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BookTok is a dynamic and rapidly growing community on TikTok dedicated to all things literature. This vibrant platform allows users to create and share short videos that showcase book recommendations, reviews, reading challenges, and discussions about literary themes. With its engaging format, BookTok has become a powerful influencer in the publishing world, driving significant sales and sparking renewed interest in various genres. 

BookTok and Tropes

One of the defining features of BookTok is its emphasis on popular literary tropes. Users frequently highlight recurring themes, such as enemies-to-lovers, love triangles and found family, often reducing complex narratives to their most basic components. Business Insider has talked about how the format of TikTok has led to this result. “The focus on tropes has to do with the short nature of videos on TikTok… With one-to-three-minute videos, creators have mere seconds to capture the attention of a viewer and condense the plot of a book. Tropes make the task easier.” 

The problem is that this focus on tropes can lead to an oversimplification of literature, boiling a book down to its most basic points. As Isabella Madruga said in her article “How can reading make you dumber? BookTok makes that possible.” “…it’s like if someone took The Great Gatsby and marketed it with the tropes ‘pining,’ ‘exes to lovers’ and ‘love triangle,’ and ignored the themes of social class, cynicism toward the American Dream and glamorization of certain problematic/abusive themes.” 

While familiar tropes can enhance the reading experience by providing comfort and predictability, this reductionist approach can also detract from the richness of a story. It risks overshadowing nuanced character development, intricate plots and the deeper themes that make literature so compelling.

But that’s not the only problem found in the land of BookTok. Additionally, the focus on easily digestible content can create unrealistic expectations for readers. Many books that deviate from popular formulas may be overlooked. This could result in a  lack of diversity in reading choices. This narrow focus can stifle exposure to different voices and genres, ultimately limiting readers’ literary horizons.

The Positive Impact on Reading Culture

Personally, I have read a fairshare of books I found from TikTok. Whether it be a nonfiction book about the Donner Party or a “trope-centric” romance novel, BookTok has reinvigorated my love of reading. In this way, BookTok has played a crucial role in making reading more approachable and accessible. By creating a vibrant community where users share recommendations and discuss their favorite books, it has fostered a culture of enthusiasm around literature. 

When I was younger a book was always in my hand and to be able to return to even half the enthusiasm I used to have for books is so refreshing. In a lot of ways, reengaging with books and bookish culture has felt like coming home and I don’t know that it would have had happened without BookTok. 

BookTok and the Publishing Industry 

It has become obvious that people are buying books more than ever in no small part due to BookTok (though it is perhaps another question to ask if they are reading more than ever). According to The Week, BookTok contributed to the sale of 20 million print books by adult fiction writers in 2021. By mid-2022, sales in the genre had risen by another 50 percent. This phenomenon illustrates how social media can impact cultural consumption. As more readers discover titles through trending hashtags and relatable content, authors and publishers are keenly aware of the potential for viral success. This not only benefits established authors but also provides a platform for new voices, diversifying the literary landscape. In addition, authors and publishers are increasingly using tropes as a marketing tool to sell books by making new releases feel familiar to readers. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, I can neither fully endorse nor fully scorn the BookTok community. BookTok represents a transformative force in the literary world, bridging the gap between readers and books in innovative ways. While its emphasis on popular tropes can lead to oversimplification and limit exposure to diverse narratives, it undeniably fosters a vibrant community that reignites passion for reading.

Though already a best seller in Latin America and Spain, Isabel Allende’s “A Long Petal of the Sea,” translated by Nick Ciator and Amanda Hopkins, arrived in the United States Jan. 21. Allende, a widely renowned Chilean author, unfolds 60 years reflecting individuals whose lives progress despite the turbulent time in Spanish and Latin American history. 

The novel centers around Victor and Roser Dalmau, who flee the Spanish Civil War and immigrate along with 2,000 other Spanish exiles on the SS Winnipeg to Chile. The cargo ship, the SS Winnipeg chartered by poet Pablo Neruda, is one element among many that is based on reality. The Chilean poet, one of the most prolific and popular of the  20th century poets, really did charter a ship to bring Spanish refugees to Chile. 

Neruda is integral throughout the book. In Allende’s acknowledgement, she thanks him “for his poetry, which has always accompanied me.” Within Nerudo’s poem, “Cuándo de Chile, ” Allende found inspiration for the title in the line “OH Chile, largo pétalo de mar y vino y nieve,” which translates to “Oh Chile, long petal of sea and wine and snow.”

The book follows the lives of Victor and Roser Dalmau as well as other characters in Chile and dives into realities of displacement, exile, migration and constructing a life amidst political turmoil. While dealing with heavy subjects, this novel also depicts the love that slowly grows between the Dalmaus, who are not married for love, but so they may flee from Spain on the Winnipeg. 

The novel is grounded in reality. Many elements of the novel, including the trip on the Winnipeg, the dark history of the Spanish Civil War and the coup d’etat against Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende, were not fictionalized. Allende did extensive research for the book.

“This is a novel, but the events and historical individuals are real,” according to Allende’s acknowledgements. “The characters are fictional, inspired by people I’ve known…I’ve had to imagine very little, because as I was doing the exhaustive research I carry out for each novel, I found I had more than enough material.” 

For a novel that is just over 300 pages, the storyline is ambitious. “A Long Petal of the Sea” spans decades and crosses oceans. The development of the main characters as well as the many accompanying characters is incredibly immersive and engaging. Allende also manages to convey the reality and facts of the political and historical backdrop without seeming like a dry history text. 

My only qualm with the novel is how much is packed in. While it is truly impressive how Allende creates so many intersecting storylines that stretch decades during some of the darkest times in Spanish and Latin American history, it is all squeezed a little tightly into 314 pages. I truly enjoyed this read, but I would not have minded if the story was drawn out a little. 

I would highly recommend “A Long Petal of the Sea ” as an incredibly stimulating read that forces you to contemplate  and compare historical atrocities and past governmental abuses with the realities we contend with currently. While inviting the reader to consider issues of immigration, displacement and the responsibility that humans have to one another, Allende explores the human capacity for strength and love during the darkest of times.