Riverina, Border teens embrace reading with recommendations from BookTok

The Jindera student, 17, said it wasn't until she found BookTok, a subspace on video hosting service TikTok, that she rediscovered reading for leisure.

She said BookTok users shared their favourite books through short videos using the hastag booktok.

"I started using it just after COVID and it made me want to read again," she said.

"The first book I read was The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and I loved it!

"Now I read every night."

Fellow Billabong High School student Allanah Bakes, 17, who was also a BookTok convert, said she made good use of the school bus ride from her Table Top home as reading time.

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She said she could finish a book within a couple of days through her commute and reading at home at night.

"I was always into books when I was younger like The 13-Storey Treehouse series and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series," she said.

"After BookTok, I started with Colleen Hoover books so I like romance but I'm also getting into fantasy as well."

Now before she hits the bookstore, she refers to BookTok first.

"I just look at BookTok really quick before I go in," Allanah said.

"I think TikTok has influenced authors to come out of their shell and produce stories that teens and young adults like."

QBD Books Albury (Lavington Square) team leader Jacquie Galvin said BookTok had profoundly impacted the reading habits of Border youth.

She said studies have shown young people read about 40 to 50 per cent more since engaging with BookTok.

"We have seen a steady increase in young people coming into the store, excited to find their favourite books from BookTok," she said.

"Reading has become cool again, I think going to the bookshop with your friends after school or on weekends has become a bit of a destination event for local youth."

Ms Galvin said BookTok was a space for literary criticism by young readers with hundreds of subgroups devoted to authors such as Rebecca Yarros, Sarah J Maas, Stephanie Garber, Leigh Bardugo and R.F. Kuang among others.

She said teenagers and young adults were the biggest users of BookTok, but older readers were now engaging with it through their children and many women were gravitating to young adult titles.

"While it is mainly younger girls, queer youth and women who are engaged with BookTok, I am optimistic that boys and men will start expanding their reading choices as there are books here for them as well," Ms Galvin said.

"There's fantasy, crime, adventure and deeply moving human stories that would absolutely speak to all readers."

After finishing Year 12 exams recently, Madison and Allanah would now take a gap year.

There will be plenty of books on the must-read list too!

Ms Galvin said popular titles at the moment were Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross; Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, Heartstopper Volume 5 by Alice Oseman; Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: Graphic Novel Collection Vol. 3 by Scott Cawthorn; and Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle.

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