This week I came across The BookTube Bandwagon, a blog/vlog post by Bierbaum Bookworm that questions why so many book bloggers and booktubers are reading the exact same books and how it influences the rest of us. It’s rather disheartening to hear how few of the “big” names out there in the book blogging world read nothing but YA and New Adult. I’ve noticed it myself, but never really thought about how much of our community is defined by this small group of people and their reading preferences. I’m not knocking YA and New Adult, but I think it’s important that people read and talk about other books as well.
I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a dinosaur on the internet. Tumblr confuses me, I visit YouTube for cat videos, and the fact that I have Instagram at all is a bit of a triumph for my younger coworkers. Facebook and Twitter are my jam, and I’ll stick to what I know. I don’t watch booktuber videos and tend to scan reviews for books that might interest me. I just can’t fathom why anyone would want to watch multiple videos about the same book, especially when it’s likely all these people have the same opinion. They do seem to like the same things… heck, they apparently share a house!
So I ask you…
- Am I shouting into the void when I write a blog about a book that isn’t YA or New Adult?
- Are the books you read and/or review influenced by the reviews of popular people in the book blogger world?
- What genre or category do you enjoy reading that you think is underrepresented in the book blogging world?
The Literary Counsellor 
Oh yes! I am influenced to read books after reading other bloggers’ posts. I tend to prefer Literary Fiction and CanLit. that’s what I’m into.
I also aspire to write literary fiction for middle grade and YA readers. I read a lot of that genre too. Although many people blog about popular, best-selling YA fiction, not many focus on the literary fiction for this age groups. not many bloggers concentrate on middle grade fiction either. Blogging about these books is important to me.
To be honest, I don’t read New Adult Fiction or Woman’s Fiction (I hate that marketing term.) I skip over those reviews. But many people read those genres of fiction, so I see why many people blog about it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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Thanks for sharing! I love reading middle grade fiction as well. It’s so much fun. 🙂
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I tend to read mostly YA but that’s just where my interests lie, I’ll just read whatever I feel interested in. I know what I like and I’ll read that but I do look to other bloggers for recommendations, although I’ll only read something that sounds interesting to me, even if all other bloggers think it’s great if it doesn’t sound interesting to me, I probably won’t read it.
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Thanks for the comment! I’m glad to hear that you read what you like, instead of reading what everyone is telling you to read. I’d hate to think that so many people in our blogging community are reading things they don’t like just because the popular kids say they should. 🙂
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Me too! Like I said, a lot of the books other bloggers read I’m just not interested in. I made the mistake of reading The Fault In Our Stars when I knew I wouldn’t like it and never again!
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