Lets Talk Bookish

Let’s Talk Bookish: Bookish Etiquette

Dini @ dinipandareads18 Comments

✨ Welcome back to another week of LTB! ✨

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and myself! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics HERE.

This week’s topic is:

Bookish Etiquette

Suggested by: Laurie @ Laurie Is Reading
Prompts: There’s always a lot of bookish discourse ongoing on social media. People talk about selling ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies), tagging authors and publishers in reviews, only posting positive reviews— we’ve seen it all! Do you think there’s something such as “bookish etiquette”? Why or why not? What do you think are some dos and don’ts as readers and/or reviewers? Do you agree with all the discourse, or do you stay far away from all the drama?

Do you think there’s something such as “bookish etiquette”? Why or why not?

Yes, I do think that there’s such a thing as “bookish etiquette” and at its core, I believe it’s just about basic respect/decency and common sense. The internet is a wild place and social media in particular can be the worst. It’s not difficult to be kind and thoughtful towards other people, but unfortunately, it seems like a rarity these days, especially on major platforms and across all communities (not just the bookish one). It seems like people think that because they’re online, they’re free to spew whatever they want to whomever they want without care or concern about how it affects others.

I don’t think anyone will dispute that everyone is entitled to their opinion. Say and do whatever you like on your own page, as long as you’re not actively harming or targeting others. Just as you’re allowed to read what you like, DNF what you want, or stay away from something that’s not for you, others are allowed to do and feel the same as it applies to them.

These days though, a lot of people seem to be conflating their opinions with fact, and then shoving that into everyone’s face and space. The minute you cross over from your space and invite others into it by let’s say actively tagging an author about their book or a reader about their review, that’s when you’re crossing a line that frankly, didn’t have to be crossed. Why is common sense and basic courtesy so lacking?

This obviously doesn’t only apply to the bookish community, but you do see it often, and that’s why certain discourse keeps coming up. For example, the one about not tagging authors in negative (or even any) reviews, which cycles like clockwork. I don’t understand how or why people, with their whole entire chest, tag an author and proceed to lambast them for writing a book they didn’t like. This happened fairly recently with a relatively popular YA fantasy author who writes gothic romance fantasy, and it was revolting to see how this “reviewer” tagged the author in a video and proceeded to curse them and their book out just because they didn’t write the book that reader wanted. Are people okay?! Like, what on earth makes you think it’s even slightly fine to do something like that? 🤪

But it’s not just readers disrespecting authors, it’s also readers/reviewers disrespecting other readers/reviewers. This also happened fairly recently where a BookTuber basically called everyone who reads and enjoys romance fantasy, brainless people who have a patriarchy kink. 🙃 Again, are people okay?! If you don’t like romance fantasy, that is absolutely fine. Nobody is holding a knife to your throat and forcing you to read or like it! Yet, if you choose to continue picking up romance fantasy, even knowing you don’t like the genre, what are you doing that for? Who are you doing that for? Why are you doing that?! There are so many other books out there in the genres you do love, whatever that may be, so why don’t you go and read those books and leave romance fantasy readers alone?

Just because they like something you don’t, doesn’t mean you have to insult them over it. No one says that everyone has to like the same thing, but you also don’t have to be cruel or unkind to others who do like something different than you, and I can’t believe we still have to forking say that in the year 2025. Okay, sorry, I clearly got heated there but I just… I don’t understand people sometimes (…often… almost always)! 😂

What do you think are some dos and don’ts as readers and/or reviewers?

Here are a few but it goes without saying this isn’t all encompassing!

Dos

  • Do respect other readers, period. We’re allowed to like different things, and as long as it’s not harming anyone, let people enjoy what they want! You don’t have to yuck anyone’s yum.
  • Do respect that ARCs are not meant for sale, so don’t sell them for exorbitant prices. If you want to get it off your shelf, you can donate it, give it away, etc.
  • Do remember that authors are human beans. You don’t know them, they don’t know you, but that doesn’t mean respect goes flying out the window.
  • Do use spoiler tags and content warnings if you talk about a book and go into details about it that could potentially spoil a certain part of the story for other readers.
  • Do be honest about what you think of a book whether it’s positive or negative. Don’t say that you like a book when you don’t, simply because it’s an arc or a popular title, or by an author you love.
  • DO be kind and treat others how you’d want to be treated. It’s common sense and should be easy, right?

Don’ts

  • DO NOT—I repeat, DO NOT—tag authors in reviews, especially if they’re negative. See the point in the “Dos” column about remembering that authors are real human beans and they put their heart and soul into their work. If you don’t like it, that’s absolutely fine, but you don’t have to tell the author about it either! That’s what your friend group is for.
  • Don’t gatekeep reading. Audiobooks, graphic novels, short stories, poetry, magazines, novellas—all of this counts as reading. Whether you do it with your eyeballs or your ears, you’re consuming the material and it’s reading.
  • Don’t go disrespecting other readers for liking something you don’t and vice versa. Again, if you want to talk about others who simply hold a different opinion than you, go to your friend group—that’s what they’re for. You don’t have to take it to the public, especially not to the reader, if they’re not intentionally bothering or harming you and/or others.
  • Don’t rate books that you haven’t read. If a book isn’t for me, I put them under a DNF or “not for me” list. I won’t mark them as read, but neither will I give it a rating. This is especially for books that I’ve marked as ‘not for me’—I just try to forget that it exists!

Do you agree with all the discourse, or do you stay far away from all the drama?

I won’t lie and say that I don’t like to be aware of what’s going on in the book community—we love ‘the tea’. When Book Twitter was still thriving and the place to be, it was a lot easier to keep up with what was going on. Now that the space is gone, I feel like I’m a lot more detached from the book community because I’m not on Threads or BookTok, and I don’t see much discourse on my Bluesky or Bookstagram feeds. I’ll sometimes hear about it through BookTube but that’s normally if the situation is really bad, has escalated or has gone viral. There are certain things that will pop up though—like the aforementioned “drama” in the first part of this post—but otherwise, I’m honestly, kind of glad to be spared the mess because it just gets my blood boiling, and I feel like I’m wasting my energy trying to understand why people. Lol. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think at the end of the day, I hope people will remember that treating others with kindness and respect is not a weakness or bad thing. In a world where so much of what we see and hear is sharp with cruelty and harm, let’s just be decent human beans that support each other because surviving this toxic dumpster fire that is our reality is already hard enough as it is!

Don’t forget to check out the other bloggers who joined the discussion this week! 👇🏽

Emma @ Pages of Emma
Elle @ Unwrapping Words
Laura @ Life Love Read
Jennifer @ My Book Joy
Yolanda @ Past Midnight
Abyssal Librarian
Bree @ Bibliophile Bree

If I’ve missed your post this week, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments, and I’ll add you to this week’s list of community posts ASAP!

Do you think there’s bookish etiquette? What do you think readers/reviewers should and should not do? Do you follow “book drama”?

18 thoughts on “Let’s Talk Bookish: Bookish Etiquette”

  1. Ngl I haven’t read your post (yet!) because I saw I was tagged in something called bookish etiquette and PANICKED thinking I had some something to piss you off since I only just did my first let’s talk bookish post 😂😭 had to come make sure and possibly apologize!!!

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    • Ok just read the whole thing and laughed when you mentioned tagging authors in negative reviews because that was absolutely the first topic that came to mind with this question xD everything is cyclical…

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    • Omg Jennifer, no! Haha it’s because you shared a post and I linked back to it so that people can check it out if they like 🙂 You’re totally fine!!!

      And yes, everything is cyclical… It just sometimes boggles the mind how people can be so rude to others and show absolutely no respect. Not just to authors but to toher readers. Like, just let people enjoy what they want to as long as it’s not harming you. Why is that so hard to do? Lol

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      • haha yeah I realized after finding it in the linked area xD What’s odd is that I have never seen someone avidly defending the negative stuff you pose here. So who are the people doing that? ARE people doing that? Granted it’s not like I’m reading so widely on opinion posts, but it does make me wonder. I’d like to think it’s a small amount of people doing this, without malicious intent, and it’s not as bad as it sometimes feels.

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        • I don’t see and I haven’t seen people defending the negative stuff and yet… It does continue to happen! 😂 I want to believe that people aren’t being malicious but, at least in the two instances that I mentioned above, I definitely don’t think that’s the case. But also, I don’t know, maybe common sense isn’t as common anymore. For example, I would never tag a negative review, especially the author, because why? What does someone get out of that? That’s like if someone passed me on the street and didn’t like what I was wearing and stopping me to tell me that to my face. Is it necessary? Does it make you feel better? 😅 Frankly, it’s just rude, lol.

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  2. I miss Book Twitter too. It was such a shame when it disappeared. I totally agree with everything (well almost) that you’ve written here. It is all about respecting everyone else isn’t it? And I do not get people who read books they know that they won’t like just so that they can be horrible about them.
    The only point I differ on is that when I was on Book Twitter, I would tag authors that I followed in my reviews and they were usually really nice in their responses and seemed glad that I had bothered to write a review for their book. That was only positive reviews although I don’t think I’ve ever written a bad review for any of the authors that I used to follow.

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    • Fair enough! I mean, I’ve tagged authors in glowing reviews in the past, but I’ve stopped in recent years mostly because I don’t know what authors do like being tagged and what authors leave reviews (even positive ones) to readers and their spaces. There are a lot of appreciative authors out there though, especially indie authors and I do think that if you want to tag authors in positive reviews and never the negative reviews, that’s great. But I don’t think I will ever be on board with authors being tagged in negative reviews… There are just some things that aren’t needed to be done 😅 It still baffles me how difficult it seems to be to respect others or to just leave people be to enjoy what they enjoy as long as it’s not harming others. 🫣

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  3. This was an interesting post, and I agree with everything you said. Good dos and don’ts up there. It’s sad that when people can assume some level of anonymity, basic courtesy goes out the window. It’s also sad that people behaving badly can get a lot of attention as well. I feel that drives some of the over the top hate-reading and negative review.

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    • It really is sad that people will go to such lengths to be cruel to others. A lot of it is attention seeking but coming from adults, it makes it feel even more pathetic! The thing is though some of these people aren’t even completely anonymous—as some who have “FAFO” have learned, and which has led to them “suffering” the consequences of their bad behaviour. I honestly wish it happened more often, lol.

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  5. When I share my reviews on socials, I do tag the author if I can find them. Unless I completely hate the book. Then I don’t typically share that review other than on Goodreads.

    I remember years ago, taking my nephew to the library and being upset that all he wanted to read were graphic novels. The librarian looked at me and said, “He’s reading, why does it matter what he reads?” I took a step back and realized it was a bias that had been pushed on me. I realized she was right, and as my kids came along, I encouraged them to read what makes them happy.

    Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!

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  6. I do often question if people are okay when they do these aggressively weird things on the internet. Run it by people in real life first! Or at least in a private chat (to be fair those are ultimately not that private but that’s a different kettle of fish).

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    • Yeah, I definitely question it a lot. What on earth would provoke them to be so vitriolic and rude in public and think they’re entitled to share that rudeness? I just don’t understand what people get out of it… Sometimes it does make me wonder too though, if someone acts that way, does that mean they surround themselves with people who would act/do the same? 😅

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      • Maybe they are starved for attention? When you’re in that state you don’t care at first what type you are getting. Then you’re stuck in the loop. They definitely could be copying the behavior they are surrounded with. It’s also possible that they don’t have anyone around them checking their behavior. It needs to be coming from someone they respect too. But I’m also not sure if they would act this way in real life.

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  8. I loved reading your take on bookish etiquette — honestly, I couldn’t agree more. So much of it really does come down to basic kindness and remembering that there are real people on the other side of the screen. The way some readers tag authors in negative reviews or attack others for liking “the wrong genre” is absolutely wild to me. Like… touch some grass and let people enjoy things! 😅

    Your list of dos and don’ts is spot on, especially the one about not yucking someone else’s yum. The book world is huge — there’s room for all tastes, all formats, and all levels of enthusiasm. And the reminder that ARCs are not meant to be resold? Necessary. Every. Single. Year.

    I also relate to staying semi-detached from the major drama. It’s nice to be aware of what’s going on, but wow does it feel peaceful not diving into every meltdown. Sometimes protecting your reading joy is the best kind of etiquette.

    If you’re curious, I shared my own thoughts on the topic too — feel free to check them out 👉 https://bookfllwerpath.art/2025/11/28/bookish-etiquette-lets-talk-bookish/

    Loved It! 🌸📚

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