Reading is for everyone
If you know what BookTok is, you're probably sick of the discourse that surrounds it every month. But yesterday, I started (and didn't finish) a YouTube video from about a year ago. The creator in the video was discussing two videos that went viral on BookTok in which BookTok reviewers admitted to skipping descriptive paragraphs (essentially just reading the dialogue) and even complaining about the amount of words on the pages of the books they read.
...So why are they reading? On that point, I don't really care. What I do care about, however, is that someone can't review a book if they didn't read/listen to all the words in it. Yes, you can review a book you didn't finish, but that is not what I am attacking. I know some people skip introductions, prologues, and epilogues; none of that is new to me (I used to do it myself). But if you're skipping entire chunks of text throughout a book... (!!!???) No, you cannot give a review of it and claim that you finished it.
I think if you can't bear to read the descriptive paragraphs of a book, then you just might not enjoy that book. Maybe, the author's writing style isn't for you. These are two things that came to my mind instantly. When I was a kid, I tried reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and I stopped after the first chapter because it wasn't for me. But now, a more sinister thought is coming to mind. What if reading just isn't for everyone?
I don't want to believe this, because after so many years of thinking that I hated reading, all I had to do was try a book genre I hadn't tried before (memoirs) and I was hooked. And it also made me think: why were all the books I was forced to read in school so bad? Now, I don't actually think any of those books were bad (except for Into The Wild, The Catcher in The Rye, and The Outsiders- those books are baaaaaaaad), they just weren't for me. My point is that I believe that reading can be for everyone who wants to enjoy it, and despite the surge in independent bookstores and celebrities starting book clubs, people aren't actually that encouraged to find the books that they enjoy.
I remember being told by my teachers that I just had to wait for the book to get good, and being disappointed when it never happened. How many other young readers were promised the amazement that reading can absolutely be, and found themselves disappointed and lied to? Then they grow up, excited to never read a book again once they leave school. Also, chronically online Gen Zers are so obsessed with calling people who read "performative". No one wants to be performative so why would they read? (I have a hypothesis that young people calling reading "performative" isn't just a symptom of anti-intellectualism, but also a symptom of anti-elitism.)
Reading is for everyone. I'm not sure why there's so much trouble put into what makes someone a "real" reader or if they read "real" books. If someone is reading a bound collection of pages with text, they are reading a book, and they are a reader. It's fine to not like genres or authors, but attacking individuals because they read "BookTok slop" is just revealing your insecurities. As much as I hate to say it (as someone who loves deep-dives and criticizing things), let people enjoy things. Unless the book is written by a proven racist, rapist, misogynist, or a bigot in any way, I think we'll be fine.