The Most Popular YA Books on TikTok

Books like Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also A Star are endlessly quotable, which is part of the reason it’s gaining a lot of buzz on TikTok. When you only have a short amount of time to grab someone’s attention, a short but thought-provoking quote is great content. But this is also one that gets attention for the aesthetics, for the love story, and because it makes readers cry. Really, this love story about two teens falling in love with each other over the course of one day? It has everything that makes BookTok sing!

Let’s talk about the Crave series and all the reasons that it’s perfect for BookTok. First, we have to acknowledge the aesthetics. Then, there’s the fact that it’s basically Twilight for a new generation, but with a dark academia twist. There’s the romance. The characters people love and love to hate. This is another YA book that has all the elements TikTok loves. After the death of her parents, Grace moves to a small town to live with her uncle and attend a boarding school there. Only this school isn’t exactly a normal school. And then there’s the mysterious Jaxon Vega, who just so happens to be a vampire.

The Caraval series is so beloved on BookTok that people are dancing about it. Scarlett and her sister Tella live with their father on a tiny island that they’ve never left. Scarlett dreams of one day seeing Caraval — a magical performance where the audience participates in the show that happens only once a year. And then one year, Tella is kidnapped to become the center of the season’s Caraval, and whoever finds her first is the winner. Scarlett always thought that Caraval was all pretend, but now with her sister missing, Scarlett knows she must find Tella before the game is over. Or else who knows what the very real consequences would be?

Remember how we established that BookTok loves a good quotable moment? Well, Leigh Bardugo’s novels are full of them. And while all of Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone–adjacent novels are quite popular on BookTok, it’s Six of Crows that gets the most attention. On top of quippy dialogue, this book is an intriguing story featuring a full cast of compelling characters, plenty of fantasy elements, and, oh yeah, a heist. It’s unsurprising then that BookTok is so head over heels for this book.

Yes, Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a huge hit on BookTok, but not quite as huge as the author’s 2009 novel The Summer I Turned Pretty (and its sequels). Belly has been close to brothers Jeremiah and Conrad for years, ever since their first summer at the beach house. But then one summer, everything changes. Even if you think you’re sooo over the love triangle trope, BookTokers argue there’s something special about this one. And they love chatting about whether they’re Team Jeremiah or Conrad.

BookTokers are absolutely speechless over Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. BookTok loves a good dark academia novel, but they’re also wild about retellings, and Legendborn delivers both. This book, based on Arthurian legend, tells the story of Bree Matthews, a teen who joins a residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill and stumbles upon something extraordinary. When a flying demon attacks the campus, a secret society of “Legendborn” students hunts the creature down. Because Bree wasn’t meant to see any of this, a mage called “Merlin” attempts to wipe Bree’s memory. But in doing so, he instead unlocks dormant powers within her.