Over the last decade, it has become easier than ever to find a book you’ll probably like. BookTok, Bookstagram, BookTube, Goodreads, and a constellation of algorithms have helpfully removed most of the uncertainty from the process. Which is good, because we have all been encouraged to embrace the attitude that life is too short to waste on books you don’t enjoy. We have 30 second videos and trope graphics with neat little arrows promising exactly the experience you’re in the mood for.
It has also become all too easy to find the resources that could ensure you produce a well-written book with phenomenal pacing, compelling characters, and enchanting world building. Most of the books I’ve read recently are well made. My DNF pile is pleasantly small. They are paced efficiently, structured sensibly, and edited within an inch of their lives. And yet, for reasons that are difficult to articulate without sounding ungrateful, most of them have blurred together in my head. Do you remember reading books like Bridge to Terabithia, Where the Red Fern Grows, or whatever book emotionally wrecked you at age ten? Are we still experiencing that today? Because mathematically—given the number of books being published and the sheer volume of writing advice available—you’d expect it to be happening more often, not less.
The View From the Bottom Shelf
A couple of months ago, I came across a trope graphic showcasing a book with lovely cover art and an intriguing combination of my favorite tropes and comp. titles. This was the sort of book I would enjoy. So I did my due diligence. I got on Goodreads, saw it had solid reviews, and checked it out at the library. Flash forward to today and I’m sitting at about the 75% mark and I feel no urgency to finish it.
It’s been hard to articulate, because what do you say about a book that does everything “right” yet leaves you feeling so indifferent?
I know there’s an argument to be had about taste and preference. Not every book is meant to be a life-altering experience. Some stories exist to be enjoyed, finished, and set aside without ceremony. Expecting every novel to leave a permanent mark is unrealistic, especially for readers who consume widely and often. Measured by those standards, a book that delivers what it promises (even if it leaves some readers unmoved) has done its job. Emotional neutrality is to be expected sometimes.
And yet, explain this to me.
A few weeks ago I was at the library again, several shelves away from the showcase tables, where the lights don’t quite reach the bottom titles, and what caught my eye?
Twilight.
I know, I KNOW. But hear me out!
I picked it up, thinking it would be interesting to study why it was such a phenomenon in its time, yet is a cautionary tale in writing workshops for ours, why people hate to love it or love to hate it. Would my fully developed brain dislike what my tween self consumed voraciously?
So I checked it out, expecting to cringe. And yes, I cringed. A lot. But here’s the thing. I kind of…lost myself in it? It was messy. The red flags were neon. I shook my head constantly.
And I read the entire saga in two weekends.
There’s something to be said about early 2000s YA speculative fiction. They weren’t afraid to be weird, obsessive, or yes, even messy.
The Cost of Predicatbility
I envy Stephanie Meyer. She wasn’t writing to an algorithm in 2005. She was writing a fever dream. What if we have become so afraid of writing Mary Sues that we’ve optimized our characters for likability instead of vitality? In our effort to prove narrative maturity, we’ve learned to pre-sand every sharp edge before it reaches the page. Even morally-gray characters are pre-absolved, their transgressions softened until they pose no real threat to reader sympathy. Conflict and friction exist, but only within lanes the narrative knows how to resolve.
This didn’t happen because writers suddenly lost their imagination or because publishers stopped caring about art. It happened because the system now rewards predictability. When success is measured by comp titles, read-alikes, and virality, stories are encouraged to resemble what has already been done. Risk is expensive. Messy is a liability. Beige fiction thrives not because it is empty, but because it is efficient.
I’m not saying let’s throw editing to the wind and push out slop, nor am I arguing for characters who are abusive or cruel for shock value. On the contrary, some of the books that actually have rewritten my brain chemistry in recent years have been on the cozier side of fantasy. But what those books shared was a refusal to simply echo my existing beliefs. They didn’t flatter my worldview, they complicated it, left me thinking differently than I had before.
The soul of fiction isn’t found in the checklist of a well-paced plot. It’s found in the friction between the writer’s obsession and the reader’s comfort. If the algorithm knows exactly what you want, then the algorithm is no longer capable of giving you what you need. Humans are not optimized for comfort, but for transformation. It’s time to stop writing for the stars on BookTok and start writing for the monster under the bed. Make it messy. Make it weird. And for heaven’s sake, make it alive.