Everyday, TikTok is influencing more and more young adults to grow up quicker. Trends intended for adults become sought after by younger generations. Instead of going to playgrounds, kids go to Sephora. Instead of playing with toys, kids perform extensive skin care routines. Instead of reading graphic novels, kids read smutty books.

It is a parents job to protect their children, however with modern technology it is very easy for children to access inappropriate content. From online reading sites like AO3 to BookTok, children have many resources to locate sexual content without their parents’ knowledge, causing children to grow up too early and develop unhealthy mindsets.

Kids are often on social media from a young age, but with the recent surge of BookTok, kids on social media are able to see the mature text that adults are recommending. Some even go as far as to post quotes or pictures of pages with sexual content in books, and this content is easily accessable to underaged social media users. Young social media users and their idea of literature is heavily impacted by the constant visuals of sexual content in media, with the main goal of a book being that it contains “spice,” or sexually titillating content. Children sometimes struggle to read literary works assigned by schools such as To Kill a Mockingbird or Lord of the Flies, but go home to read Wattpad fanfiction. 

Adult books are often hidden under the title of young adult. For example, Icebreaker by Hannah Grace is commonly grouped into young adult shelves and is considered a “great fluffy read for the holidays” by Common Sense Media. Many well-written books go unnoticed on BookTok because poorly written explicit books get the spotlight. This behavior has become so normalized on TikTok that videos addressing the issue are met with comments about how it’s not that bad or they were reading worse stuff at that age. Although these behaviors are normalized, they are not healthy for kids.

Time and time again books have moved from the adult section to the young adult section, including the timeless debate of whether the popular BookTok book A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas belongs in the young adult section, despite the book being labeled one of the spiciest books on TikTok. TikTok and many bookstores are marketing these inappropriate books towards teens. Popular BookTok book, The Deal by Elle Kennedy, is labeled new adult, regardless of the description being entirely about “sex and seduction.” It doesn’t help that many of these books have cute cartoon characters on the covers, making them much more likely to draw a young girl’s eye, than a grown adult. This makes it hard to tell the difference between a sweet romance and a sexual book, considering they sit next to each other in the young adult section with similar covers.

Children can be taught many toxic behaviors from these books and adults teach them that it is normal because “they were reading Wattpad when they were even younger.” Many books that become popular on BookTok become popular because of the “spice level” but some of these books sprinkle in glorification of abuse and assault. Children reading books written by Colleen Hoover at a young age won’t be able to process the normalized toxicity and will learn that these behaviors are normal, which could later put them in dangerous relationships. Young girls are reading books labeled as “dark romance,” while the plot revolves around kidnapping and mental and physical abuse.

There are some ways to keep this content from young minds, or at least limit their exposure, but that would mean addressing the problem more publicly and not letting it slide under the rug because “kids have read worse.” Bookstores can attempt to keep more grown-up books in the adult section or monitor what kids are buying. But mainly, publishing companies should think about their target audience for a book, and attempt to market to that audience. As much as you hear “don’t judge a book by its cover,” the cover should at least reflect the contents inside.