As a 16 year old book lover, I have recently noticed a trend in the sorts of novels my peers are reading. It started off simple enough, with the “Hunger Games” series making a comeback as Suzanne Collins released new books, but then I began seeing the connections between said series and more recently popular books. In a social media rabbit hole one day, I stumbled across BookTok, a TikTok-based community of primarily college-aged women sharing their recommended reads and favorite authors. Ever since, I’ve been curious about just what sort of fiction is consuming the minds of my fellow teens. As it turns out, much of it isn’t to my taste.
Young adult literature is classified as being written for 12 to 18 year olds, created to bridge the gap between child and adult fiction. This is a recommendation that many modern teenagers have dismissed in favor of new adult fiction: a category intended for readers aged 18-25 that has recently become more popular among a younger audience. The majority of the modern young and new adult fiction books BookTok is always recommending are heavily focused on romance, a genre I have always been fascinated with and a bit disgusted by. Of course, I have enjoyed several books with romance plotlines, but of these, not many are being hyped up across social media.
One issue I’ve noticed that is unable to coexist alongside high-quality writing is the idea that a protagonist must be a blank slate. A great deal of young adult romance novels feature a female protagonist with little to no depth or personality, a staple intended to make it easier for teen girls to project themselves onto whatever romantic entanglements the leading lady finds herself in. She is a sort of dream girl that isn’t too flashy, someone that readers can look up to without experiencing jealousy.
However, the result of this is that there is no true internal conflict or the possibility for the reader to grow emotionally attached to the characters. I enjoy books where the characters feel like people, but also feel like characters who are created to portray some sort of moral lesson or message. Fiction books are meant to create emotion or at least leave you with a theme or idea in your head. It’s rare for romance novels to give me any feeling except annoyance.
Additionally, because books like this create little internal conflict and often take place in a fantasy setting, the world outside the protagonist’s social issues is more intriguing. Who cares about some chosen one’s love life when there are dragons to be slain and prophecies to be fulfilled? Certainly not me, but the authors of these types of books prioritize the former.
Another problem I’ve frequently found in BookTok books is that they rely on tropes to draw readers in, which results in a predictable read that feels more like a conglomerate of ideas rather than a well-executed novel with a message. I can’t count the number of books I’ve seen on my TikTok For You page that feature phrases like “love triangle!” or “enemies-to-lovers!” in their official summaries. Sure, some of these tropes can be something I enjoy in books, but I’m not going to start reading something just because of a list of tropes it contains.
All of this is not to say there’s something wrong with this type of fiction; it may not grip me the same way other books do, but I’m sure it has helped someone. I’ve just never been that person.
