Year by year, Americans are reading fewer books. However, two groups are reading more: Gen Z who tends to use BookTok, the book-focused sub-community within TikTok, and Millennials who are larger users of Bookstagram, the bookish side of Instagram. A quick perusal of the table at my local bookstore is full of recommendations from TikTok and Instagram which demonstrates that most books highlighted on these platforms fall within the genres of romance, fantasy, the new genre romantasy (a mash-up of the two genres) and thrillers/mysteries. From my experience, reading Booktok and Bookstagram books is like enjoying a good milkshake.
These kinds of books are easy to consume and cloyingly sweet, but ultimately leave you unsatisfied and aghast at what you consumed, how quickly you consumed it, and the minimal mental effort needed to do. Most popular books are not popular because they are good examples of literature, they are popular because they are entertaining and the authors often have a strong social media presence and a good marketing team. BookTok and Bookstagram do not prioritize platforming classic books where the authors of which are long gone and thus unable to entertain the masses through social media or books where you have to grapple with challenging ideas. While it is good that more people are reading in our increasingly post-literate culture, is their reading really providing them the utmost benefit if they are not willing to invest the time and energy to read books that require mental investment and engagement with viewpoints different from their own?
In our post-literate world, it is important to acknowledge that books are not the pinnacle of content consumption and other methods are available to understand different viewpoints. However, reading books requires a higher level of investment than reading an article or listening to a podcast due to the time reading takes. Long reading formats provide the space to explore the weightiness and significance of decisions that fiction or non-fiction characters make while also communicating the context and consequences of those decisions. There is value to reading because of the intentional space carved out for contemplation and reflection.
This is not to say that popular books promoted on social media are bad or are unable to drive reflection. As someone who continues to read more than 100 books every year, I have read my fair share of great works of literature from Austen to Fitzgerald to Tolstoy. On the other hand, as a lover of fantasy, Onyx Storm by BookTok author Rebecca Yarros is one of the book releases I am most excited for in 2025. While I do enjoy reading books that are considered “popular” and a form of entertainment, books that require active mental effort and introspection are the ones that shaped me most as a person. For me, the mark of a good book is one that I continue to think about long after I finish reading it. They are books that challenge me in my ideas, cause me to think deeply, and foster connection with others by providing me with a better understanding of the world around me. In most cases these are books that stand the test of time, but some modern books also meet these criteria.
There is immense value in reading widely and “promiscuously” as Karen Swallow Prior champions and expounds upon Jon Milton’s original recommendation in the introduction to her book On Reading Well: “What better way to learn the difference between evil and good, Milton argues, than to gain knowledge of both through reading widely.”
As I read, I try on different viewpoints and thus grow in empathy with those unlike me. The roots of my beliefs deepen as I am challenged in how I think and I refine my own worldview. I understand how easy and dangerous it is to dehumanize others through observing the transformation of Dr. Frankenstein from a creator to the true monster. I learn how wrong and hurtful my expectations of others can be through seeing Pip’s vast disappointment in Great Expectations and how it affects his benefactor. I discover how hard it is to be resilient through difficult situations from Demon in Demon Copperhead. All of these books required something from me as the reader: my attention, commitment, and willingness to engage across the spectrum of humanity. While this deeper literature may not be the most relaxing and entertaining to read, it is more valuable in the long run than the inconsequential fluff currently promoted on social media.
Reading promiscuously can encompass other aspects such as format and genre. Dracula was written as a series of letters, most of Shakespeare’s work was written as plays, and other books employ multiple points of view to help tell a wider story. Reading different genres is also important for reading widely. The popular genres of romance, fantasy, romantasy, and thrillers tend to hurtle a reader forward at a breakneck pace not allowing for pondering and unhurried engagement and contemplation of a book. Reading other genres that may be more slow-paced can result in better processing with the ideas presented in a book. This is one of the problems with Booktok: because it operates by algorithm, it can lead to reading silos as people discover the book genres they are interested in and do not explore the wider reading world beyond those genres. However, reading books from different genres and viewpoints promotes the formation of connections across seemingly disparate stories. By limiting reading to one genre or trope (ie, “enemies-to-lovers” romance) much of the depth of the reading experience is lost.
The recent release of Deep Reading by Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts highlights that the practice of reading is important and provides recommendations of how to cultivate that practice. They and Prior believe that reading deeply is important, but so is reading for enjoyment. As Prior says in On Reading Well:
If a book is so agonizing that you avoid reading it, put it down and pick up one that brings you pleasure. Life is too short and books are too plentiful not to. Besides, one can’t read well without enjoying reading. On the other hand, the greatest pleasures are those born of labor and investment. A book that requires nothing from you might offer the same diversion as that of a television sitcom, but it is unlike to provide intellectual, aesthetic, or spiritual rewards long after the cover is closed.
It may be more immediately gratifying to read a light, entertaining book, but in the long run, enjoyment may be deeper and richer by wrestling through a tough, theological tome. C.S. Lewis asserts this idea in his introduction to On the Incarnation by Saint Athanasius when he says:
It is a good idea after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones…The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only be reading old books.
Lewis recommends a diet of mostly older books which have stood the test of time. While I believe that old books have immense value, I think our development as readers should come from reading books either old or new that will challenge us, mature us as people, cause us to think deeply, and foster a desire for connecting with others.
Throughout the course of my life, I do not think I will remember the intricacies of dragon types from Fourth Wing, but I will remember the books and characters that broadened my understanding of myself and the world page by page. I still enjoy the entertaining beach read or thriller every once in a while, but I want to move beyond entertaining reads into deeper waters where I have to invest and grow in my skill as a reader by reading books that make me think.
