First, there was BookTube. Then Bookstagram. Now, one of the most prolific — and often drama-filled — online book collectives is on TikTok.
In the past four years, BookTok has gone from a scrappy, grassroots group that makes literature-centered content into a major and uncontrollable marketing driver of the publishing industry. BookTok has been personally responsible for millions of dollars of book sales and made authors household names in the process.
The breadth of genres in the book industry also means that almost any kind of reader can find their niche. There are dark romance lovers, fairy porn enthusiasts, literary fiction champions, and horror aficionados. But sometimes, a book becomes simply inescapable. These titles don’t have to be from a popular genre, a well-known author, or even published this year. TikTok’s algorithm, and the push from BookTok creators, means that some books go from simply a fun read on the app to an industry staple.
Here are 11 of the biggest hits BookTok couldn’t escape this year.
Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg
What if Jack Kerouac’s On The Road was about two lesbians from Seattle? After graduating college, Bernie moves into a large shared home in Philly, where she tries and fails to fully join her housemates’ world.
But when her former mentor and photography professor Daniel Dunn — who had his career ruined by a sexual harassment scandal — dies and bequeaths Bernie his run-down home, she and her roommate Leah decide to turn their road trip to her inheritance into an exploration of the Midwest.
While Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Housemates has the quintessential meandering necessary for a road trip novel, it takes a major turn by allowing its queer, liberal main characters to address their own complicated feelings about art, love, and wealth in the middle of a giant, state-wide art project.
Housemates has been a staple on the app since its May 2024 release — and has been dubbed by dozens of creators as the queer book of the summer.
The Poppy War by R.F Kuang
R.F. Kuang isn’t just another example of a strong female protagonist. The Poppy War is a military epic that charts orphan Rin’s journey from poor waif to student at the highly prestigious military academy Sinegard.
There, she trains her body and her mind, eventually becoming a student of shamanism and learning how to speak to the gods. But when war breaks out, Rin finds herself not in tight ranks on the front line, but part of an assassin-heavy special forces group — one where all of her fellow soldiers are also shamans.
It’s a coming-of-age story set in the midst of bloodshed, trauma, and addiction, but the worldbuilding makes it one of the go-to entry points for readers trying to dive into the fantasy space headfirst.
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
The Secret History walked so this dark, magical murder grad-school novel could run.
Previously known for her steadfast work in the Harry Potter fanfiction community, Olivie Blake’s Atlas Six series went from a self-published novel to a New York Times bestseller because of BookTok. The series takes place at the Alexandrian Society, a secret group that admits an annual class of magicians and gives them access to some of the biggest secrets in the known and unknown universe.
The catch? They only have a year before their mysterious initiation ritual. No one knows what it is, but someone has to die for the rest of the group to pass. This book leans heavily on prose and world-building, but its rags-to-riches story has continued to make it a BookTok favorite.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
The best way to describe this BookTok darling is a drug-fueled sleep haze. The main character doesn’t even have a name, but readers get an immediate view that she’s rich, bored, and extremely tired.
Rather than address any of her problems, the narrator convinces a sketchy psychiatrist to prescribe her a cocktail of pills that renders her increasingly comatose. She begins taking harder pills at an excess, leaving waking hours for walks and adventures that she can’t remember.
At the heart of the story is a woman convinced she could be better if only she could sleep through an entire year. Like most of Ottessa Moshfegh’s books, My Year of Rest and Relaxation has little actual plot. But the book has become a go-to pick for BookTok creators who want to distinguish themselves from the romance crowd.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
While BookTok has a habit of allowing the most general, crowd-pleasing options to rise to the top, sometimes the community’s popularity lands firmly on a deserving book.
Such is the case with The Secret History, the famed 1992 novel from Donna Tartt. A secretive group of New England liberal arts students accepts a newcomer into their ranks: transfer student Richard Papen. But as the group dives further into their studies, Richard reveals a terrible secret holding his friends hostage.
By coming up with an even darker solution, the group is thrust into dark schemes of chaos and murder — ruining themselves and their lives in the process.
Since The Secret History — a bestseller since its publication — rose to popularity once again in 2020, it directly inspired a resurgence of the internet aesthetic “dark academia.”
Funny Story by Emily Henry
“And they were roommates” doesn’t begin to describe the wacky housing circumstances that Emily Henry’s Funny Story throws readers into headfirst.
Daphne loves her relationship with her fiancé Peter, so much so that after accepting his proposal, she agrees to move to his hometown. Sure, they’re in a partnership, but she lives in his house, she hangs out with his friends, and she’s basically taken on his life.
So when Peter realizes that he’s actually in love with his best friend Petra, Daphne is shocked to find herself stuck in a town she never wanted to be in in the first place.
She needs a place to live. And it just so happens that the only available room in Waning Bay, Michigan belongs to Petra’s ex: Miles. Trying to get back at their exes, the two end up fake dating. But in the process, they learn about what they really want out of life, and what it means to choose yourself and still find love in the process.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
BookTok isn’t all romance and intrigue. Sometimes, the community’s favorite thing is a good old-fashioned cry.
And Hanya Yanagihara’s most famous work has remained a staple on the app for its sheer consistency in leaving readers physically and emotionally devastated. The book introduces readers to four friends with aspiring careers: Jude St. Francis, Willem Ragnarsson, Malcolm Irvine, and Jean-Baptiste “JB” Marion. But through flashbacks and shifting perspectives, the 700-page tome reveals an agonizing pattern of trauma, abuse, addiction, sexual violence, and suicide for its main characters.
Happy endings do not exist in this book, but they’re teased just enough to leave even the toughest reader wrung dry.
Icebreaker by Hannah Grace
Before there was a Seattle hockey team asking people to please stop sexualizing their players during games, there was a hockey-themed wave on BookTok.
It combined tropes and the romance genre all in one place and made every book that even featured hockey players popular. But at the heart of the trend was this fan favorite — and aggressively sexy — college novel by Hannah Grace.
Icebreaker tracks aspiring Team USA figure skater Anastasia Allen as she tries to train for an upcoming championship. But after a snafu on the ice threatens to derail her career, hockey team captain Nate Hawkins steps in, and the two realize that there might be some steamier desires beyond their constant bickering.
From Rolling Stone US
