Top 15 Viral #BookTok Books in 2023

TikTok has spoken… These are the viral books you absolutely must get your hands on.

^{BookTok table in the Barnes and Noble on Forest Drive. (Photo: Julia Goulet)}

Who would have guessed TikTok loves books?

Fuelling a ‘Reading Renaissance’ and driving a big bump in book sales is #BookTok, the small corner of the TikTok app for bibliophiles.

Booktok, a sub-community on TikTok app, was created in August 2020 after a user posted about what she was reading. The trend gained popularity under #BookTok, raking up an impressive 163.1 billion views and counting.

In anticipation of National Book Lovers Day (9th August), the experts at Aura Print curated a list of 62 most talked-about books on TikTok sourced from reputable websites such as Barnes and Nobles, Penguin, and Book Riot. This helped to determine the must-reads that have taken BookTok by storm.

Top 15 Most Viral Books on TikTok

TikTok has spoken… These are the top 15 viral books you absolutely must get your hands on:

Topping the list by a landslide is Shadow and Bone (now a Netflix original series) by Leigh Bardugo. Crowned the most popular book on TikTok, the fantasy novel following the story of Alina, a gifted orphan navigating her survival in a world of dark magic, garnered a whopping 15 billion hashtag views.

In second is the TikTok sensation It Ends with Us (2.7 billion views) by Colleen Hoover. Being launched to great heights by TikTok, the superstar romance author has bagged a legion of fans with three of her novels dominating the top five rankings.

Earning 879.9 million views and 652 million views respectively, CoHo’s best-known titles Ugly Love and Verity won fourth and fifth place with grace, as books receiving the most love on TikTok.

Claiming the third spot is Holly Black’s New York Times bestselling novel, The Cruel Prince, accumulating 1.3 billion hashtag views on TikTok. A fascinating dark fantasy read, the novel explores the story of a mortal girl Jude, finding her way in the Faeries world where humans are despised.

Achieving the highest rating on Goodreads is the steamy fantasy romance by Rebecca Yarros, the Fourth Wing. Not only has the book garnered 283.2 million views, making it one of the top 15 most viral books, but it also boasts a promising 4.67/5 on Goodreads, proving that it’s worth the hype.

Top 15 Most Viral Books on TikTok

Rank

Book name

Author

Goodreads Rating (/5)

TikTok Hashtags Views

In numbers

Shadow and Bone

Leigh Bardugo

3.94

15B

15,000,000,000

It Ends with Us

Colleen Hoover

4.23

2.7B

2,700,000,000

The Cruel Prince

Holly Black

4.07

1.3B

1,300,000,000

Ugly Love

Colleen Hoover

4.10

879.9M

879,900,000

Verity

Colleen Hoover

4.35

652M

652,000,000

A Court of Thorns and Roses

Sarah J. Maas

4.20

641.4M

641,400,000

The Love Hypothesis

Ali Hazelwood

4.19

638.3M

638,300,000

Red, White & Royal Blue

Casey McQuiston

4.11

475.1M

475,100,000

Twisted Love

Ana Huang

3.75

472.7M

472,700,000

Haunting Adeline

H. D. Carlton

4.05

468.4M

468,400,000

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Taylor Jenkins Reid

4.44

456.2M

456,200,000

The Secret History

Donna Tartt

4.17

395.2M

395,200,000

The Spanish Love Deception

Elena Armas

3.87

294.1M

294,100,000

Fourth Wing

Rebecca Yarros

4.67

283.2M

283,200,000

Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller

4.35

257.9M

257,900,000

Hottest Book Genres on TikTok

Meanwhile, BookTok has been swept up in a storm of romance-centred books, amassing a staggering 8 billion hashtag views on TikTok.

In fact, the boom has ignited careers of romance writers, with Colleen Hoover witnessing a 66.1% increase in sales for her love novels, ultimately selling more copies than The Bible!

Rounding off the top three most loved genres are short stories and dark romance, with TikTok hashtag views totalling 1.8 billion and 1.6 billion, respectively.

Top10 Most Loved Book Genres on TikTok

Rank

Book Genre

TikTok Hashtags Views

In numbers

Romance

8,000,000,000

Short Stories

1.8B

1,800,000,000

Dark Romance

1.6B