#im not shitting on booktok

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

one of the most wonderful things in my life recently is my return to the books I loved in jr/high school.

I've been reading a lot less ever since starting uni, which sucks because I love books but I just couldn't get into any. I was complaining about not reading like I used to be able to, and then I realized (as much as tiktok encourages getting new books constantly) I can reread things.

specifically, I can reread books from high school. because I was reading more then for a lot of reasons, but also because I was reading things I liked, rather than what I thought I was "supposed to".

so anyway, here's some of the books I've been rereading (and absolutely tore through, this worked)

will saying you read these make people go "wow you're so dark/light academia"? no. but I read them instead of paying four months of library fines only to have them sit on my desk unopened the whole time. so I call it a win.

[lesbianshepard]

latest book twitter drama is insane. an author (marve michael anson) posted an excerpt from one of her books, which featured a superhero with sun powers. another author (lauren m davis) then dmed her and accused her of copyright infringement and "stealing" her ideas because one of her characters is also sun-themed. she literally thinks she owns the copyright to the sun 😭

[avocado-frog]

Man I hate being able to read

[liquidstar]

the goddamn show came out

[sky-is-the-limit]

My hate for "spicy" booktok has no bounds. If it has 0 haters, I'm dead in a ditch.

[vixenicks]

gonna be annoying in the tags

[noritaro]

now I typically avoid being judgemental, but like if you willingly read a book that has letters or journal entries directed to Ellen DeGeneres I don't know man

[barbreypilled]

also like if ur going to publish derivative fiction im sorry but it has to be good. u actually have to do something interesting with it u can’t just google a bunch of tropes, make the characters do them and call it a day like at that point just do fic prompts I guarantee it will be better in the long run bc u won’t have to inevitably get cancelled for review bombing books that ppl actually had to use their brains for

[familyabolisher]

if your response to any and all trends of reactionary responses to particular literary works is to wrangle an explanation that pits "booktok" or fanfiction or whatever as independent agents uniquely primed to rot people's brains and destroy their "reading comprehension" before tackling something even slightly more challenging than "the boring books on the app for boring people are bad" then the scope of your own reading practices and understanding of the terrain of literary discourse is every bit as narrow as the people you claim to be criticising lol. put some effort in

[gunkbot]

good god, getting wine drunk w my friends and they are reading haunting adeline out loud and its making me look at gay shit

Thinkin bout arcade and boone

godhelpme

[tenrose]

I finished A cosmology of monsters and I absolutely devoured the whole book.

It's kinda ironic how the beginning really scared me in a way no other book has ever done, when it took in fact a complete different direction to what I thought.

What scared me was that I thought we were gonna see characters slowly becoming mad and paranoid and maybe violent and we'll have trouble separating what's real and what is not.

But in the end it's not a story about monsters. The monsters are real. But the scariest monsters are the ones the characters are facing in their real lives.

It's a story about a family falling apart because of secrets, grief, depression and precarity. These are the real monsters. And in a way it's way scarier that what's scared me in the first place, because nobody can't escape real life problems (I try but hey they're still here). So my fear was replaced by sadness and the heavy weight lies and unsaid things let on a family.

I have to admit I am always found of stories about dysfunctional families and their intergenerational trauma and how intricate and hard it is to find a way out of all this. I do enjoyed that the story does not let the reader with this in the end with no sense of hope. But I guess the moral of the story, or the moral I choose to believe in is to share your emotions with your loved ones. If only I knew how to that IRL, but that's not the topic here.

Some moment were really gut-wrenching, I particularly appreciated how depression was being written.

[evermorehoon]

So like I have that fic I wrote already completed in my google docs but I'm rethinking posting it because of both traction and reception given the genre.

I'm defs at a time where I am quite empty without writing but with too much going on rn to write properly so it was a wonder I could finish it.

In essence, I'm too wary on posting it even though the idea is really good and I was so happy writing it. I know it's "Do what you love" and "don't worry about what others think" but like, I would like my work to be recognized and appreciated if the reader likes it. I lowkey don't care about likes anymore because it's something a writer here can't really run from but I know I've fallen off and it's not easy to swim in this fandom's fanfic pool because you're likely not gonna get attention if you don't write any form of sexual act

[kingdomkome]

Seeing ppl on twt be like 'well I've written a book every month and they are all good so maybe let's not judge a book based on how long it took to write 🤨" and like. They are right but I'm still 100% judging.

[sleevesareforlosers]

love media consumption discourse love people seeing questions about if one hundred percent of your free time is spent treating someone elses creation like fast food and deciding theyre being attacked for watching a show for a few hours

[possumteeths]

This romance book im reading has the most juvenile fucking drama it reads like a 2010 harry potter fanfic the cringe factor is melting my skin off and yet i keep reading

[therorizertraumatizer671]

kinda sad, my TikTok account was suspended and I hope they let me have it back because it was nice people telling me they liked my art and likes my ideas like my talent and opinions really mattered and now I'm sad lololol