What is Book Tube?
If you don’t know what Book Tube is, it’s time you learned! Book Tube is a sub-section of YouTube where people who love books have channels dedicated to discussing books.
If you search You Tube for your favorite genre followed by the word books, you’ll get back a list of videos of people talking about those types of books. Below, I’ll give you a list of some of the Book Tubers I follow as well as links to their channels. But first, let’s talk about why I think ratings and written reviews are inferior to
What’s Wrong With Ratings?
Recently I’ve been thinking about the star rating system we use for books, and I’ve come to the conclusion that that system may not be quite reliable.
For one thing, I bet the way I rate things doesn’t match up with the way you rate things. So if our rating systems don’t jive, how am I supposed to use your rating (and the ratings of others) to determine if I really want to read a book? Well, the answer is I can’t. At least not reliably.
If you take a look at my Goodreads profile, you will see that I read books from a wide range of subjects including horror, fantasy, classic literature, and several types of non-fiction, but that the vast majority of the books I’ve read fall into the mystery category. If you look even more closely (but really, why would you?) you’ll see that over the last several years, cozy mysteries make up the majority of my reading.
I’m not sure when I first started reading cozy mysteries, but I think it was probably in the late nineties or early aughts. I’m pretty sure the Laura Childs teashop mysteries was one of the first cozy series I ever read, and to be honest I don’t remember much about those books now, aside from the fact that they took place in Charleston and the main character (Theodosia? I can’t remember…) ran a tea shop. That’s it. I rated all of those books with two stars when I added them to Goodreads back in 2010 when I first joined the site, but even then those books had faded from memory to a good extent. I sometimes wonder, if I were to re-read them now, would I rate them higher? I suspect I would. Which means my own rating of those books as it stands may not be a reliable method for Goodreads to use when recommending other books I might like.
What’s Wrong with Written Reviews
Y’all… I have one word for you. Spoilers. Now technically any reasonable person will indicate that there are spoilers in their review. Goodreads even gives you a check-box you can select if your review contains spoilers, and they will warn you. But let’s face it folks. Not everyone is a reasonable person. Not everyone is a nice person. And I have had books spoiled for me by trying to read reviews to see if I wanted to read the book.
What’s so Great About Book Tube?
Now, I can’t guarantee that there aren’t Book Tubers who spoil things. I haven’t watched every Book Tube video in existence; I haven’t even watched every Book Tube video in existence by the Book Tubers I follow. But I can tell you that of all the videos I’ve watched so far, the Book Tubers are very careful not to give too much away. And, in fact, if they are going to be talking about anything that might be a spoiler, they let you know well ahead of time.
In addition, these are people who love these books SO MUCH that they regularly put together content for the sole purpose of sharing the books they love with other people who love books.
Bonus points – if you watch their videos on a computer instead of your phone, it’s really easy to add books to your Goodreads TBR while they’re talking about the book. Or… if you have a towering TBR like I do, maybe that’s not such a good thing. No. It’s definitely a good thing.
Book Tubers I Follow
I will admit I am relatively new to Book Tube, and to be honest, I’m usually adverse to watching videos, but I make an exception for Book Tube. With these factors in mind, I don’t have a long list of Book Tubers that I follow, but I’m sure in time my list will grow.
- Beachbum Bookworm – https://www.youtube.com/@theBeachbumbookworm
- Courtagonist – https://www.youtube.com/@Courtagonist
- Intentionally Bookish – https://www.youtube.com/@IntentionallyBookish
- Amy Marie – https://www.youtube.com/@bookswithamymarie
Give them a try and let me know in the comments if you like them or if you have any booktubers you like to follow!
Melissa L. Freeman - Author 