Every new year, I set a reading goal for myself and spend the rest of the year trying to live up to January Lakshmi’s expectations. As a regular BookTube and Bookstagram consumer, my choices before borrowing a book from Libby are usually influenced by what I’ve watched.
And this year, at least 25 per cent of what I read was solely BookTube recommendations. This interests me as an English student who keeps a tab of books I read outside my courses.
When I started watching BookTube, YouTube’s algorithm was unfamiliar with my interests, and it kept pushing me to videos recommending romance and fantasy novels. Don’t get me wrong, I love well-written romances. A part of my master’s thesis is about a romance novel and its Netflix adaptation. I don’t come bearing the ego of a Ulysses-touting first-year English major. But it was strange to me how few creators talked about anything besides Colleen Hoover’s smut or Rebecca Yarros’s fantasy novels.
Many BookTubers receive books from publishing houses who want to market new releases on social media. This is not necessarily wrong. Even though I don’t review books, I dream of getting lifelong free deliveries from Verso Books.
However, users’ mind-boggling consumption of social media and the bandwagon of people jumping into Colleen Hoover’s book piles concerns me.
A large portion of BookTube only reads books that become popular culture and leaves no space for nuanced discussion. That is why the icky way of dealing with domestic violence in Colleen Hoover’s book was discussed very little and late.
BookTubers make reading a communal and cultural event, and I’m thankful. Some parts of BookTube feel like being in an English seminar class with 20 students, which is beautiful. It brings people closer, promotes healthy discussion and suggests heart-wrenchingly good books. I believe good discussions about literature from all parts of the world have the power to start revolutions.
When BookTubers go off the beaten path, though, it pays off.
If it weren’t for BookTube, I would not have read Hanya Yanagihara’s over 800-page work A Little Life, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s cute novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold or Taylor Jenkins Reid’s page-turner The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo this year. I would have probably gotten around to reading some of them eventually, but not as quickly as I did after watching a YouTube video during my lunch break.
So, I need BookTubers to create content that is responsible and goes beyond books that are half smut. Of course, this columnist also likes good smut. But I need us — those who are not BookTubers — to encourage content creators to make good content.
Manitoba’s Lauren Hower — or @bigbooklady on Instagram — Jesse on YouTube, Jack Edwards, Dakota Warren, @emmiereads and @TheArtisanGeek are some of my favourite BookTubers. Their book recommendations are not only versatile and multicultural, but all of them are politically aware — some are academics and artists.
I hope these people continue to make the experience of reading more communal, productive, enjoyable and political.
So, I don’t think hoping for something better is in vain anymore. Let’s add more books to my Goodreads “Want To Read” list and watch BookTube all day, because we all deserve at least that.
