Welcome back to Let’s Talk Bookish! I just didn’t feel like talking about my reading spots last week as I feel like I’ve been talking about them a lot on the blog. However, this week’s topic is interesting, because we’re talking about the bookish trends op 2024.

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted by Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Since April 2022, the meme moved to another host, Aria @ Book Nook Bits. Let’s Talk Bookish is a meme where participants discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and share their love by visiting each other’s posts.

Prompts: Looking back on the past year, what bookish trends have you noticed? Are there certain tropes that have become more popular? New types of blogging and book-related content being posted? Do you have favorite trends? Least favorites? Do you notice trends shifting dramatically from previous years?

Looking back on the past year, what bookish trends have you noticed? Are there certain tropes that have become more popular?

I’m not sure if it’s atrend in 2024 in particular, but there has been a new bookish discourse nearly every single day lately. It’s so tiring! You just can’t open social media or literally every form of reading is being criticized. Audiobooks, graphic novels, romance, you’re not allowed to read certain authors, AI (although I agree on that discourse)… And so on, and so on. I’m afraid this is one of the biggest trends of the past year. When looking into the actual trends in books, I believe not much has changed in 2024. Small town romances are still a hit, but there’s also a lot of popular romantasy still. I notice a shift in publishing though, traditionally published books are becoming more and more formulaic. This is annoying. Besides, I’m glad that the fake dating trope and the love triangle seem to finally disappear – even though the love triangle can be nice if done well. Fake dating is my least favourite romance trope, so the sooner it’s gone, the better. Furthermore, indie books seem to gain more popularity these days.  I have to admit that I’m not incredibly familiar with what’s trending and what’s not, so I might be wrong here or miss something.

New types of blogging and book-related content being posted? Do you have favorite trends? Least favorites? Do you notice trends shifting dramatically from previous years?

I don’t think so. I see a shift in the blogging crowd though, when looking at age. Whereas there were more bloggers my age or in their late teens/early twenties back when I started out, most have quit blogging and seem to have moved on to social media these days. The blogosphere tends to have an older crowd now and that seems to lead to a shift in books being reviewed and discussed. I notice this a lot, especially when bloghopping or taking part in Top Ten Tuesday. I don’t recognize any titles on like 95% of my fellow bloggers’ lists and that kind of makes me sad. I tend to be a reader of the hyped and popular books, so I kind of feel alone in that. I therefore feel less of an urge to bloghop and click on reviews of books I don’t know. I am very limited with my time and therefore am more interested in books I either already know or want to read myself. Even though traditional published books tend to be more formulaic, I still prefer them over indie ones. That’s a trend that won’t change for me LOL. I don’t have favourite trends, but the earlier mentioned discourse and the evolution of book blogging I already discussed last year are kind of my least favourite ones.

What trends have you noticed in 2024? What are your most and least favourite trends?