On this edition of Entre Nous, we take a deep dive into reading. On France’s National Reading Day, Solange Mougin looks at children’s reading habits and how the #BookTok phenomenon is introducing teens to viral books, specifically romance and dark romance novels. We’re joined by digital parenting coach Elizabeth Milovidov, who explains how to safely navigate the darker side of such books and algorithms.
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00:00Time now for our Entre Nous segment and today is March 11th and it's National Reading Day
00:05here in France, with schools across the country pushing children to read for at least 15 minutes
00:10every single day.
00:11However, certain trends have started to cause some concern.
00:15To talk more about this, we'll be speaking to Elisabeth Milov-Vidov, founder of Digital
00:20Parenting Coach, as well as Solange Mougin.
00:22Solange, let me start with you first.
00:24Is France really a nation of readers?
00:27Yeah, France indeed has one of the highest levels of readers in Europe, with three out
00:31of four French people or some 40 million people over the age of 15 having read at least one
00:36book in 2024.
00:38This is according to the National Union of Publishers.
00:41However, there is some concern that young people in particular are reading less and
00:45there's also concern about what some of them are reading, certain literary trends such
00:50as dark romance going viral, particularly among young girls.
00:55We will get to that in a minute, but first, when it comes to reading, where are children
01:00at?
01:01Well, the National Center of Books created this day with the L'Education Nationale,
01:04the Education Department, to promote the habit of reading for at least 15 minutes a day,
01:09for they found that young French kids spend 10 times more time per day on screens than
01:14on reading for fun.
01:16On average, kids spend 3 hours and 11 minutes on screens versus 19 minutes spent reading
01:23for pleasure.
01:24Now, the questionnaire excluded school time reading and also took into account for reading
01:29and listening to a book on a tablet that's counted as reading.
01:33So French children are generally reading less than they are watching.
01:37But among those that are reading, what are they reading and should adults be concerned
01:41about what they're reading?
01:42Well, graphic novels and bons dessinés or mangas, Japanese graphic novels, they are
01:47huge here in France and that warrants an entire segment in itself.
01:50But today I wanted to concentrate on the rising trend among teens, particularly teen
01:55girls, that is creating some concern among educators and parents, and that is dark romance.
02:00Now, Solange, this trend of dark romance emerged in part due to how young teens are getting
02:07into reading.
02:08Yeah, to break this down, I need to explain the phenomenon of book talk and new romance,
02:14and then we can get to one of its offshoots, dark romance.
02:17So if you do not know what book talk is, T-O-K, not T-A-L-K, book talk, it is a community
02:23and a hashtag on TikTok where you have young book reviewers critiquing and praising books
02:28with sort of short, snappy videos.
02:30Altogether, there are around 60 billion videos that have collectively around 200 billion
02:35views.
02:36So this is quite huge.
02:38And it has created a space where otherwise unknown authors can suddenly go viral and
02:43sell hundreds of thousands of copies, even millions, if you take, for example, Colleen
02:47Hoover or Rebecca Yaros.
02:49But publishers have, and in addition to this, publishers have caught on with many now hiring
02:54young TikTokers to review books.
02:56It's revolutionizing the industry.
02:59And one genre where book talk really has made major headway is romance.
03:03Now, romance has always had a lucrative and widespread following, but there's been a big
03:08change in the genre from the older generation, say Harlequin or Mills and Boone's novels
03:13with bare-chested swashbucklers saving damsels in distress.
03:17Now these are love stories where the women are often not submissive.
03:21They have agency.
03:22These new romances also are a genre where there are often explicit sex scenes.
03:28There's a ton of sub-genres to romance.
03:31But there is one major rule to all of them, which is that there has to be a happily ever
03:35after ending or an H-E-A in the fan lingo.
03:39And most new romance fans, well, they are young women that read a lot of these books.
03:45In France, the numbers actually doubled in 2023, with six million romance novels sold.
03:50It is so lucrative that many editors say that it's helping save the industry.
03:55The site Babelio, they pulled 7,000 readers and 95% of the romance readers were women.
04:02Over half read more than two romances per month.
04:06And of those readers, 40% of them, this is important, are from 15 to 24-year-olds, with
04:11most of them having started to read romance as young teens.
04:15And that's where we can potentially run into issues with dark romance.
04:19So what exactly is this dark romance?
04:22Well, it is one of the many sub-genres of romance novels.
04:27There are lots of them, from paranormal to historical to gothic to sports romances.
04:32With dark romance, there is, in addition to the happily ever after, there are portrayals
04:37or romanticizations of abuse, be it psychological or physical torture, rape, kidnapping, manipulation,
04:44domination.
04:45In a nutshell, a rough outline of many of these books is abusive bad boy, main character
04:52does essentially toxic and potentially illegal in real life things to an often meek and submissive
04:58girl.
04:59Like Fifty Shades of Grey, which was seen as a precursor to the genre, or the million-plus
05:04bestseller by Colleen Hoover, It Ends With Us.
05:07There's debate about whether or not that is dark romance or not.
05:10Now, you could argue all of this is fine.
05:13It is fiction.
05:14And readers are able to distinguish between escapist fiction and real life.
05:18For example, crime novel fans, they don't suddenly become serial killers.
05:23That's one argument.
05:24But if you take into account the number of young people that are reading these books
05:28thanks to science-like book talk, again, 70% of book talk and TikTok users, rather,
05:34are under 24.
05:35It raises the question of very young readers and their access to these books.
05:40It also raises the question, like pornography does, of what does this viral subgenre do
05:46to the minds of young people that may not necessarily have the tools yet to read them
05:50critically?
05:51And then how does this affect their views on relationships of society?
05:56Should such glorifications of toxic relationships and abuse be kept from young eyes?
06:02Should there be a warning system or laws like there is, for example, with child pornography
06:05or racism?
06:08Does this, though, infringe on free speech?
06:10That's a counterargument.
06:11These are not easy questions.
06:13But there is a need, at least for parents, to be aware that there is a trend among some
06:18young girls who are reading potentially some very dark stuff.
06:23It seems like it.