REACTING TO YOUR BOOKISH HOT TAKES

[@bluesey-182]

"enemies to lovers" is so very rarely actually enemies to lovers anymore, it's now just a catch all for any time characters don't immediately agree with each other and it's 100% used as a marketing buzz word to sell books

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

Basically, it's conflated with Hate-to-Love, which is a different trope. ((Not sure if that's the actual trope name tho🤣)) But, basically, two characters can absolutely hate or dislike each other even without being enemies outright(just because you don't like someone doesn't automatically make them a full-on enemy)-and just because two characters are enemies doesn't always mean they necessarily always automatically hate or dislike each other at all(in fact it might totally eat at them and rip them up inside that they're enemies) sometimes it really just means that they have jobs or philosophies that are at odds with each other(at least when they are enemies specifically because of a personal betrayal or other equally personal vendetta). You need something a little more than just not liking or just not getting along with each other to make two characters actual enemies. You can have both enemies-to-lovers and hate-to-love all at one same time, but you can also have either one by itself. And that's a distinction that seems lost sometimes.

[@lostaj7287]

Yeahh.. Great example is the spanish love deception methinks

[@jeaicbreathnach1724]

​@@lostaj7287 Yes!!

[@glaringdream1456]

Exactly what I was going to say! i love actual enemies to lovers, so the misleading marketing is disappointing. No, the FMC hating the MMC for a misunderstanding and him surprise, being in love the whole time isn't enemies to lovers. Banter and bickering where they argue but find each other hot right away is also not enemies to lovers.

[@HP-ej3bo]

As someone who loved daisy Jones and the six, I will agree it's because of the audiobook bringing so much personality to the characters.

[@tourmii]

Yeah I just finished it yesterday actually and I very quickly wished I had just gotten the audio book

[@zoea4639]

I have to disagree… as someone who can’t stay focused with audiobooks and therefore doesn’t read them, I could not put down Daisy when I read it years ago.

[@yukichan177]

voice might be giving them personalities but the thing is... for the most part, it might not be the personality the author is intended so voicing books by giving characters personalities might contradict the author intentions and make unnecesary fanwars between readers about characters real personality.. those who voice books need to just read without giving any emotions or personlity to anything

[@jacforswear18]

@@yukichan177 an audio book of a dialogue heavy story read with zero emotion would be unlistenable. The people who ready audio books are either the authors (who are bringing their intentions behind the writing that might be different than how readers would interpret them) or voice ACTORS who are acting out a story. Everyone who reads out loud well brings emotion to the reading. Audio books are their own category of art/lit.

[@mariaalejandranunez8808]

Saying Jesse's outro along with him is my passion, and has been my passion for the past 8 years.

[@bettyreads222]

Yes for calling out the misogyny that some authors are getting. Have been dealing with a bad pain week and appreciated the giggles in your jokes and editing talent. ❤

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

He makes an interesting and fair point about how female authors always seem to get disproportionate hate compared to male authors, and how it often seems people always find some excuse for it almost just because a female author gets popular. I absolutely support calling that b.s. out, too! However, what I've heard is that supposedly people are unhappy with something about how Taylor Jenkins Reid writes Latinx characters?. 🤔🤔

[@bettyreads222]

@Jaginaia Electrizs oh yeah the call out for Taylor is valid because the way she represents Latinx characters ain't cool with us, while I enjoyed Evelyn Hugo I can see and understand where folks are coming from and while I didn't read her latest it sounded like she did the same thing folks were calling her in on before. So 🙆‍♀️

[@wordstowordlessthings]

hot take: dog-earing pages is fine! stopping to highlight or whatever breaks the flow of the story! once i've experienced the book as a whole i can go back to the folded pages as a highlight reel to keep the feelings alive a little longer!!

[@dancegregorydance6933]

No. No no no no no no

[@mariahsj689]

No. That's what book darts are for

[@elise85391]

I would LOVE a Haymitch spin-off.

[@gabbsface1552]

felt the same about the Song of Achilles. I didn't cry or anything, but yeah, it was sad. I think maybe I'm desensitized to sad books at this point.

[@wordstowordlessthings]

i heard allisonpaiges describe short books as 'books that respect your time' and i felt that in my soul

[@rivka_sos]

ALSO marketing a book based on its trope is my biggest pet peeve like ill be watching a video to find some recommendations and its all "this is small town romance, friends to lovers, grumpy sunshine" and im like okay but WHATS THE PLOT

[@its_just_seb]

Long book recommendations! I am someone who actively avoids long books, but Kate Morton's books are the exception to that rule for me. She writes multi-generational family mystery type books with different point of views from different time periods. Those aren't usually my cup of tea, but her execution is so phenomenal, every word feels well placed and intentional, every sentence well-crafted, and when i pick up her books i feel like i'm in good hands. i don't have to worry whether I'll be able to understand the intricacies of the plot because she does such an amazing job with plot progression and pace. And her plot twists, oh man, they are the stuff i live for, they blow me away. My favourite book of hers is "The Lake House" (592 pages), and I've just started reading "The Distand Hours" (562 pages). Also! My unpopular opinion is that I loooooathe modern book marketing that relies on tiktok-able or instagramable images of the cover and a bunch of tropes surrounding it with little arrows pointing to it. And there's never a summary to be seen. I don't care if it's enemies to lovers, forced proximity, spicy, female protagonist, I DON'T CARE GIVE ME A SUMMARY! Tell me what the book is about or I will vow to never read it simply out of spite. This is not ao3 (i say this as a fic writer, but by god has ao3 rotted book publishing's collective brain), stop treating it like it is! I don't care about your tropes, i don't care about your blurbs, i care about the SUMMARY!

[@forkyfork]

10 months later and STILL so many arrows. It's like I've already read the book before I read it.

[@Foxheartbooks]

Every time my sister sees me folding the cover of a paperback around so I can hold it more comfortably she give me a death glare😂

[@melissaguild1859]

I felt the same about Song of Achilles. I finished the book and thought, "Whaaaaaat was everyone TALKING ABOUT?!?"

[@leighs1522]

Same!

[@aliesha9871]

I love these types of videos! I can not express the feeling of having Jesse explain exactly how I feel about Taylor Jenkins Reid down to which of the two books I prefer that I've read, and why I think I like Daisy Jones and the Six less than The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. But the characters feel so real, no doubt about it!

[@VicandWes]

I agree I want Haymitch’s Hunger Games or Finnick’s

[@zoea4639]

For Song of Achilles, I finally read it this past week and I was scared it wouldn’t live up to the hype and how much I loved Circe and while it didn’t match that, and I think that’s more because I could identify with Circe more, I think it was a beautiful and heartbreaking story. I thought I would cry more, and then I read the last page and immediately started ugly sobbing. Was it brilliant…no. Was it a good book with the perfect ending…yes.

[@lizbradley7489]

I did enjoy The ballad of songbirds and snakes book but I enjoyed doing origin villain stories a lot like I enjoy seeing where the villains come from what happened was their trauma and their past or that for revenge or did they just lose your way I think it's really cool that we got to explore a villain that I find more scary than most of the other YA because President Snow is just a man doesn't have any powers or special abilities

[@kanashiiookami6537]

Exactly. The only thing I hated about that book was the "chase the trend" title that it was given. But I love a good villain origin story that proves to us even the villains have their humanity. (it's been a while since I read the book, so I can't remember exactly how it ended at all, just that I did enjoy it.)

[@mackenziemc]

books that are good long: The Kingkiller Chronicle “Name of the Wind” and “The Wise Man’s Fear"

[@kcnbt99]

I agree with the person that Song of Achilles wasn't that sad but I think that might be because I was going in expecting it to be sad. I did cry on the last page tho, lol. But it wasn't devastating imo

[@mariepotter8921]

Thanks for posting. Dealing with stress and anxiety rn, so prayers r appreciated ❤️ hope you’re doing well

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

I can actually see the tropes/predictability thing both ways-I can see going into something knowing exactly what you're going to get and getting exactly what you wanted being very appealing, but I can also see going into something wanting to be surprised by the unknown to be the most exciting thing. I think it just depends on individual reader preference, or [for me ]exactly what I'm reading and why &/or my exact mood at the time! ^--^

[@myafayebyrne7091]

I NEED Jesse's playlist because all of these Taylor Swift references are amazing!

[@eden.elizabeth]

i very much disagree that the hunger games isn’t as could as divergent. like for me, i think that the best divergent book doesn’t even compare to the worst hunger games book. idk maybe that’s just me. also with songbirds and snakes, i honestly have struggled through it (not even half way) because i’m really not about trying to victimize snow

[@rivka_sos]

HOW IS DIVERGENT BETTER THAN THE HUNGER GAMES i could go on a 3 hour rant about how terrible divergent is and hunger games (at least the first two but imo also the third) is one of the best series written in the 2000s

[@Flowing_Time_bwc]

4:00 "Lord of Mysteries"....... But it's an officially translated webnovel... So it doesn't really have standard length chapters. It has 1400+ chapters but took me 140 hrs to read distributed across a month and a half.

[@deb_step]

I was so ready to see a HelloFresh meal in this video 😂

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

Yes! Times-two! I have been noticing Taylor Jenkins Reid getting a lot of criticism, lately-aannddd, I think you're basically right about BookTok!

[@joyahawkrose3984]

I would agree about The Song of Achilles. I thought it was lacking in feelings by the time I finished it and I was expecting so much more

[@starrstuff]

Song of Achilles left me pretty sad but i wasnt straight up bawling my eyes out. id say its a good sad book but the experience of the reader might vary depending upon your emotional stability. you should read it tho. its a good book.

[@lauravsthepage]

I agree its good to chill out about numbers, but the more books you read the better your reading comprehension will get. There are so many amazing books out there and realistically I will only get to enjoy a certain tiny % of them before I die so yeah I am gonna read as many as I can before I do.

[@FromtheDepthsofMel]

My biggest "hot take", according to others, is that I think it's okay to dog-ear pages. I do it to mark pages that make me feel strongly in one way or another. Upon rereads, or if I just want to feel a particular way, I can just flip to them and reread those pages. Now, I need the opinions of others. My husband's cousin(s) wrote some --at least somewhat-- popular books, one of which is getting turned into a movie. We had gone to her first book signing as a date when we first started dating. I started reading her first one, but struggled with some of the-- too prosey for my taste-- writing. Haven't picked it up since. Do I give that one another chance, try one that isn't her debut novel, or wait until the movie comes out? Her sister also just wrote a novel and while I'm sure the writing isn't exactly the same, I am hesitant to start it for that reason. I don't want to have to tell them at the next family get-together that they make it to. 😆

[@fishbowlwoman]

Oof, reading books by people you know is tricky. Don't blame you for hesitating! Personally, I'd wait for the movie as long as you can avoid a conversation explaining why you haven't finished the book. 😬

[@small_and_dangerous2068]

Oof. This is so hard! My first boyfriend’s dad was an author and I was given his first book for free. I read it and didn’t love it, but pasted on a smile and just didn’t say much other than the few things I liked. Then I realized he had written 13 more books in a similar style and I was going to be given them for free… We broke up. (Not because of his dad though, lol!) we both had an amicable break up before I even received book 2, so I didn’t have to worry about this particular moral dilemma. Definitely talk to your husband about it though and see how important it is to her that you read it. I read that first book because my boyfriend was so proud of his dad’s work and I wanted to make a good impression.

[@fatimashah2925]

My hot take (that I have nourished for the entirety of my existence): You don't need to bend books. I hate it when someone bends my books, like if you want to read my books, and you bend it past 90°, I am not gonna give you another book of mine again. 90° is far, far more than enough and doing even a degree more gets on my nerves. I feel like people are tryna break to book or crease the spine. And I hate creases on the spine. I will never lend you a book if you crease its spine, or any part of the book tbh.

[@Mali_28]

Jesse please, where did you find that shirt. I LOVE it!

[@danielgonzalez-pf5el]

Honestly the people that get heartbroken by The Song of Achilles do so because they are not familiar with the Iliad. Which is insane. I can’t believe that there are people who don’t know (spoiler alert for a 6000 year old story) Patroclus dies. It’s still a very emotional story. But the people that get broken by it are so because of shock.

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

8:16 - I wholeheartedly second this stand-point! 🤍💜💖

[@thatdamfangirl]

I absolutely loved The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes! I gave it 4 stars. It's sometimes fun to read a book from the villian's perspective and I wasn't rooting for Snow at all, which I was scared would happen. However, I do agree that I wish we had a Haymitch prequel.

[@_lilyofthevalley_]

4:24 "...are gorgeous, by Taylor Swift" this is when you know that a man is high quality

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

I actually totally agree that Bible pages really _do_ feel nicer; they have a softer, more silky/velvety texture.. unless you get a thick-paged one. BUUT I also agree that thicker pages are much more ideal and far less nerve-wracking / far more relaxing / for reading in general, because then you don't have to worry as much about how quickly or how carefully you're turning those pages or not. 🙂🙂🤭🤣🖤💖

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

Definitely enjoyed this video! Thanks!!! 💜💜💖 And absolutely agree that we should all be able to just agree to disagree sometimes and live in harmony with each other anyway!🤍😊💖

[@ElizabethNicoleSchwartz]

I'm someone that actually prefers Daisy Jones and The Six to Evelyn Hugo. But out of the 6 Taylor Jenkins Reid books I've read, Evelyn is my 2nd favorite.

[@Bookinista08]

I loved this video! 👏👏 Also The Song of Achilles has, first and foremost, some of the most gorgeous prose I have ever read. It's honestly a pleasure to go through it. 😊

[@kitsune9797]

I agree with The Ballad Of Songbirds and Snakes one. Even though I enjoyed the story, I just wish it'd put more focus into the Hunger Games itself or giving more insight on their impact on the rest of society. Still gonna watch the movie adaption though because The Hunger Games has always been my favorite series lol

[@lost.in.prose.]

Your take on annotations is just so apt! ✨

[@zelpazz]

The popular books everyone thinks are overrated: I love The popular books everyone thinks live up to the hype: I don't like Maybe this is why I don't have any friends

[@littleflix3393]

I mean, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book unless someone was really wanting a story like this, but I recently read The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. After 1,008 pages that engrossed me, left me wanting more and now I'm totally obsessed with the series, I guess I agree with its length 🤷‍♀️🤣

[@96DAKI53]

The lost symbol by Dan Brown a fantastic long thriller with a billion plot twists!

[@velizarajambazova7291]

I present to you an even hotter take - Song of Achilles is not only not that sad, but also not that good. It's just a bad rip-off of the Iliad but with "romance" that's not even that romantic.

[@tata8479]

Fluff>spicy 💯💯💯 fluff always had me squealing over their innocent stuff. Spice is nice but I just want to read in peace 😂

[@barbarat444]

I was always sceptical of TJR books because everyone was crazy about them. But then I read Evelyn Hugo and joined the crowd. Like one youtuber said it - it's like she sprinkles pages of her books with crack. She is not overrated, the rating is telling the truth 😄

[@futhermore]

I agree with the song of achilles person. It's sad but nothing to write home about in tbh

[@derpybird2039]

For long books that deserve to be long I have to go with The Chorus of Dragons series by Jenn Lyons. Each book was 500-700 pages long but I never felt like the books were dragging on or like I was getting bored of it.

[@findingcaroline2032]

This was such a funny video haha I cracked up at the spicy romance YA side note version of you. Hilarious -- loved it!

[@shazmatazz6769]

13:12 I LOVE THE BLOOPERS LMAO PLEASE

[@squidwardtentacles7144]

I think Us Against You by Fredrik Backman is necessarily long (it's 435 pages).

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

The only time I personally have mismatched books is if that was just how the cards fell, like for some reason or another I just didn't have a choice[ or I started with book 1 in softcover but then didn't want to wait that long to read the next books as the came out], OR _if_ I actually didn't like a certain cover badly enough that I refused to buy it and bought it in a completely different edition instead just to avoid having that cover. (I did that for book two in Sarah Rees Brennan's Demon's Lexicon trilogy. Because the U.S. editions changed after the first book, and I really loved the original cover of book 1 so much, I have books 1 & 3 in hardcover but book 2 in U.K. paperback. 🤣🤭💖)

[@kirikat9365]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you wanna conquer big books you gotta portion it out! Get your daily dose in and you'll find you're craving for tomorrow to come so you can keep reading. And make the portions small! 50, 75, or 100 pages depending on your free time. It works, I swear!

[@prarthanamodi9479]

Me stresses about my exam and gets a notif that Jesse uploaded a video and i come here for the chaose

[@Frogwithmushroomhat]

I agree with not paying attention to how many books you read. I personally have been struggling with reading lately mostly because I’m distracted but I feel having a specific amount of books I should is to stressful, I want to be entertained not stressed by the amount of books I have to read I also somewhat disagree with the ballad of songbirds and snakes take. I have love hate relationship. I love the writing and storytelling, and the only thing I don’t like about it is snow. And I know snow is meant to be the bag guy but in the very beginning I kinda sympathized for. It was the end that threw me for a loop. I had to literally put the book down for a few hours to cool down before finishing it. What snow did at the end made me very angry and it’s the only reason why I have a love hate relationship with it

[@daniellewilliams1459]

Oh my gosh Jesse, I feel the same way I hate long books especially when they are longer then necessary it feels more like a chore . Hey also by the way I read Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow I really didn’t enjoy it but I’m reading The New Girl by Jesse Q Sutanto overall great video you made me laugh and put a smile on my face which is what I needed today ❤

[@TheMelodramaticBookworm]

Whether annotating works or not and how it works depends on the person doing it. Some do it because they like it, some like me do it because going over the content twice as they annotate helps them remember things, some do it just because. Either way, it's a subjective thing and is bound to change. I never used to annotate - I even got horrified at the mere thought of writing in my books. But that has changed because of a ton of reasons and now, I love tabbing and annotating. I even bought a couple of physical copies just so I could annotate them 😁

[@TheMelodramaticBookworm]

OMG your reaction to the hardback hot take is my favorite 😂😂😂 as an arthritic person, I tend to gravitate towards hardbacks more because I can put them down while I read. But with paperbacks, I'm more often than not struggling because it feels to my pained bones that I'm trying to hold down a flapping seal 😂

[@srijabiswas4989]

"some of the pages are even orange-ing" I just completely lost it at that y'all

[@Bailey_93]

If you want haymitch content there is apparently a limited show called the quarter quill coming to Netflix in a year or so.

[@deannascorner8112]

Thank you Jesse for mentioning the misogyny happening with the hatred of female writers. I feel the same

[@thewitchef]

Here's my hot take: we need less sagas and series and more standalone books. Sagas and series are making it so books feel like TV.

[@butzichen]

Wow, such a fun video and the editing OMG what a devotion, I'm blown away

[@fandomshark]

I didn’t cry from “Song of Achilles” either. I really liked the book, it just didn’t wreck me like everyone else seemed to have been.

[@madisonelizabeth329]

That’s so fair. It is my favourite book of all time, and it really did emotionally wreck me a lot, but I didn’t cry. It was just an internal feeling

[@fandomshark]

@@madisonelizabeth329 It's beautifully written, and I can understand why people have the reaction they do. I also listened to an audiobook version of it, so that might have made a difference too. I did like it enough to go out and buy a physical copy of it. I needed it on my shelf.

[@madisonelizabeth329]

@@fandomshark I’m glad you enjoyed it. It is gorgeously written

[@camiperfer]

Love your videos Jesse!! :D

[@Isabel-os8xj]

I 100% agree that the hunger games spinoff should have been about Haymitch

[@umbrellablox5448]

This channel makes me feel so welcome as a book lover. Even if they are hot takes 😭

[@gabriellabatel]

Hello! Can't wait to watch this!!!

[@scubacat22]

I agreed with a lot of your opinions, particularly about long books (it seems like every book these days could be improved by 50 to 100 less pages!) and Daisy Jones. I heard it on audio and even then I thought it was just meh. Oh, and I also wrap my paperbacks around like that! lol

[@shazmatazz6769]

I love your t-shirt omg where did you get it from?

[@thegirlonfiredolls]

i love the cruel prince trilogy i literally finished book 3 yesterday night i was tired and needed to go sleep but i wanted to know what was happenin next and read it. im buddy reading the series with my friend but shes behind unfornately next we will read the novella next

[@im_just_vidu]

I kinda agree with Divergent is better than with Hunger games. But for me that's only considering the first book. When I consider the whole series, I feel like Divergent series went bad after 1st book while Hunger games stayed the same.

[@bihter3201]

I hate when a book marketing like “have a twisted ending”

[@sammyluvi7106]

JESSEE PLEASE READ THE TWISTED SERIES BY ANA HUANG!!!!! i need ur opinion on it!!!! and i flew through it in 2 months!! (im super slow reading lol)

[@wordstowordlessthings]

white-void jesse is here with the real real

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

See... I rarely think about books in terms of what it did or didn't "need". Maybe that's why I am unbothered by how lengthy or not anything is. It doesn't bother me. I don't even check page counts at all. Unless I'm looking at the runtime of a video or an audiobook or something more like that. I only check numbers of chapters, and that's not for length, that's just so I can put a marker at the halfway point because this is how I break a book down into smaller bite-sizes to keep me feeling like I'm achieving small victories not just when I reach the ultimate finish line and I keep my reward/motivation high! (And even before I started feeling too overwhelmed and down to function without doing this, because I didn't take care of my mental health well-enough and now I'm doing damage control trying to put the pieces back together, I just always liked to know when I was halfway there!) Loll

[@maybeimacat3183]

I think it's weird for any YA to have spicy in it honestly because they are normally written by adults. Like why? I can't even watch a teen show with a spice scene, why would you want to write a whole book with it? I mean, teens do this stuff, but there's no need to write the specifics, just write an adult book if you want spicy so much

[@ellieavery2373]

thank you for bringing up that point about misogyny! I feel like whenever an author becomes an 'it girl' for books they get this pile on of hate once they get 'too popular'. and a lot of the time they are authors that write books targeted towards young women. whether or not the books are good it's super inappropriate the way that people talk about them online. you can critique someone's work without insulting their intelligence.

[@kavya12kohli]

I have my copy of Don Quixote sitting on my tbr. I started reading the Prologue but I'm just too scared to get started considering its 940 pages something. I have great expectations from it. However, it's just the fear of getting started on this long reading journey. Any suggestions?

[@arimcphail4124]

Maybe having the audiobook along with the physical will help, sometimes the voices of the narrator makes it easier and much more enjoyable. I did this with the count of monte cristo which ended up being one of my favourite books, it is 1000+ pages

[@kavya12kohli]

@@arimcphail4124 Thanks! I'll definitely employ this method.

[@auggiecrossing6267]

Lol when everyone talks about Divergent and The Humher games but in my opinion, I think the Matched by Ally Condie is in the dark and I feel like not enough people read this three-book series

[@zeynabhoseiny279]

Honestly I agree with the person saying Divergent is better than hunger games. And you hitting Chain of thorns aggressively gave me second-hand anxiety.

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

SAAMMEE!! 🤭🤍 🤣🙂 (For me, I think it's because of which MC that I find the most likeable personally, and the world that I would personally most prefer to actually live in if they were real. ^-^)

[@ALatteThoughts]

Curious what makes you think divergent is better? I liked the first one but thought the other ones were OK. Now hunger games is a favorite

[@zeynabhoseiny279]

@@ALatteThoughts exactly what I think about hunger games. I found it extremely overrated. It was very mediocre for me, whereas Divergent trilogy got me into reading.

[@jaziybabe]

I agree! Looking back at it I think the hunger games were good but a bit over rated

[@signebrummerstedt9205]

The song of Achilles is well written, but if you know the basics of the Trojan war, you know how it ends. Like, it is written beautiful and it is emotional, but it is definitely not the saddest book ever.

[@natecorrea9536]

I would recommend The Stand and It by Stephen King

[@nicholemeyer2673]

Agree 100% with the spicy YA books. I love a good spicy book, but it needs to be ADULT. YA + Spice and I will immediately DNF. Lol

[@shazmatazz6769]

Thiccc books must be done well; if they’re not… it’s going in the DNF zone

[@oliverharris60]

I agree. If I finish a big book, it’s automatically at least 3-3.5 stars depending on length bc if I finish it, I can’t have disliked it that much!

[@jennawoods9465]

This was fun and so interesting to think about all these points! Have you seen or read Death Note?? I feel like you’d like it! 😊

[@devonmunn5728]

To speak about BookTok. I don't use TikTok but alot of TikTok I feel is another reuse of the "new thing bad" yet again. Plus now politicians are trying to ban TikTok. Like yeah it social media in general does have problems but the internet is like us humans, complex and multifaceted. Also haven't delved into any criticism against TJR but I have heard some discussions about her writing 2 books with Latina protagonists and the bisexual rep in Evelyn Hugo. Again I haven't delved into it or read any of TJR's books but this is what I have heard

[@haileyfussell]

I quite literally hate the cruel prince series with a very decent fiber of my being and it makes me so sad 😂

[@hkqtt]

I felt like “the goldfinch” was necessarily as long as it was, didn’t want it to end. I rarely feel that about a long book though

[@allysonstrable1323]

I can multitask - whooping ‘‘em and reading my book 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@cmondya4919]

Nice !

[@onkookietime]

I’m sorry I can’t trust someone that says divergent is better than the hunger games😭

[@HannahElizabeth0927]

*me who thinks that* maybe I should reread the hunger games…..😂

[@RoselinBooksOfficial]

I see that february calendar behind you lol

[@RoselinBooksOfficial]

Also the only "long book" I've ever read that was worth it for me (my attention span taps out at about 400 pages) was Brave Story.

[@cathysreadingjourney]

I truly believe that authors will age down their characters to YA and keep the spice because YA sells better than Adult. But YA sells better than Adult because of the influence that Social Media has on book selling. You don't see as many 40+ content creators as you do under 40 or even under 30 to promote the Adult genre as much as YA.

[@lorawaye]

I recently read the Cruel Prince and maybe it was because it was my first read after Mistborn, but I just wasn’t impressed 😞I really wanted to love it! It just felt immature.

[@fictionesque1992]

Bro I straight up read a book last year where a good 50 of its 200 pages were literally text conversations describing the GIFs two thirty year old characters were sending each other. Like this was a romance for ADULTS and it was like that. Books that are written worse than fanfic are getting published left and right and thats why so many of them are bloated. Like the authors never learned how to edit down and the editors don't care ig. EDIT: thank you for speaking out against misogyny, that actually surprised me since booktube is normally so allergic to feminism

[@kelviannaepperson3677]

Whenever I'm reading my mom thinks I'm reading things that don't matter and why I waist money on books. Then when I'm on my phone she thinks I'm on it too much

[@caitlyn.m.t9618]

I agree. I don't like the current marketing for books overall. It is either relying on other books by drawing comparisons, aka insert book meets insert book, or just giving me a list of tropes or buzzwords and expecting me to want to read it (and this is also why I avoid booktok, because from what I've seen it seems very trope reliant in terms of advertising books). If you want me to pick up a book, give me a premise. Give me a description. If anything, giving a list of tropes makes me think that it has nothing else to recommend it, even if that statement isn't actually true. And sometimes, it makes me lose all interest because it makes it look it will be a book I will not be into. Also, enemies to lovers is overdone and rarely done well. It is both somehow predictable and unbelievable at the same time because most of the time they are not actually developing it as a relationship. Most times they are just trying to tick off the box. And as a result they skip a lot of necessary steps to actually make it a good pairing, and make the couple well-suited to one another. I am actually starting to dislike enemies to lovers as a whole, and it is lowkey starting to become a buzzword for books that will irritate me if I try to read them.

[@shamimasad8258]

The first hot take brought a blade to my chest