every BookTok book I've read, ranked
100 mistakes in order of how much I regret them
First things first: I have never, not once in my life, intentionally read a book based on the concept of it being a “BookTok recommendation.” While I have a TikTok account, my algorithms are more focused on incomprehensible jokes and videos of people eating snacks in Japanese 7-Elevens.
However: I have been on other bookish corners of the internet for (gag) over 10 years, and one of my countless weaknesses and many skills is my ability to quickly cave to peer pressure.
That is to say, I’ve been reading popular books for a decade. As it turns out, that includes at least a hundred whose names are tragically associated with the insidious hockey romance engine known as BookTok.
Here are all of them, ranked.
(Note: I pulled the books for this list by reading probably dozens of lists and culling books I’d read that were mentioned at least twice. I know BookTok is not a monolith, and while the genres that get the most engagement aren’t my personal favorites, there are plenty of creators on there whose takes I enjoy.)
Alchemised: I can’t believe Terf Hogwarts fanfiction in which the nerd is tortured by a fascist overlord didn’t work for me.
Any and all Colleen Hoover: The lowest of the low. I spent too much of my wild and precious youth (read: any of it) on CoHo. Some of the worst reading experiences of my life.
Love on the Brain: Ali Hazelwood’s role in the tiny / huge epidemic has made her an enemy of mine.
To Kill a Kingdom: There was a time when evil mermaid books kept coming out, and I kept picking them up, and I kept hating them. So at least I can be grateful that era is over.
Ready Player One: I used to love this book. I recently reread it. Justice has now been served (I hated it so, so much).
The House on the Cerulean Sea: To be fair, I hated this corny and patently unhelpful drivel even before I knew it had the most inexcusable origin story I’ve ever heard of.
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue: Life is full of injustices. If I had the chance to make a deal with the devil to live forever I would have whined way less.
Fourth Wing: I was terrified this might turn out to be a fun romp, and I’d be forced to do something like three star it. No such luck.
Caraval: My one-star review of this error-ridden nonsense from 2017 has 700 comments. I’m sure all vehemently agreeing.
The Selection: Remember when all we were allowed to read was dystopian YA trilogies following love triangles between a childhood crush and the guy our quirky protagonist was obviously going to end up with? Take a moment to appreciate our freedom.
The Summer I Turned Pretty: The show is borderline unwatchable, and it’s still a generous adaption of this nightmare of a trilogy.
Butter: It saddens me to think of all we could have accomplished in this book if we cut the weight checks.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls: This is horrifying in none of the ways it intends to be and every way it doesn’t.
Daughter of the Pirate King: One of my earliest unpopular opinions. What a waste of the opportunity to be a pirate princess.
The Silent Patient: I haven’t been keeping up on the thriller industry. Are all the books still just 300 page leadups to plot twists?
Red Queen: Is this really a BookTok book? I would not have imagined it had staying power after the great YA dystopian reign of the 2010s was finally brought to its bitter end.
The Kiss Quotient: I appreciate what this book was trying to do. Let’s leave it at that.
Malibu Rising: I am a Taylor Jenkins Reid apologist, but even I am powerless against whatever the hell was happening here.
The Spanish Love Deception: A terribly written account of two assholes finding each other. It’s a beautiful thing.
Beartown: A book of mugs. Also, what is going on that has brought hockey so pervasively into the zeitgeist??
The Cruel Prince: I have hated many books and I have loved slightly fewer books, but I can’t remember many I was as unable to care about as this one.
The Love Hypothesis: I loved this book once. Then I tried to revisit it out of fondness. Life can be cruel.
The Unhoneymooners: This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to liking a Christina Lauren book. Which is pretty depressing now that I put it that way.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Addie Larue but with vampires.
The Midnight Library: In many ways I’m still not over the cruel and unusual marketing ploy that is claiming this book is at all library-y.
My Friends: Has Fredrik Backman always had this intense of a style? I feel like I remember him having less intense of a style.
We Were Liars: Nothing more than a plot twist, and even that is relatively unsatisfying.
City of Bones: Even in Cassandra Clare’s heyday, I never could get there with her.
Throne of Glass: In my younger and more vulnerable years, I would read series to the end without liking a single page. This one defeated me from book one.
A Court of Thorns and Roses: I didn’t hate this book completely. It’s what followed that makes me see the purpose of book bans.
