A few years ago, readers discovered books through newspapers, bookshops, teachers and friends.

Today, one short TikTok video can send a novel published years ago straight back onto the bestseller lists.

Welcome to **BookTok** — the corner of TikTok where readers recommend books, cry over fictional characters, argue about endings, rank their favourite romances and convince thousands of strangers to buy the same book.

Some books became so closely associated with BookTok that it is now almost impossible to separate their success from the platform.

Here are some of the titles TikTok helped turn into reading phenomena.

1. Hooked — Emily McIntire

Dark romance, obsession, revenge and a villain-inspired love story.

Emily McIntire’s *Hooked* is loosely inspired by the world of Peter Pan, but this is definitely not a children’s fairy tale.

James is dangerous, manipulative and driven by revenge. Wendy becomes entangled in his plans — and inevitably, things become much more complicated.

The book became enormously popular among readers who enjoy **dark romance, morally grey characters and stories where the villain gets his own love story**.

If your TikTok feed contains phrases such as “villain romance,” “dark retelling” or “morally grey man,” you have probably already encountered *Hooked*.

2. It Ends With Us — Colleen Hoover

Few writers demonstrate the power of BookTok better than **Colleen Hoover**.

*It Ends With Us* was originally published in 2016, but years later TikTok readers gave it an extraordinary second life.

The novel follows Lily Bloom and her complicated relationship with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid while memories of her first love, Atlas Corrigan, return.

It looks like a romance at first, but the story eventually explores relationships, abuse, difficult choices and the cycles people sometimes struggle to escape.

BookTok turned Colleen Hoover into one of the most recognisable names among a new generation of readers.

3. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Why did Hollywood legend Evelyn Hugo have seven husbands?

That question alone has attracted millions of readers.

An ageing film star chooses an unknown journalist to tell the true story of her life — her marriages, ambition, secrets, sacrifices and the person she actually loved.

TikTok readers helped transform *The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo* into one of the defining contemporary reading recommendations of the last decade.

It combines **old Hollywood glamour, romance, scandal and emotional revelation**.

4. The Song of Achilles — Madeline Miller

A novel inspired by a story thousands of years old became one of BookTok’s great emotional favourites.

Madeline Miller retells the story of Achilles through the eyes of Patroclus.

Instead of presenting the Trojan War simply as heroic mythology, the novel concentrates on friendship, love, fate and loss.

Readers regularly post videos describing how much this book emotionally destroyed them — which, strangely enough, seems to encourage even more people to read it.

That is BookTok logic.

5. A Court of Thorns and Roses — Sarah J. Maas

Fantasy romance — now often called **romantasy** — has become one of BookTok’s biggest genres.

Sarah J. Maas’s *A Court of Thorns and Roses* series helped drive that popularity.

The story begins when Feyre, a young huntress, kills a wolf and is taken into a dangerous magical world ruled by powerful faeries.

Romance, fantasy, political intrigue, danger and increasingly complex relationships follow.

For readers who want **magic plus romance plus hundreds of pages to disappear into**, this series became almost compulsory BookTok reading.

6. The Love Hypothesis — Ali Hazelwood

What happens when an academic romance becomes a TikTok sensation?

You get *The Love Hypothesis*.

Olive Smith, a PhD student, unexpectedly kisses a professor as part of an attempt to convince someone that she is dating.

The fake relationship naturally becomes rather less fake.

The combination of **fake dating, academic life, humour and romance** made the book particularly popular among younger BookTok readers.

7. Verity — Colleen Hoover

If you think Colleen Hoover only writes conventional romances, *Verity* may surprise you.

Writer Lowen Ashleigh is hired to complete the books of bestselling author Verity Crawford after an accident leaves Verity unable to work.

While going through Verity’s papers, Lowen discovers a manuscript that appears to reveal horrifying secrets about the family.

Is it true?

Is it fiction?

And whom should she believe?

BookTok readers loved arguing about exactly that.

8. The Inheritance Games — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

A billionaire dies and leaves almost his entire fortune to a teenage girl he barely appears to know.

There is one problem.

His family is still living in the mansion.

Avery Grambs must uncover why she has inherited the fortune while navigating riddles, secret passages, suspicious relatives and four very interesting grandsons.

The mix of **mystery, wealth, puzzles and romance** made *The Inheritance Games* particularly suited to TikTok recommendations.

9. They Both Die at the End — Adam Silvera

The title tells you what happens.

That does not make it easier.

Mateo and Rufus receive calls informing them that they will die sometime during the next twenty-four hours.

They meet through an app designed to connect people living through their final day.

What follows is a story about friendship, love and what it means to live when you suddenly know how little time remains.

BookTok helped revive interest in the novel several years after its original publication.

10. The Cruel Prince — Holly Black

Jude is human.

The world around her belongs to dangerous and beautiful faeries.

And Prince Cardan appears determined to make her life miserable.

*The Cruel Prince* offers court politics, rivalry, betrayal, attraction and morally complicated characters.

That combination made it almost perfectly designed for BookTok’s love of **enemies-to-lovers tension and fantasy worlds**.

Why Does BookTok Have So Much Power?

BookTok recommendations are different from traditional book reviews.

A reader may have only thirty seconds.

So instead of explaining the entire plot, they might say:

**“Read this if you want a villain you should hate but probably won’t.”**

Or:

**“This book destroyed me.”**

Or:

**“Enemies to lovers — but they genuinely hate each other.”**

That emotional shorthand works.

Readers become curious.

One reader buys the book, makes another video, and suddenly a novel published five or even ten years earlier can become fashionable again.

## And What Does This Mean for Sri Lankan Readers?

It means Sri Lankan readers are increasingly discovering books at almost the same time as readers in London, New York, Sydney or Toronto.

The problem is availability.

A title may become viral internationally long before affordable copies become easy to find locally.

That is where pre-loved and imported books become especially valuable.

At **Lanka Books Online**, we continuously search for popular international titles — including books being rediscovered through BookTok — and make them available to Sri Lankan readers at more accessible prices whenever we can.

So the next time TikTok tells you:

**“You HAVE to read this book…”**

you may want to check whether a copy has already arrived in Sri Lanka.

### Looking for your next BookTok read?

Browse **Lanka Books Online** for romance, thrillers, fantasy, young adult fiction and thousands of imported and pre-loved English books.

Because sometimes TikTok creates the obsession.

We just help you find the book.