#booktok slander

[novaricewrites]

I don't understand how a man who drugs and assaults you is potential for romance - let alone portrayed as a feminist king and spouse goals who is ultimately the tragic and noble ruler by both author and so many in a fandom.

(said man also reinforces an apartheid state and complains but does jack-shit about mass gender violence despite being 'all-powerful' but stans aren't ready for that conversation)

And let's not pretend that physically punching or dragging someone you claim to love on a hike after knowing she's emaciated and mentally unwell is just cute TENSION.

Like at a certain point, people are getting way too comfortable romanticizing it and excusing their obsession with 'it's just fiction' only when it is convenient for them. And certain authors are capitalizing on that to continue writing shitty novels that are just fetishes and trauma porn with harmful implications wrapped up in a shiny bow.

I feel especially concerned when so many of these implications can translate to real life situations and promotes brushing them under the rug.

[1800naveen]

Why does booktok hate blondes so much?

Damn, what did they do to you? They're almost extinct because of you. It's all dark haired mfs nowadays.

BRING BACK THE BLONDES!

[youdontknowhowtodiequietly]

when i see 'tiktok sensation' on a book, no matter how sophisticated the cover, i immediately put it back. i do not trust that hellscape

[menrstinkyy]

ps the shatter me series is ass!!

[mynotetrash]

watching kallmekris getting cancelled for an opinion i agree 100% with just makes me thankful im not famous cause what

majority of booktok is so weird lmao 😭

[gem-andromeda]

Eveything on booktok rn is making my blood boil with the amount of women normalizing first person toxic relationships "omg i love DARK ROMANCE" MY SISTER IN SATAN THAT IS NOT DARK ROMANCE THAT IS A MANIPULATIVE RACIST STOP

[inolienkiki]

🙄❤️~ Three Types of Love, as rated by an aromantic ~❤️🙄

type 1:

(i.e. sexual attraction-based romance, mutual-dislike-to-inexplicable-lovers, self-insert x bad boy, thinly veiled fanfiction, age gap or noncon, fairy smut, etc.)

Rating: 2/10, boring, stop trying to sell me this

type 2:

(i.e. deeply founded platonic relationship, characters aren’t in a canon relationship because the author fucking forgot to include the scene where they kissed, Horace and Chloe, Horace and Chloe, I will also accept Will and Lyra but only before the fall, anyway go read the keepers series immediately)

Rating: 10/10, I can actually comprehend this

type 3:

(warrior cats romance, also Romeo and Juliet, love at first sight with so little explanation or context that it’s basically a magic system)

Rating: 11/10, hilarious, feels like something I would write. Fantastic.

[maevathon-waveathon]

a not-so-short rant on booktok

as much as i would LOVE to talk about how much the middle aged women on this side of tiktok are crazy, and how literally everyone will uplift the most horrible books (ACOTAR/colleen hoover books), my beef with this side of the internet lies in what it has done to the book industry as a whole.

to give context on my perspective, i have been a reader since i was a little kid. my mother was an english teacher who taught tenth grade and AP Lang. for most of her career. we are a family of very english and history oriented people. i was a reader from the age of like, three, and i’m currently fifteen. so that’s where i’m coming from.

i have been reading since before tiktok became a thing, so i have read many books. this was also a time when reading was sort of out of vogue (not cool) so the books were vastly different. i was introduced to high quality stores such as The Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer, Percy Jackson, etc. every plot line was new to me and the communities were vastly different from what they are now.

then the pandemic hit, and everything changed. people began to turn to tiktok for ideas of hobbies, and many found books to be a fun little hobby. while this was very good for me, the kid who had NEVER been able to interact with people who liked to read before, it became very problematic when people began to start picking up on and twisting common tropes.

that’s when we come to the whole dark romance craze/plague of unoriginal YA novels that is so common today. dark romance romanticized the toxic stereotypes around certain material that is usually morally grey, and twisted it to just straight up novels about sex. it took away from what the “dark” part of dark romance really was, and turned me away from any book that has been remotely seen as darker in atmosphere, for fear that i am going to be subjected to this.

then we have the YA novels, which are getting so bad that they deserve a whole freaking paragraph. certain authors saw the words “enemies to lovers” and “prophecy” and “over complicated magic system that is never ever explained over 5 freaking installments” and decided that this was the PERFECT recipe for a book. no. no it was not. i am so sick and tired of mary sue protagonists and the same two love interests copy pasted (white boy with black hair and slightly tanned boy with brown hair) in every book and the complicated names and the PROPHECIES and the overuse of magic that i have started reading adult novels and liking them more. just because something is trending among a younger audience does not mean that every single person needs to copy it to try and turn a profit. i find myself more into books with original plot lines and interesting development than the same three books over and over again.

i am losing my mind looking at certain books and reading about the synopsizes of them just to find the same plot lines repeated and repeated and repeated and beaten to death with a stick. it’s what motivated me to start writing again in the first place, because i think the book industry is beginning to get too repetitive.

anywaysssss if anyone who sees this wants to hear updates on my current story idea feel free to ask i need to infodump to someone lmaoo.

[griffin-r-murray]

TW: R@PE, ABUSE AND DOMESTIC ABUSE AND STOCKHOLM SYNDROME AND TALK ABOUT KINKS. PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES.

Why most dark romance is romantised abuse and r@pe;

You cannot completely separate fiction from reality, it is a reflection of your true desires and morals. R@pe, abuse, stalking and kidnapping is not romantic at all in any situation.

First let's start off with haunting Adeline and book like similar. CNC is a valid kink but this book and others like it are a horrible representation, it is straight up sexual assault and Stockholm syndrome.

The author herself (which I have beef with) straight up admitted zade r@pes Adeline. CNC is about communication of boundaries, safe words and creating a safe space with is not represented correctly. CNC can help survivors take control of a situation where control was taken from them in a safe environment with someone they trust.

Haunting Adeline has set CNC representation back with its disgusting amount of popularity and existence. If you honestly think a book that does survivors such an injustice with is misrepresentation has helped with your own experience with sexual assault I truly hope you rethink if it's actually helped you or just put a band-aid on such a deep wound and I really do hope you go to therapy and maybe look into some actual good representation of CNC if CNC is something you think could help you.

Zade is disgusting and not someone you should defend at all.

Now for the romantisation of abuse, kidnapping and overly possessive love interests; most kidnapping in dark romance books that turns into a "romance" is Stockholm syndrome. There is no and or buts about it, it is not cute, romantic or something you should romantises at all. Your gross fantasy is someone's reality. You cannot seperate these sorts of things from your view on it in reality completely.

Fictional desires that you obsess over are not fictional. If it makes you horny or if you think the outcomes of these (mostly women's) situation are at all appealing even in fiction than it is not apart of a fictional want anymore.

A lot of these men in fiction straight up abuse these (again mostly women) in books and it is just abuse and the women in these books are trapped in a horrible situation they put a pink bow on as a defense mechanism. I'm aware these women aren't real but the situations you romantise are lots women's reality.

They're are so many different types of books you can read with the same types of themes such as CNC and enemies to lovers that aren't romantised abuse.

It is not cute, quirky or sweet if you defend and obsess over these types of men. Liking men with red flags whether fictional or not in not cute and is something I recommend therapy for.

Please stop defending men like zade and other characters cause "they're just fictional", I have stated why many times.

Please stop romantising other people's nightmares for a fictional man.

[mynameistakensadtimes]

I JUST WANT TO GO ON THE FRED WEASLEY TAG AND NOT SEE PORN TUBBLER IS THE NEW BOOKTOK JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

[mainenorth]

Hunting Adeline has a The Most Dangerous Game reference don’t talk to me I’m inconsolable

[acciowilltolive]

im sorry but booklr will always and forever be superior to booktok

[1800naveen]

Booktok women.

The women on booktok need to be put down. I know a lot are normal but baby, a lot of you are loco.

Five months ago or so, there was this guy who's a biker and he made a Tik Tok about his hobby. Women from booktok came into the comments and started to go after him.

I shit you not, they were on that weird shit. "Booktok has been summoned!', "Where is booktok at?", and more stupid shit. So, he made another video talking about the books he likes the hunger games and maze runner, books that are in his age range because he is 16 years old. HE IS 16 YEARS OLD.

And you know what the comments were like? Actually what you expected. "Oh, we need to protect him!", "Oh, he's a cutie!", "You're so innocent!". Why are you talking to him like he's a fucking puppy dog? One person commented that he should try haunting Adeline. I don't know how he's doing but I hope he's doing alright with comments like those.

Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton which is a dark romance that romanticizes SA. The male love interest is against that type of stuff yet he does it to Adeline. Like the author herself said it was SA. Ngl, I hate the author too. Why would you write something like this? All I'm seeing is dark, where is the romance?

[upside-down-sock-drawer]

What makes me absolutely crazy is when I'm talking to people and they ask me if I like books so I say "Oh yeah I love reading!" and then they bring up CoHo or dark romance. I'll stop you right there. We will not get along ever.

[the-gummy-worms-have-me]

Reblog for sample size etc etc

[jugheadtheredhead]

i know the acotar series is like ew toxic booktok whatever but have yall considered that it’s actually pretty fucking awesome?? like it is such an intriguing and cool world and i know half of yall criticizing acotar have not read it and just judge it based on what other’s have said about it. (which i did too before deciding to give it a try) but im going to encourage u to think for urself and read it, then u can make criticism about the book. emphasis on criticism about the book, if a book isn’t ur cup of tea, u have no right to judge it for being someone else’s cup of tea.