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CU ��«����Ƶ scholar Katherine Little explores how Colleen Hoover and similar authors have taken over bestseller lists and social media

Colleen Hoover fans cheered last month when the film version of her novel Reminders of Him was at Universal Pictures and slated for February 2026 release. On the heels of the almost $150 million that It Ends with Us, a 2024 film based on another of Hoover’s novels, earned domestically, even non-fans or those not on TikTok probably know that a new Colleen Hoover film is a big—and lucrative—deal.

Hoover and a cohort of bestselling authors that includes Ali Hazelwood, Emily Henry and many others have taken over the reading—and sometimes film-adaptation—world one romance novel at a time. Their rise to literary fame writing novels that critics often dismiss as “trashy” can be attributed in large part to social media, especially BookTok, a subcommunity in the TikTok app dedicated to books. In fact, “” is a sales metric that Publishers Weekly tracks, and cites seven of the 10 as being written by BookTok authors—who also happen to write romance or romantasy.

Katie Little, a CU ��«����Ƶ professor of English, has taught a course called Trashy Books.

This raises the question: What is the enduring appeal of these “trashy” novels? Why are they so popular?

First, it helps to understand what exactly makes a novel “trashy.”

“There isn’t one correct answer to what makes a book ‘trashy,’” says Katie Little, a ��«����Ƶ professor of English who has taught a course called Trashy Books, adding that the word “trashy” suggests these novels are in some way bad—poorly written, too sexy or simply a waste of time.

“It’s the marketing,” says Little. “Usually, somebody who is writing a trashy book understands themselves to be writing it for a particular audience looking for something fun to read, looking for romance.”

Some even argue that these novels are intentionally “trashy,” and sales figures might back that up. that 2022 adult fiction sales rose 8.5% from 2021, growth that was led by a 52.4% increase in romance book sales. So, the authors of these novels likely understand that they are not writing books for academic or high-literary audiences but are purposely writing what Little calls “books for fun.”

“Books that we read for fun do have a bad-for-you aspect, and sometimes people aren’t as aware of it because they’re just looking for something fun,” Little explains. Books for fun are what some consider to be books that aren’t challenging to read—a concept that has shadowed fiction almost since the first fiction was written.

Books for education

Through human history, books have been essential for formal—and even self-directed—education, and the prevailing idea has been that people could not consider themselves educated if they did not know how to read or if they didn’t read often.

Colleen Hoover is one of the leading "BookTok authors," or authors who are beloved in the book-focused subcommunity of TikTok.

With the invention of the printing press and the growth of mass publication, —b�𳦲����� and accessible means of entertainment, not just education. Even before the printing press—as early as the first century AD and —novels were generally regarded as the dumber, less respectable offspring of the epic poem. So, it wasn’t a far leap to “trashy” books that are more about fun and entertainment than enlightenment.

And while it might be an exaggeration to claim that social media have had as significant an effect on people’s reading habits as, say, the printing press, the effect has nevertheless been significant—specifically BookTok. A community within the social media app TikTok, BookTok is dedicated to all things books—from book reviews to news about authors and new releases—and made writers like Colleen Hoover into bestselling authors. BookTok content creators have embraced romance and romantasy novels that might be termed “trashy,” helping to make the genres a driving force in publishing.

“What’s changed with social media and BookTok is that people are reading books, and they don’t really read books the way they used to,” Little says. “[Readers] don’t have this sense of ‘I should be reading a better book,’ as in better written, more intellectually challenging.”

But what does BookTok mean for the future of reading? Little asks what would happen if people put similar effort into reading Shakespeare or other highly regarded authors that they put into BookTok—the lighting, the recording, the influencing and tagging. about student reading abilities, several college professors expressed fear for future generations: Will they learn how to analyze, explain and understand difficult texts that are meant to challenge readers?

“I still think that books are the path to education,” Little says. “I understand people want to read for escape, but I also want people to read to use critical ways of thinking and knowledge.”

According to Little, one day Colleen Hoover and similar writers will fade in popularity, just as many authors have before her. “Even if writers exhaust the romance—the trashy books line of writing—people are so creative, they’ll come up with something else that will percolate in a different way.”

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