BookTok lets Long Islanders share, compare great reads

Andrew Kingsberry discovered the BookTok community after coming across a video on it promoting "The Zodiac Academy," a dark fantasy romance series by Caroline Peckham, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kingsberry, of Wheatley Heights, "pretty much joined immediately after" that and has gone down "a rabbit hole about all different books, ones I’ve read and ones I also haven’t yet."

Djenane Santelli, a Queens resident and regular Barnes & Noble customer, enjoyed reading mysteries but once she stumbled on BookTok and discovered "the steamy ones," like Drake LaMarque’s "Gentleman’s Bounty" book series, she was hooked.

BookTok is one of TikTok’s largest communities, made up of predominantly teenagers and young women readers who post reviews, discussions, cosplays and more about the latest book on their list.

Santelli said it's also a way for readers to exchange views about the worlds created in their favorite novels and "live a little bit in that fantasy."

The online book community offers a range of genres, but young adult fiction, fantasy and romance are the best-read content. In recent years, BookTok has created trends, hashtags, and launched new authors into the mainstream.

It’s also revived interest in reading and buying physical books, helping booksellers who are competing with online sales, and has transcended from a virtual book club to a social media phenomenon with hundreds of thousands of followers, one that's reposted on other platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

In 2023, TikTok established the TikTok Book Awards, an annual program dedicated to acknowledging the BookTok community’s favorite genres, authors and creators.

Kingsberry believes BookTokers’ content influences followers’ reading choices, as it bonds people together and builds a community where people "talk passionately about a thing or experience they enjoyed, it’s human to want to try yourself." BookTok encourages "people to form their own opinions" on what they're reading, he said, and "forces people to come to differing conclusions, forming a unique perspective."

Trending books have been displayed by readers on BookTok in various forms. "Last, Current, Next," a fairly new BookTok trend, are videos that have BookTokers showing their last book, current book and next book they plan to read.

Kyle Goehle, store manager at the newly relocated Barnes & Noble in Huntington Station, recalled how, during the pandemic, customers "couldn’t come into the stores to ask employees for book recommendations. So, what happened is they turned to the internet and people started talking about books that they were reading or had on their to-read list and just kind of started giving recommendations on these books."

When Barnes & Noble reopened, the staff saw readers of a younger crowd come in and look for titles popular on BookTok. And the number of tags they received from BookTokers and Instagram was big.

The company has now included these books in its marketing. Cassidy Flanagan, bookseller and barista at Barnes & Noble on Old Country Road in Carle Place, said their store has specific tables and keep stock of books popular on BookTok.

The store had a recent midnight release for Rebecca Yarros' "Onyx Storm," a book in the "Fourth Wing" series that's popular on BookTok.

Flanagan has also discovered readers on BookTok can be "very hot or cold on certain books, like either everyone loves it, or everyone hates it and then sometimes it ends up really divided."

Social media users can access BookTok by using the hashtag #BookTok in any search or by engaging with book-related content on their "For You" page on TikTok, designed as a personalized feed.