Published March 30th, 2026
BY GRACE GRAHL
“Harry Potter,” “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games” were some of the many childhood rituals we participated in for entertainment, the foundation for many viewers’ imaginations. Even today the movies selling out the cinemas are adaptations, with “Project Hail Mary” coming out in March, Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” arriving in mid-July and big-budget franchise prequel “Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” and sequel “Dune: Messiah” releasing in November and December, respectively.
Many novels’ adaptations are shifting to a young adult audience, highlighting the change in the demographic of readers. However, this isn’t necessarily a good thing, as many issues arise such as difficult topics not being covered correctly and mature topics being pushed onto younger audiences.
A driving force of the movement for book adaptations for younger audiences has been the recent popularity of #BookTok, a hashtag that promotes novels with aesthetic and romantic themes, and most importantly, introducing a new genre of books labeled “romantasy,” named for its combination of romantic and fantasy themes, making up 30% of the New York Times’s top fiction bestsellers list.
These novels are directed towards a younger adult audience, primarily female, however, many contain adult themes like violence and explicit sexual scenes. Heavy topics such as these are magnified on the big screen, with TV shows such as “Bridgerton,” “Heated Rivalry” and “Game of Thrones,” all written for mature audiences, but appealing to younger demographics through social media.
The #BookTok tag has gained traction and received hundreds of billions of views in 2025, with many of the popular BookTok writers adapting their novels into either movie or TV adaptations.
For example, Jenny Han has successfully helped produce and release three seasons, coordinated with the three books, of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” receiving hundreds of millions of viewers across the nation. Similarly, Colleen Hoover, whose questionable popularity skyrocketed through BookTok, has helped adapt two of her novels, “It Ends With Us” and “Regretting You,” into movies, with two more on the way.
As each of these adaptations portray the issues they cover in a different and sometimes unexpected light, there is a sense of flippancy in the way bouncing between brothers has been normalized or “wearing your florals” to a movie about sexual and domestic abuse is something you should do. BookTok will pave the way for endless films, but caution should be taken while pursuing movie choices.
Always keep in mind, the book is better than the movie.
