please when you write a bossy powerful female character don't make this all her personality, add a little depth.
She’s ~strong~
Also when the author dumbifies the male character just to show us how strong and smart the female mc
I think you should watch some of the "rage bait" content to see that some of those are just not that.
People complained about the spicy romance novels with half-naked men on the cover because it’s “inappopriate” and “what if a child sees this” but if a spicy romance novel has a cartoony or understated cover it’s all “omg what if a child opens this book because of its DECEIVING COVER” like wtf do these people want. They won’t be satisfied until spicy romance books are locked behind glass and you have to show ID to buy them. I’m so done with this discourse fr
I just wanna old book covers like those you find on books from 70-s to like 90-s back 😭
They were actually interesting at the very least!
Also bodice rippers covers are pretty cool and I would definitely recommend checking out one of the most prolific artists in that regard, Elaine Gignilliat.
Omg they need to bring those covers back. Growing up my mother read nothing but romance novels and the covers in particular are what stands out most to me about the genre.
imo romance novels, especially spicy ones, should have some sort of a hot man/couple on the cover, at least to convey what the book is about. If a book with a naked man on the cover makes you uncomfortable, you shouldn't be reading them anyways. And if you dont want people in public seeing you read books about naked men, you can always either buy one of those fabric book covers or make one yourself from old scrap paper/newspaper/whatever. A romance novel can have a more cartoony cover if it's suitable for younger readers and/or if it's mostly fluff, fluff books do give off a cartoon characters drawn cover, but books with the steamiest gangbang do not
@@phrok I find them so interesting because back in the 80s they used to be hand painted with oil paint??? Like someone would actually get actors to pose and draw them in oil and add like, the flowers and the flowy fabric and everything??? And then in the last few decades as computers got involved in book cover design these books now just have the worst photoshopped covers ever (trust me I work at a bookstore I've seen so many canva-made-using-stock-photos covers)
You’re right about one thing, everyone’s gonna have an opinion for sure
Totally agree with all, apart from the last point about UA-cam. I love that sort of content. yes, I will never read something like that because those books make me feel like my brain is leaking out of my head. but I’m nosy. I want the drama. I laugh out loud for an hour to those UA-camrs reading out shitty passages. It’s my favorite guilty pleasure. Sad it attracts more views, but yeah, I watched like 20+ videos about Coleen Hoover (and never will buy it myself)
I can’t speak for anyone else, but the “gamification” of certain things- book challenges for the year included- excites me and encourages me to read more and discover new stories and topics that I otherwise wouldn’t. You mentioned that reading a lot doesn’t make you a well read person. I disagree. I think it makes you better in discerning ideas, themes, metaphors and deeper meanings in text that you might otherwise miss. Just like eating more and a wider range of food helps you determine what’s good and what’s not, reading a lot and widely can help you determine good writing from bad and what you like and what you don’t.
I have to disagree with the cartoon covers on romance books. I feel like it provides discreetness that some people who read physical books want so they aren’t embarrassed about reading in public. I also think they are meant to follow the minimalism trend of art that has been prevalent this year. I get the opposing points but these are just some reasons that I feel like they’re okay
I'd have to disagree on that last point. Sure there are some videos that offer no critique or insight on the bad books they're reviewing, but as someone who's currently in the middle of writing a book or someone who's just genuinely curious, those kinds of videos are insightful. It's not particularly rage bait, especially because most of the creators have genuine advice to give about the works they are critiquing. I also wouldn't put some of the blame on the audience either; creators don't put NEARLY as much effort into their positive reviews as they do the negative ones.
When a creator comes across a good book, they speedrun the review and list all the things they like, video ends.
When a creator comes across a bad book, I have a 2+hour video to play in the background, letting me do something else while they thoroughly breakdown the book to its core and recommend writing tips/advice or better books.
Positive review videos just do not have the same passion/comedy/time put into them as the negative reviews do. I think the audience impact at that point has to be so unfathomably small when the values are just not the same. Positive reviews on average give less content overall...so how can you put the blame on viewers for not engaging with projects that actively give them less to enjoy?
Just as people want to make smut for women acceptable, I want to make it acceptable that animation is NOT just for kids. The art of these books isn't even "cartoonish", it's just drawn. A good chunk of these are literal photos turned into silhouettes so it's as realistic as you can get. At this point we're arguing about pastels being included in romance covers.
That's the same reason I see literal first graders talk excitedly about Helluva Boss (which should be 16+). It's not the fault of the artstyle itself.
This is also why the animation category in the oscars is treated like a joke and we got Boss Baby winning over legendary Japanese animated movies like "Kimi no nawa" and "Koe no katachi". Why people feel less uncomfortable seeing the disney live-action remakes even though the animated ones are superior in every way. Why parents usually only watch animation with their kids.
It's a visual medium, not a genre.
I track my reading in my notes app 😭 literally just by month, title of book, and rating. I downloaded fable this year but deleted it after a few weeks. The apps don’t make me feel good.
I like how you always acknowledge that there are multiple sides to every subject.
Alina, normally I agree with most of your takes and even in this video I agreed with quite a few of them, however I do think it's unfair to say that the people who all post rage reviews of books they didn't like normally don't post positive reviews when that's just factually not true. I do think that it is the case when it comes to channels that aren't normally booktube channels, but when it comes to other ones mentioned like savvy and a clockwork reader, it is simply the fault of the algorithm for only pushing their negative review videos. A clockwork reader, savvy, and reads with Rachel, all are creators who regularly post a balance of videos with different opinions and positive and negative results, but it's often the UA-cam algorithm that makes it so that their rant reviews are the only ones that are seen but if you took a few minutes just to scroll through their videos you would find that that is not the case. I'm all for having different opinions and book trends that you want to not see in 2025, but at least have it be factually correct. It is not fair to those creators who make plenty of videos of positive reviews to say that they don't.
Ok but I’m addicted to those “I read blank book” bc I’m so curious to know what happens in these books but don’t want to waste time reading them. Esp bc a lot of the people I watch specifically have really great, in depth analysis and criticism that bring up thought
Provoking convos ! That’s definitely not the case for everyone, many are definitely just for views. Specifically I like savvy a lot, I think hearing their insights
Congratulations on 40+ thousand subscribers! I'm so glad more and more people are finding and loving your channel. For the record, I loved both of the videos in which you talked about the books you've read and loved and I really like those kinds of videos from other creators I follow as well. However, what I usually don't watch are in depth analyses of just one book if it's a book I'm interested in reading or even if it is a highly praised book (in case I want to read it in the future). On the other hand, I would watch half an hour long video about a notorious booktok hit I'm not interested in if I like the creator's personality and takes because it's a fun way to learn about what everyone is talking about regardless of whether they're loving or hating it.
"She should be at the club, he should be at the rheumatologist" 💀 I would never be able to participate in a reading challenge - not only do I not have enough time I often read quite long books (and often non-fiction). Also everyone in my real life tells me they think I've read a lot of books already so I don't think I need to set myself any more optional and, most likely, unreachable goals. Congratulations on 40k!!
One day Alina will hit 100k and I am just gonne be here and scream I am the OG !
putting this on my 2025 vision board
Man, the age gap point really hit home for me. I read both Intermezzo and Cleopatra and Frankenstein this year, and it's safe to say that *especially those* aspects of both books were far from my favourite.
There are women who desire older established men as partners. Only recently people became obsessed with monitoring age gaps in people relationship. It’s so outrageous that a full grown adult in her mid 20s can’t date someone older than
It's the worst in fandoms. I've seen somebody go "age gap bad!" over 2 months
To your point about there being an app for every hobby, it also makes a performance out of your hobbies because then you can share your stats and/or progress on social media. We share everything from our reading challenges to our Worldle streak and exercise. And this only perpetuates the competitiveness that these apps create.
I also have a thing against 'Reading 150 books this year' or these other ridiculous challenges, yet I still like to have structure and I want to get back into reading literature properly, so I am going to set myself a loose schedule for my reading for 2025 and see how it goes - I think I will appreciate getting to go through books in a more structured way, yet still not feeling pressured like those challenges do. Reading lists are incredibly useful
Another problem with booktube is that everyone is reading the same book I would like to see variety on book-tube both old and new books.
re: greek myths. I'd actually love to see more, but GOOD ones. I'm tired of the ones with no heart and surface level feminism. Madeline Miller is the only one I've seen do it well. But I love Greek myths and reading the source material is often hard or difficult to find, and I love to see how people reinterpret and expand on different characters. If these things were done well, I'd have no issue.
Have you read older novels in that style? Like German author Christa Wolf with "Cassandra" or "Medea", published in the 1980s. In her books, she links the ancient myths to societal issues she was experiencing, like living in the Democratic Republic of Germany
@maika0395 they're on my tbr! at the moment I'm looking for psyche/eros and icarus novelizations/retellings but sadly haven't found any that hold promise for me :(
Thank you for deconstructing various publisher marketing and online influencer trends. Your analysis has helped me understand some of my reading and BookTube viewing decisions. I’d like to share a couple of personal reflections:
1) I read for entertainment and information, mainly the former. I keep track of and rate the books I’ve read on Goodreads primarily as a memory aid. While I find the end-of-year data mildly interesting, it does not influence my reading choices; I will not select shorter books over longer ones to increase my Book Count, nor set and prioritize a Reading Challenge for myself. What if I set my goal too high? Does that mean my Family Time Goal and Personal Fitness goal must needs suffer so I can attain it?
2) I tend to prefer viewing true book/series reviews over rage rants or other click-motivated topics (the worst include those in which an influencer dwells on, and drills down into, their view/like/subscribe stats 🤮). When I watch a book video, I basically want to learn what specifically you liked about an author’s work, what didn’t quite work for you and why, so I can make a good choice according to my personal reading preferences.
Sounds simple. How did reading for pleasure get so controversial and complicated?
Reading challenges stress me out and make reading feel less fun to me, but I love to see my stats so I just set one on StoryGraph to see those 😂
The marketing campaign around Sally Rooney's Intermezzo was so dystopian. That was wild...
ok, super glad to hear I'm not the only one who thought that!!
I agree with everything you've said but I just love having a Goodreads goal. If I'm not going to reach it I lower it but I actually read way past it this year (I definitely didn't read many intellectual books though as most of them were smutty romance and fantasy books 😂).
congrats on 40k+, have a nice 2025 🎄
Thank you so much! I hope your 2025 is everything you wish for xx
Last year I wrote for a student magazine and I hate to admit I am guilty of falling for most of these trends and writing "listicles" with the same books everyone on the internet talks about 😅
I think when GR started the challenge they were not owned by Amazon yet, but I agree it has became a great point for selling more in their platform.
I'm reading a book now called "Invisible Rulers" that focuses on how propaganda and conspiracy theories are amplified in the modern world. Sadly, it makes me think that we are unlikely to turn the online conversation into something more nuanced considering nuance doesn't get amplified and rarely gains traction. I've heard a similar analysis of religious movements, where the most extreme and restrictive movements were often the ones with the highest adherence. Obviously some nuance is possible, but it usually comes from creators who started early and have already established a wide and loyal audience. I'm sincerely hoping we can break the trend eventually. A lot of people have talked about BlueSky and recommended it as a platform not yet bogged down by rapacious algorithms that try to trap you on the platform. I plan on joining it and have some hopes. Because we really need a change.
I agree with so many of your sentiments! Thanks for verbalizing them 😊
Ngl a lot of these points came off as "holier than thou." For example, trashing Greek myth retellings then admitting you were a fan of them? Demeaning the romance genre as simple, mindless reading? Big generalization. And I must admit, I don't like romance or Greek myth retellings in most cases, but I get why people like them. Not everything has to be "nuanced and thoughtful." Also, the "hate-reading" genre of UA-cam has produced some incredibly valuable critique of problematic stuff in current literature trends, which seems to be exactly the same thing you were trying to do with this video. So I don't see why you are so strongly against it? Sorry, but I personally feel there were a lot of misses in this video.
I don’t really fall into any of the categories you mentioned, but this video is giving “I’m better than you and here’s why” energy. It just feels like you’re tearing down other readers and their interests. I’ve seen other UA-camrs make videos like this and none of them have done it so (what feels to me) snarky.
Every single UA-camr who does the bad book videos mentions at some point that nobody watches their positive reviews. They have them but the views are bad
And as someone who enjoys rant reviews but never has time to read books - a positive review has no value to me while a rant review can be very funny. Like yeah it’s cool that someone wrote a good book, but I already know good books are all over the place… I gotta read the 60 books on my shelf first though
And if you want UA-cam to be your job, well, putting out content that has an audience and gets recommended is necessary.
Reading challenges and gamification are kinda crazy to me when it’s people putting huge goal numbers out to get eyes on them. I think a modest challenge is great to get the ball rolling (that’s how I got back into reading, having a goal helped motivate me and by the time I passed that modest goal I had re-developed the habit) but 365 books in 365 days types, I wonder if they’re even enjoying themselves at that point because I’ve marathon read books just cause I couldn’t put them down and I did like nothing else all day lol.
I do like the apps though just cause I love the StoryGraph moods data and tracking my TBR is made easy.
Not so much a trend, because I don't really engage with them especially when it comes to books (by this I mean I don't participate in them as in make my own content nor do I enjoy watching them), but there are some things I want to change in the new year. I have certain spending rules, and since my main hobby is reading I have quite a few surrounding books. One of them is that I am only allowed to buy 4 books a month, and if they cost above a certain price they count as two. This is good because it makes you think about the books that you are buying, and plan ahead. Plus it prevents me from impulse buying because nine times out of ten I don't end up reading the book or I don't enjoy it. That changed this year because I got a kindle, and because I wanted to make sure I was using it I decided to add four ebooks to the ones I am allowed to buy. I am going to change it to three physical and three ebooks, because I did not read a lot of books every month this year but also because I am not buying that amount of books every month. I don't feel like I need that rule anymore, so I am going to change it. It doesn't help that I am happy with the books I got that I don't feel the need to buy more at the moment. I don't really feel like this is going to be a challenge or much of a change. It just that two would feel too few for me.
Honestly, romance books with discrete covers are so much better to me and they're just superior. I like when they have certain things on the cover and you discover their meaning while reading the book or just some beautiful scenery. However, I wish people would stop making romance seem only like a "palate cleanser" genre because it's not.
And I agree with the reading challenge. It's just evil and it must die, in my opinion. I stopped doing it for three or four years now and I found out that I actually read more when I don't have to put pressure on myself to finish X number of books to meet a stupid yearly goal.
Another thing that I'd like to point out with cartoonish illustrations on romance books is that they're misleading. An impressionable young reader could literally just purchase that book out of curiosity, piqued by the bright book covers and unaware of how raunchy and toxic it could be. Packaging these kinds of books in a cute and bright sort of way is unsettling because there's nothing cute about the stuff that are being written there lmao
Or the parents could be actually parenting? Googling the age rating of a book takes 2 second
I don’t have the means to house or buy book atp in my life, but once I can, my plan is to only buy books that I’ve already read, LOVE and know I will one day like to read again or loan out to people when they visit, plus a small stack I cycle out of unread books. So if I read one and it’s not a “forever fav” I can just give it away, donate it etc ! Having to move multiple times with a bunch of books I didn’t even care about rlly put my habit into perspective lol
Everything book related on social media, really stressed me out and wrecked reading for me for a few years.
I’ve been watching your videos for some time, and I find them really interesting, and I appreciate your nuanced views on bookish trends, so thanks for that!
Regarding the last part of your video about rage bait video / thoughtful review video, the UA-cam algorithm does love the first and hate the second.
For the last couple of months, I tried to find new UA-camrs to follow, because the one I used to like were doing more vlog contents and reading all these really trending romance/romantasy books, which I have no interested in (I don’t mind that they like it, everyone has their own taste), but it was so so hard to find good book reviews. All UA-cam recommends is either reading challenge vlog, big unhaul, hate on some booktok trend and “I read this popular book so you don’t have to”. I had to play a lot with the algorithm and blacklisted the big booktube channel just to get rid of the nth reading of Fouth wing. Now I just type in the search bar a book or author I like + book review, but the algorithm still recommends me the rage bait/challenge videos in my feed. I feel that for a small channel, if you want to be pick up by the algorithm, you have to give in to the popular booktube video, sadly…
I love putting cute clutter on my bookshelves, but most all of my decor are 2nd hand or other little things I got. Pictures of my dad are a big thing, stuffed animals (including some from my and my partner's childhoods), and even some old holiday decorations. You can make a cluttered and pretty bookshelf without engaging in this strange capitalist dance.
Some of them are from when I did buy book boxes, but I kept them because I like them. My favorites are little things from local artists that I got from Renaissance fairs or art markets.
As a Danmei reader I love cartoon covers 😭
18:53 YES. I watch a lot of media analysis content and I find this aspect to be quite frustrating. For every popular movie that is found lacking, I wish they would supplement at the end with a movie they felt was a good example. Or just make a dedicated video of a film they did like. I think it comes to what you said-negativity gets more clicks (people like to collectively hate something)-but I think it’s more vulnerable to share something you like because people might be rude about your experiences
I'm not a fan of the cartoon romance covers at all, but some of them aren't so bad, for instance I don't think the covers for Emily Henry books necessarily seem "childish" or looked aimed towards young adults, but the cover for Icebreaker made me immediately assume it was YA, and until someone finally mentioned that there was some super spicy scenes in it I was certain it was YA because that cover just looks like a million other YA romance covers
I agree with all of these, especially the book challenges. I see so many people say they read like 50 to 100+ books all year round and it makes me think they really don’t read it. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to think about what I just read before jumping into a new story with new characters/worlds. Plus, you have to have almost no other life obligations to read 100 books in a week.
This may be cheesy, but speaking as a book lover a bit older than you, I’ve been very proud of your work here and the growth of your channel. Keep it going, dude, you’re so great.
When you said you don’t recommend books because it says a lot about yourself, that genuinely perplexed me. How do you get an audience without reviewing books? I thought that was the whole point (as well as getting your audience to recommend books). I’m a 63 yo guy, and I want to subscribe to channels (I just do UA-cam, not other platforms, as I don’t like social media in general, because the algorithm manipulates the type of “bad behavior’ you’re discussing in just the way you discuss.
OK, I found my answer,by looking at your channel. All your videos seem to be about booktok (like booktube, except TikTok based, I guess). Given that, it seems you channel is focused on social media, rather than books, and simply used the subject of books to discuss what social media platforms do regarding that subject.
If you are really interested in books and want to have conversations about them, rather than focusing on social media controversies, that might help get you out of those trends you seem not to like. First, though, you have to be willing to let us, as viewers, know what type of books you like and will be reviewing so that we can subscribe to channels that share our interests. I hope you give this some consideration, as you seem like a thoughtful person that I would join if your interests coincide with mine. Thanks.
I will scream from the rooftops about how good Storygraph is. Goodreads sucks in comparison. Storygraph got different types of challenges, a buddy read feature, great stats visualization. Everything people wish goodreads had but doesnt. Storygraph downplays the social feature, which some folks may not like, but i love it.
you illustrated so well the now common occurence of recording hobbies. I literally have an app that tracks everything, even bowel movements…
Love your take on the cartoon covers! It tricks unbeknownst parents and puts explicit content in the hands of a far too young audience.
As a marketing girlie, there’s WAY too many book marketing trends that are more insane than we realize. Aside from the tropification of the publishing industry, it is not NORMAL that 12 years olds can purchase “spicy” books, that’s what ao3 is for tbh😅
Agree on all of these except Greek myth retellings bc I love them (or the idea of them bc some are definitely flops), but I also want more diverse mythology retellings to become more popular ✌
"she should be at the club, he should be at the rheumatologist" Thank you, I shall now quote this every time I argue against age gap romances.
While it is excessive, I don’t mind all the special editions of books purely for aesthetic reasons because you can simply just choose to not buy them. What I do hate is when those special editions have “never before published chapters” in ONLY those editions. That is ripping off readers imo.
I'm very aware I watch rant reviews for entertainment purposes. Does it indirectly contribute to the "bad book"'s sales or mentions/presence? Yes. But I also watch reviews that suggest line rewrites or plot edits. I'm not actually invested in those books or retain enough info on them to listen to every rewrite, but hey, I feel like I learn something about writing a little bit each time. I know youtube's algorithm makes it hard to get views on positive reviews, plus reviewers rarely wanna spoil books they like, and I also don't wanna get too spoiled of a book I want to read, so positive reviews also tend to be shorter.
In the end, people don't have to read books for the merit, they can read for fun, and I also watch negative book reviews for fun. Eh.
I'm still puzzled about this whole mythology retelling hype. Y'all didn't get traumatized enough by Greek myths in your childhood?
I do not belive that (greek) myths should be REtold. They are such powerful stories with no need of makling them "better"
the greek retellings have definitely lost its luster for me and i’ve only just started my fourth one so i’m not sure i have it in me to finish, but i love the use of greek mythology outside of a strict retelling like in The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov but that may be because he’s the only award winning bulgarian author i’ve heard of that has published works in english.
I think that in reading challenges, the community is the thing. Plus some people, myself included like to make lists and track everything since the school doesn't give that completionist dopamine anymore. 😂
Personally my reading renaissance happened when I found booktube through reading challenges in 2016, so I might be bias. But it is a damm good feeling to finish a good book AND track it finished as well. 🎉
My second book's on sale for the remainder of the year and I'm working on my third. But part of me still wishes I could write succesful fiction (I write education books for teachers), so I find all this fascinating.
I do get annoyed by the cartoon covers and I do think that it appeals to young tweens/teens (8-13yos) too much and many parents who don’t know about books would just think it’s an innocuous ya book. But I do also think that it’s not the publishing industrys responsibility to change how the book covers look despite many people saying ‘ it’s too childish and kids will read it!’ because ultimately it’s the parents faults. Why should authors to stop using cute cartoon covers for their adult romances just because some parents aren’t competent enough to check what media their children are consuming? It’s so easy to check what your kids are reading and a simple Google search would tell you that the book is full of smut. Parents need to take a bit more responsibility imo.
Finally a video that says truth, I will be honest and here is my little story, I have always read books but in my second native language which is french. Years ago I was enjoying each book, and no rush, I also used to watch french booktubers and they were all focusing on reading and learning a lessons from each novel. One day I made up my mind to learn English for fun and I ended up to speaking it fluently, and then I started reading in English, at the time bookstagrams were rare, but through years I grew stressed because of challenges that were spreading, I lost the track of reading and I felt super slow, so I gave up on reading, I read barely I might say, even though reading has always been my favorite hobby. I recently got back to read eventually and I don't listen to "some" booktubers and bookstagramers, I watch them but not comparing myself to anyone, I even read bad reviewed books cause I might like them. So read what you want and what the pace you can keep, reading is personal❤❤❤
8:10. The comparison isn’t well chosen.
While yes, one can mindlessly read through books and take nothing from them, eating something or taking pictures requires so much less of an effort.
Reading engages the brain and I highly doubt a person with no intentions to understand a book, its characters, themes, etc. will finish a 'good‘ book.
Well-read is also a loose term. What’s the exact definition of it? Which books does one 'need' to have read in order to be a part of this vague group?
Yes, taking a photo with your phone doesn’t make you a photographer, just as much as standing in a garage won’t turn your body into a car.
However, depending which books one reads can indeed make you a 'well-read' person.
I have to confess I love old school romance book covers tho lol But at this rate I would even prefer the 2000s shitty photoshop covers over the cartoon ones
To add to the reading challenge point, I've had discussions with people suggesting they add some other reading goal or reading habit they'd like to work towards alongside their goodreads reading goal, for example reading more local authors or experimenting with another genre or even doing a no reading challenge to simply enjoy the books. The response is that having something to show their accomplishment at the end of the year is the driving force (the GoodReads congrats you met your reading goal and the number set underneath). To me, it comes across as performative and seems to take away from the experience of reading. Over the least few weeks, people have been mentioning the need to pick up short stories and novellas and quick reads to bump their numbers up and it bothers me so much. Is there any point to a reading goal if you're going to skim read shorter books to reach the goal before the end of the year?
Needed a new ATA video, thank you!
Thank you for reccomending storygraph! I only got into gooreads this year so I'm not super attatched to it.
its entertainment and pretty harmless since there actually is constructive criticism, u turn something most people dont like and dont see the value in, into something they can think of as valuable even if solely as silly entertainment. it even promotes the author, makes them better known (for better or worse). if u dont see the reasoning or value in something, dont mean it dont exist