Let’s Talk Bookish: Guilty Pleasure Reads

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022, with Dini at Dini Panda Reads as co-host from February 2025.

This is an interesting one – ‘guilty pleasure’ often feels like it can be a loaded term, doesn’t it? Some people absolutely embrace it, others don’t, so it’ll be interesting today to see which direction people take this in!

Let’s Talk Bookish March 21st:
Guilty Pleasure Reads

Prompts: Do you agree with the term since it has a somewhat “negative” connotation? Should you feel ashamed or “guilty” for enjoying a certain genre or non-traditional type of book (i.e. graphic novels, manga)? What books do you love or are on your TBR do you think would be considered “guilty pleasures” by others?

I think in some instances, guilty pleasure can be used in quite a useful way. It’s almost shorthand, isn’t it? It’s an acknowledgment that even if something isn’t ‘objectively’ brilliant, we still love it and we still get pleasure from it. It’s also, I think, a good way of conveying a deep love for something harmless, or of admitting yes, this might not be for everyone, but it’s definitely for me!

However, I don’t think you should feel ashamed or ‘guilty’ for loving something – whether that’s a genre or different formats of books! Graphic novels and manga are still books, just like audiobooks are still reading. And as for specific books – I get it. One of my favourite reads a few years ago was The Vampire Diaries. I’ll be the first to admit they are poorly written and very thin in terms of plot, but I had so much fun reading them!

I think we default to using ‘guilty pleasure’ to describe these sort of books, but that doesn’t always mean we feel guilty for enjoying them. I think we all have the kind of books we perhaps ‘think’ we shouldn’t be reading, for whatever reason – maybe because they’re aimed at a lower age group than us, or we think they’re not ‘highbrow’, or they’re generally simplistic, etc. The list could go on.

For me, though, I think if you get enjoyment out of something, boo to everyone else. We all deserve things that we can just like, without being too critical about them or without justifying it to others. Whether we use the term guilty pleasure or not, I think as long as something is ‘sparking joy’ (to steal a phrase), there’s nothing wrong with just embracing that.