It’s midnight. A weekday. I am once again scrolling through TikTok after finishing my latest “He would burn the world for her,” “Touch her and die” smutty shadow-daddy fixation book and eagerly searching for the next one.
I confess, I wasn’t initially looking to become quite so emotionally invested in the fates of some poor, down-on-her-luck heroine that’s faintly reminiscent of every early 2010’s dystopian leading lady. Yet, BookTok found me, and it clocked me hard. And apparently, it found a lot of other women.
The appeal is obvious.
An emotionally competent man. Add action, adventure, a blade at someone’s throat, and yes, a healthy dose of SMUT, and you have the exact cocktail I was ravenous for. Real life is not charged glances across a battlefield or breathless confessions after near-death experiences, unfortunately for us romantically inclined babes. It’s googling how to write a cover letter for a boring job. It’s coordinating adult friendships three weeks in advance and still, somehow, never having schedules that match. It’s standing in your kitchen at 6:47 p.m., wondering what the hell to make for dinner again.
But let’s back it up.
Before BookTok, I was a different woman. I didn’t write. I didn’t read much since leaving school and having to do actual adult stuff. I struggled through friendships once my school friends dissolved, everyone taking their own paths. I was suffering from jaded dating app fatigue, a horrid run of dates after a horrid breakup leading me to believe that love was futile and death would claim me before I found someone worth investing my very little time into. As I said, jaded was exactly what I was.
In real life, yearning is something condemned to movies (Hello, Mr. Darcy and his infuriating hand clench) and in a world of hookup culture and situationships, grand devotion feels theatrical. Embarrassing, even. But that doesn’t mean we stopped wanting it.
Because how else would the possibly largest sub-section of TikTok and Instagram have come to be?
The obsession with devotion, of quiet love that’s reaffirmed over and over again, of loud and epic declarations of desire, has transcended the containment of shame-coated secrecy that so many female-driven interests are tarnished with. The clips that go viral and spiral a book from a small fanbase to infamy are those that show obsession, sacrifice, and a man who would dismantle empires rather than let something mildly inconvenience you.
And why are these clips better than the rest?
Well, it’s simple.
Because we are exhausted.
A world filled with Andrew Tate drivel, of metrosexual desires and the expectation that a woman’s wants come second to a man’s has led us to expect disappointment. But, in the book world, a woman comes first. Literally.
She is famed, adored, and she is treated like a damn person. Ambiguity, the happiness with a text once every two days, and the aloofishness of a man who might take you out—if he’s nothing better to do—isn’t really doing it for us.
In a truly cultural moment, one defined by the nonconformity of expected emotional tangents, women are flocking to pick up the next book that makes them feel seen, safe, and heard. With girlhood blossoming out of the ether and recently, into real life, BookTok and viral sensations have given women the safe to say, “Actually, I’d like someone who likes me back” and the backing from other, like-minded, women who say “As you damn well should.”
It’s also the realization that we don’t want to be managed; we want to be met.
Fantasy just packages that desire with swords and magic.
There’s also something quietly subversive about how openly women now consume and discuss explicit romance. For years, smut was hidden in paperback covers disguised as historical fiction—relegated to the back corner of a select few bookshops. Now it’s clipped, quoted, soundtracked, and shared with millions unashamedly on repeat.
The algorithm is sneaky. It doesn’t just accept this longing and move on, showing you the next micro-trend and hoping you’ll enjoy it; it amplifies it times a thousand. It’s how you find yourself going back through a hundred saved posts quoting a man who actually has some emotional maturity—desperately searching for that one post that just hit different—and frequently leading you to purchase the next book on Kindle, or paperback, and immerse yourself in yet another goose-pimpling adventure.
The bar has been raised subtly, but clearly. Not unobtainably and certainly not out of the realm of what should be. Rather, it’s been brought in line with basic decency and love. With the expectation that a partner should treat you with respect, kindness, and the quiet knowledge that you are worth it without you having to tell them.
And then you close the app and go on a Hinge date with a man who thinks vulnerability is admitting he once “caught feelings” for someone back in 2019.
Elvie is a UK-based romantasy and urban fantasy author who loves writing emotionally rich, character-driven stories with grit, magic, and heart. She also dabbles in short stories, pop culture essays and writes about whatever has made her ‘feel’ something that week. When she’s not crafting worlds where fae and mortals clash or vampires stalk the streets, she’s busy rallying a dog, three cats and a fish she inherited with her house. She’s proudly neurodivergent, and passionate about creating stories where outsiders find belonging, power, and love—often in the most unexpected places.
Featured image by Blaz Photo on Unsplash.
