On the top floor of a building in the heart of Paris, a small crowd gathers around books placed on tables.
The event, organized by the Trainline application, highlights literature, but not just any literature: recommendations made in “BookTok” are required.
A true community of readers on TikTok, the network attracts a majority of young girls this evening.
In the room, well-known faces appear: Galliane, aka @urfrenchbookworm on TikTok, Lisa (@lisacteur) and Océane (@oceadorable).
The bookmakers came to meet their audience and share their current favorites, but also discuss their passion with each other.
If different books are made available, one genre in particular wins all the votes: dark romance.
This category is characterized by mature stories, sometimes featuring dark characters, flirting with the most shameful fantasies.
You can choose from a kidnapping by a possessive mafioso, a game of cat and mouse with an obsessive psychopath, or more supernatural scenarios based on vampires or werewolves with bestial desires.
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Among the bestsellers of the genre, “Captive” by Sarah Rivens, covered absolutely everywhere on TikTok.
But what is also striking is the quantity of videos quoting very explicit passages, sometimes referring to acts of rape, torture or psychological violence.
Often criticized, dark romance nevertheless constitutes the DNA of a large number of Booktok influencers.
If, at first glance, the phenomenon is skeptical, it hides a complex reality for both readers and content creators.
Dark stories read by a young audience
Despite dark stories, dark romance attracts a young, predominantly female audience.
Océane launched on TikTok 5 years ago, and has more than 110,000 subscribers on the platform.
“It’s my favorite genre, so much so that I ended up writing about it!”
It’s also seen on my networks, where I talk about it a lot.
» Morgann, aka @morgannaamber, shares her enthusiasm.
“I read a lot when I was in college, then I stopped.
During confinement, I was at home all the time, and I rediscovered this passion.
At the moment, I'm a bit saturated with classic romance, so I'm turning to fantasy and dark romance.
»
“For me, it’s precisely the denunciation of toxic behavior”
Samantha
But then, why such enthusiasm around the genre?
“It’s a bit of a fantasy of the forbidden,” explains Océane, “this idea of pushing the limits and seeing hidden vices.
» For her, it's about immersing yourself in "the nuances, the subtleties" of human behavior, without endorsing or imagining yourself in the place of the characters.
“You also need to know what you can read and what you can’t.
There can be complicated themes, and people who have experienced traumatic things sometimes have no desire to read that in a book.
»
For Samantha (@samanthabooks), “the best dark romances are those that are realistic and don't necessarily have a happy ending.
Some people think that this type of story is romanticization, while for me, it is precisely the denunciation of toxic behavior.”
At the heart of their speech, “awareness of younger people” on TikTok, without stigmatizing gender.
“We talk a lot about dark romance, but there can also be problematic scenes in thrillers, or medieval fantasy for example,” adds Océane.
Prevention and “trigger warning”
For other content creators, the phenomenon raises questions.
Enzo, 25, shares his reading advice on his account @enzoreads.
Among his most popular videos, humorous critiques of Captive, a model of the genre.
“It’s not my thing at all, actually!”
» jokes the young man.
“I didn't know anything about dark romance at first, so I wanted to form my own opinion.
As I feared, I wasn't hooked at all.
»
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One point that particularly bothers him: the average age of readers and simplified access to problematic books.
“We end up with crude things, sometimes violent sexual subjects.
Me, I'm 25 years old, I have the maturity necessary to distance myself, but when certain books are presented in bookstores in the children's category, it shocks me.
» For him, it is not a question of prohibiting but of “supervising”, “and above all not forgetting the role of parents!
Content creators are adults, so they talk about what they like, that's normal.
»
Faced with growing popularity and stories deemed problematic, the BookTok network itself evolved.
“I clearly see the difference since I started my videos.
Today, we find trigger warnings almost all the time.
We warn people if there are complicated themes that are discussed so that everyone can make the decision to read the book or not,” explains Océane, who also pinned a video on the front page of her account advising against the dark romance for the youngest.
“We should think of a way to warn the public without revealing the story”
Samantha
For Samantha, the practice still needs to be democratized.
“If I remember correctly, in '50 Shades of Grey,' there was no trigger warning, and that's a big problem for me.
I started a debate on the subject with my subscribers, and some told me that it might spoil them.
We should think of a way to warn the public without revealing the story, but it is not easy.
»
“I think it’s a disturbing genre because it’s very feminine”
Is dark romance therefore a separate genre, hardly compatible with the notion of the general public?
The debates on the subject leave Jeanne, a literary journalist who shares her critiques and analyzes on her YouTube channel “Jeannot se livre”, quite doubtful.
“I think it’s a disturbing genre because it’s very feminine.
»
She shares the content creators' observation on prevention, which must also be ensured in bookstores.
“I have discussed it with professionals, who see young people ordering certain books without their parents being suspicious.
Where it is dangerous is in the covers: we play on confusion, we do not see that it is a book for an informed public.
»
As an observer of French BookTok, she notes that the platform feeds on controversial content.
“Short videos are very popular, and those highlighted by the algorithm can evoke very shocking stories.
When we consume this kind of thing, we quickly find ourselves locked in a bubble, and it becomes problematic when it affects 11-year-old girls who have nothing to do on TikTok.
»
“We play on confusion, we don’t see that this is a book for an informed public”
Jeanne, journalist and creator of the Jeannot channel, speaks
Beyond dark romance, bookmakers hope for a better vision of their content.
“The clichés that often come up are that it’s not “real” literature, or that dark romance boils down to rape,” explains Morgann.
“It’s complicated, because as content creators, we sometimes have the feeling of promoting things that may offend.
But we can also consider that everyone is free to read what they want, and certain stories can also make us think about what happens in real life.
»