I Read These Three Booktok Darlings and Hated Them

The world’s largest book club lives online, but reading for some members seems to be more of a trend, a competition, or even another source of income — rather than something they enjoy.

From It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover for the romance fans and A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas for the romantasy lovers to the ‘weird girl’ book recommendations I fell victim to below, Booktok recommendations, while enjoyable, are usually brimming with tropes and fall flat of the depth they aim to explore.

Of course, I see the appeal of the popular books that take over my Tiktok and Instagram For You Page: escapism, great loves, interesting lore, and creative concepts. Unfortunately, I almost always find they do not live up to the hype or are riddled with grammatical errors.

I have been a life-long reader, and the reading renaissance brought on by Tiktok is a step in the right direction. But I’ve been let down by a Booktok recommendation before.

While I approach recommendations on the app with caution, I still, unfortunately, find myself drawn in by the descriptions of books given and fall sucker to the synopsis every time. Here are three Booktok darlings I’ve read, and what I think is being left out online:

1. The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim (2024)

Ji-Won is naive yet manipulative, caring yet twisted.

She is the eldest daughter of a Korean-American family. After her father leaves and her mom starts dating a new — white — man, she becomes obsessed with eyeballs — more specifically, blue ones, and eating them.

Once she gets a taste, it quickly becomes a craving that spirals into a trail of bodies. She’s unapologetic in the chaos she causes, and her indiscretions are secondary to those who have wronged her.

And for such a smart girl, Ji-Won really makes some dumb decisions and is careless with the evidence that could implicate her for the murders that start happening. But don’t worry! It of course never does. Everything works out for our narrator.

There are too many dream sequences, too many overt jokes and lines of dialogue that come off corny and drive home the bigotry/sexism/racism happening. Either there’s a belief that the reader is stupid or a lack of creativity when it comes to ‘showing vs telling’ motives.

The plot twist in this is a true twist I did not see coming, but honestly, given the other cliches happening, I should have. The twist feels like a cop out, like the rushed final paragraph of a last-minute essay for class.

This is an enjoyable book with less enjoyable characters. I enjoyed its race and culture commentary and gruesome moments, but I wouldn’t push for it as hard as it was pushed on me via TikTok and Instagram. It’s just okay.

2. Bunny by Mona Awad (2019)

Booktok wants you to think this is a modern The Secret History by Donna Tartt. But where Tartt brings drama and moral conflict, Awad is a little too camp for that.

Our narrator, Samantha, is on scholarship at an elite MFA program when The Bunnies — beautiful, wealthy peers — invite her into their drafting workshops where a dark, magical ritual happens and reality becomes questionable.

The Bunnies are annoying and not in a funny way. Their rituals and reasoning are unclear. Our narrator, Samantha, wallows in her own pity, unrequited crush, and writer’s block.

We never hear what’s in this thesis she suddenly is able to write when she no longer has writer’s block, or why The Bunnies really set their sights on her.

After finishing the book, I saw some chatter about Samantha actually being schizophrenic and about what each character represents, but I don’t think any of the plot points in this book are fleshed out enough to find such deep meaning in it. Samantha was not just an unreliable narrator, she was an unfinished one. I was left with too many questions.

The ending, like much of the book, also falls flat, like when Regina George gets hit by a bus in Mean Girls, except that at least is shocking.

I honestly finished this book because it’s my version of watching good-bad television. Entertaining but nothing to rave about… just leaves a lot to be desired.

I am currently reading the sequel, and the jury is still out.

3. Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (2017)

Hate is a bit of a strong word for this one. Bazterrica’s writing is years better than the other two novels above, but it still did not meet the expectations that were sold to me by Booktok.

After a virus kills off all the animals and forces people to cannibalism, Marcos becomes part of the system he swore to hate, but bends the rules so he’s not as brutal as those around him who partake in eating “heads.” They’re not humans, they’re products. And for him, one is a pet that’s illegally kept to become a surrogate of sorts for him and his estranged wife.

The first part and second part of the book felt as if it was written by two different people or two different mindsets. Marcos’s apathy begins to lead his character more and more.

Things switch for him as he tries to keep on to the part of himself that remembers the time before people ate each other, but none of this change is unpacked.

The most we see is how the language of this savage society becomes normalized to dehumanize the people they’re eating, but beyond that, there is still not much world-building as a whole. How did we get here?

All the interactions we see are surface level and, at some points, appear to be brutal just to be brutal at some points. Yet the interactions are also intended to beat the reader over the head with meaning: what if we treated people like animals?

However, the book doesn’t go any deeper into these disturbing societal missteps.

In the end, our main character gives into the system of human-as-livestock in a rushed conclusion that is not a happy ending. It’s a book that wants readers to question their morals, but the lack of subtlety takes away from the overall experience.

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These books all had great concepts, but the writing didn’t do the plots the justice it could have. Still, reading anything beats endlessly scrolling on social media, at least.

A lot of authors now seem to write with no surprises, it’s all on the paper and spoon-fed to the reader. I want to be challenged when I read; I’m reading to better myself, my attention span, and my mind.

I leave you with some honorable mentions for Booktok recommendations that I really, truly, did love and enjoy:

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and its companion, Parable of the Talents
• Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

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