Booktok loves to rate a novel by its spicy sex scenes, but this approach flattens the readers' understanding of what stories can be
The BookTok video has been saved thousands of times. No dancing creator, no hilarious babies or cats; instead it’s a scrolling slideshow of romance novels, each with a list of their "spicy" chapters.
Scroll down and the next creator skips straight over a plot discussion, and instead she raves about how the book is "so spicy it will leave you gasping for air."
It seems like everything bookish is about "spice" now. Even bookstores have a chilli plushie to rate how spicy the books on their BookTok racks are.
@probablyoffreading The smuttiest, most unhinged, spiciest books I’ve ever read 📚 #spicybooks #romancebooks #bookrecommendations #booktok #fyp
The term spicy books — used to describe romances where sex features heavily — isn’t inherently problematic.
But the current obsession with spice levels reveals something deeper about the way we consume fiction in the age of BookTok, namely that plot is no longer the point. Neither is character development, setting or even the emotional weight of the story.
What seems to matter now, at least in many online circles, is how often the characters hook up and how graphic the scenes get.
Sexual moments, like all literary elements, should support the flow of the narrative. When you flip it to sacrifice narrative in favour of spice, it diminishes plot to the point where it becomes a frame of disjointed checkboxes.
In a culture dominated by bite-sized, algorithm-bound content, critical discourse is flattened. And for many people, traditional reviews — once a space to unpack symbolism, structure and subtext — have been replaced by reaction videos and emoji ratings.
As platforms such as BookTok and Bookstagram help to determine which books get pushed into the cultural mainstream, publishers are responding accordingly. Frontlists are shaped with visibility in mind, creating a self-reinforcing cycle.
@mcnallyrobinson Which one of these is your favourite?? #booktok #indiebookstore #fyp #foryoupage #booktokbooks #spicybooks #romance #romancebooks #ranking
Fan fictions, for instance, offer a particularly efficient entry point into this system. They arrive with built-in audiences: first from the source material, then from their own earlier virality on platforms like Wattpad or Archive of Our Own.
While Fifty Shades of Grey remains the most famous example, Anna Todd’s After series arguably set the template for large-scale transition from Wattpad success to mainstream publishing, carrying an already massive readership into print.
More recently, the industry’s interest zooms in towards Harry Potter fanfictions, with titles like SenLinYu’s Alchemised and the renewed buzz around the Marauders fanfiction All the Young Dudes, following rumours of a seven-figure publishing deal.
Likewise, while romance has always had a large commercial following, BookTok accelerated its circulation in a particular direction.
The algorithm’s preference for bite-sized, "grabby" content creates an emphasis on categorisation that necessitates books to be quickly trope-ified — enemies-to-lovers, second-chance, slow burn — so "spicy" slots neatly into this system.
Because these platforms increasingly shape how young people discover books, this becomes more than just a question of taste. It becomes a concern about how early reading habits are being shaped.
When a teenager’s first encounter with literature is framed entirely by "spice levels" and trope checklists, it flattens their understanding of what stories can be.
This trend intersects with the rise of the New Adult (NA) category, a relatively recent publishing label that sits between young adult and adult fiction. They typically feature protagonists in their late teens to twenties and often foreground themes of independence, sexuality, and identity.
While emerging from a legitimate gap in literature for teenagers, its current branding falls along the lines of "Young Adult with sex thrown in," further reinforcing the centrality of "spice" in what constitutes the maturing of a literary work.
BookTok and Bookstagram have expanded who gets to talk about books and who gets to have their works reach the wider public, with the success of self-published books and the power of an author’s social media presence to grow a readership demonstrating the breakdown of those gatekeeping structures that long dominated publishing and criticism.
But while online spaces have democratised literary conversation — which is a good thing — they've also encouraged a shift toward superficial engagement — not so good.
Readers are increasingly conditioned to seek emotional gratification over intellectual or artistic merit.
Spaces for writers who defy genres and write stories other than those focused on romance are becoming tighter, and they are increasingly pressured to make their books marketable.
Speaking to Business Insider, author Anne Bailey recounts how moving away from writing historical fiction to writing romance incorporating popular tropes led to hugely increased sales.
Surely the literary community would survive longer without downplaying a book's plot for the number of chilli emojis as determined by an overly enthusiastic BookTok reviewer.
Because if it all comes down to that, Jane Austen’s works wouldn’t have seen the light of day, while Heated Rivalry would be in the English curriculum.
