“This book saw me”

“This book ruined me”

“This book changed me”

Scroll through Instagram or 'BookTok'—the fiction fans of TikTok today—and you might find that the way we discuss the written world is turning inward—progressively focusing on the supposed relationship we have with what we read. Reactions to novels are emotionally driven, and content creators often place themselves as still beings, cuddled closely or punched in the face by inky arms reaching out of the page. Can we really possess an emotional relationship with words on paper? Are we self-indulgently attaching ourselves to writing? Or perhaps, are we even connecting to fiction in a way that we should be to the real people around us?

This kind of reaction to a novel may be placed in the realm of the sentimental, which in literary criticism and Enlightenment philosophy is the realm in which a piece of art becomes defunct. When a literary work draws out too much emotion, it impairs the judgement and autonomy of its reader, and thus makes it more difficult to truly understand its meaning in the place of the overtly emotional response. No doubt, when I see videos of BookTokers and influencers fake crying, shaking and lying back on their beds in a suffocating display of maudlin woe, I can’t help but feel a little bit of despair at the way we feel we must speak about these works. It appears an overt focus on the way that a text made one feel, or how it “spoke” to them might come at the expense of genuine criticism—prioritising introspection and emotion over analysis and connection to wider political worlds.

However, this points to a larger question—what do we require from fiction, and who decides this? The current social media focus on the written word generally tends to break off into two key strands—firstly, the optimisation strand, which focuses on self-help or prescriptive and homiletic novels, asking ‘which books can make me a better person?’ And secondly, the escapism strand, often focusing on romance or ‘Romantasy’ novels being devoured by their readers as a source of pure pleasure and escapism from the mundanity of everyday life. Both ideas consider the reader to be a passive and uncritical agent that absorbs what they read, either coming to embody it or allowing the novel to transport them to distant realms.

But is this all—or can the reader do more than this? Literary critic Wayne Booth argues that we put our time and energy into reading, with little clear material or moral gain—yet we must be compelled by the prose and characters in order to root for them and persevere to the end¹. This mirrors our relationship with our friends; we support our friends and put effort into our relationships without the material benefits that may come from a spouse or parental relationship. We are compelled to do so because we love them, admire them and relate to them. In this sense, perhaps we can view our relationship with what we read as dynamic and interlinked. We can’t speak with what we read, but we supply our books with quiet and introspective time, and without the audiovisual tricks of TV or film, we have the mental space to reflect and criticise. Is this practice not ultimately relational?

I asked a classic literature community online forum how they felt about this, if they “feel seen” by what they read, and the answers were fascinating. One noted,

“Rarely, if ever, do I feel ‘seen’, but maybe I misinterpret the expression. It’s much less a ‘they’re just like me!’ reaction, and more an ‘I’m just like them!’ reaction, when it does happen. More important than any likeness or relating that’s to be found with a character is just finding a sense of intimacy with them.”

Commenters generally noted a sense of recognition of aspects of their thoughts or themselves from the stories they read. Sentimentality or intimacy with characters does not turn the reading experience into a navel-gazing one, but something that gives the opportunity to further understand the world that produces the way we feel. When I first read Sally Rooney’s Normal People, I remember relating deeply to Marianne’s feeling of progressive disillusionment;

“Marianne wanted her life to mean something then, she wanted to stop all violence committed by the strong against the weak, and she remembered a time several years ago when she had felt so intelligent and young and powerful that she could have achieved such a thing, and now she knew she wasn’t at all powerful… and at most she could only help a few people.”²

To me, as well as pointing to the burgeoning cynicism that develops with age, it reminded me of how I felt coming out of university and entering work. I felt I had gone from having my insights on politics and research skills be genuinely valued by teachers and the academic community, to entering workspaces where I was micromanaged and judged mathematically for my efficiency and potential to generate income. On a larger scale, it struck a chord about how life in a neoliberal society can make people feel powerless and that there is little point or time to create meaningful change in the world. This shows that individual feelings and affinities with writing can point to something much larger, and authors have the skill to put ineffable feelings into words. Did this quote “see me”, or did I paint myself amongst the words? Either way, I felt an incredible sense of I know that feeling!

Ultimately, it would be snobbish to suggest that an overfocus on sentimentality, or obsession with how a book relates to its reader is navel-gazing or pointless—feeling “seen” affirms us, and whilst a book is an inanimate object, it comes from a real person with ideas they want to get across, shouting with a megaphone across the lake, can you hear me? Responding online or in social circles in a way that is animated, visceral and connected creates community around text, and shared understanding of its meaning. Unfortunately, social media often misses the mark when it comes to deeper analysis. In an attention economy, having a sensationalised response to a text, particularly one that implies violence or woefulness, is what keeps eyes on content. But this is not the fault of content creators, readers or their community—but the social media economy they exist in. Furthermore, emotions and connections to characters are what construct empathy—an idea that needs preservation now and always.

Novels don’t always “see me”—and I appreciate it when they don’t—but shared empathy is a powerful force in literature. My advice to anyone frustrated by how books are discussed on social media would be to join a book club or try to spend more time discussing them in real life. Enter spaces where you have the time and invested attention of others to speak in depth about how what you read makes you feel, and what this might say about the wider world that stings the flesh and the ink born alike.