✨ 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 Trends of 2025

Prompts: Looking back on the past year, what bookish trends have you noticed? Are certain tropes, types of blogging, or other book-related content becoming more popular? If you did this post last year (Bookish Trends of 2024), do you notice any trend changes from that post? What changes do you foresee in 2026? What bookish trend would you most want to see become popular, or come back?

What bookish trends have you noticed? Are certain tropes, types of blogging, or other book-related content becoming more popular?

• Fantasy romance is hanging in there… — I didn’t think it would be possible but it feels like this genre of books has gotten even more popular over the past year. It was already popular beforehand, but now I feel like the majority of new releases that come across my FYP are romantasy. Maybe it’s because most of the people I engage with read that genre the most, but if I’m being honest, it’s feeling really oversaturated at this point. Ngl, I’m kind of ready for the fantasy romance era to die down?

• Less fae, more vampires and werewolves — I noticed that there were considerably less fae in fantasy over the last year and a whole lot more vampires and werewolves. It was refreshing to get something different, I just hope that they don’t overdo it with them too!

• Fan fiction to trad publishing — I don’t know if this is necessarily a trend since there have been books previously trad published that started as fan fiction. However, with the release of these three books (Alchemised, Rose in Chains, and The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy) it felt like a much bigger discussion in the mainstream.

• Dystopian and dark academia — I feel like dystopian books made a bit of a comeback last year with titles like Silver Elite, Alchemised and Fable for the End of the World. But I also felt like there were a lot more dark academia books last year with books like Blood Over Bright Haven, The Raven Scholar, and Red City to name a few.

• Lady knights! — Last year was definitely the year of the lady knights with books like The Everlasting, The Second Death of Locke, and The Isle in the Silver Sea to name a few. While I have yet to read any of those books that already on my TBR, I’m still really here for this trend. May we be blessed to get more lady knights in 2026! 😇

• A never ending flow of “special editions” — This was an LTB topic a little while back and as I mentioned then, I feel like special editions have really become a popular trend this year. There have always been special editions before that actually felt special, but now it’s like every single book has something special about them. It’s great that more readers can get their hands on pretty copies, but it also makes these special books feel a lot less special.

• Increasing discourse on anti-intellectualism — I don’t know if it’s because of the algorithm feeding me, but as the year ended, I saw an increasing number of posts talking about the rise in anti-intellectualism and how we can combat that. I have a feeling we’re going to see it a lot more in the coming year too!

Any trend changes from the Bookish Trends of 2024 post?

I forgot that I’d actually done the post for bookish trends of 2024, but it was interesting to see that all of what I mentioned continued (somewhat) was trends in 2025. Cosy fantasy, healing fiction, and (unfortunately), AI in books were trends that I saw persist last year, although I wouldn’t necessarily say that they dominated the trends. If there’s any trend that I wish would die a horrible death it’s AI in books although with the way some authors have forgotten to remove the AI prompts in their books upon publication, I don’t know if that’s likely to happen anytime soon…? 🫣😬😮‍💨

What changes do you foresee in 2026? What bookish trend would you most want to see become popular or come back?

I think all of the trends I mentioned seeing in 2025 will continue in 2026. I even think the ‘cosy/healing’ trend will also remain a popular trend, especially since it seems like there’s no dearth of Korean and Japanese Lit being published in that space. I especially think the anti-intellectualism discourse will remain a prominent topic as readers try to encourage others to critically engage with the books they read through things like reading challenges that ‘fight the brain rot’.

Not on books specifically, but I’ve seen a lot of readers mentioning that they’ll shift away from Goodreads and the “social aspect” of the platform to move over to Storygraph. They’re doing this to focus on their reading without the feeling of competitiveness that the social aspect of GR tends to inspire. I feel like with that shift, maybe we’ll see a trend related to “slower reading” and taking the time to really sit with a book and absorb it because I feel like I’ve seen a lot more discussions about that lately.

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

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Elle @ Unwrapping Words
Yolanda @ Past Midnight
Raji @ Worlds Unlike Our Own
Abyssal Librarian

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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!

What trends did you notice in 2025 and do you think any will continue on in 2026? What trends do you hope to see become popular in 2026? Anything to leave behind?

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