Bookish Terms & Abbreviations
Abbreviations
❥ ARC/eARC: Advance Reader Copy - a pre-publication version of a book sent to reviewers. An eARC would be a digital copy.
❥ BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, Person of Color (also can use WOC)
❥ BOTM: Book of the Month
❥ BROTOP: Bromance - A friendship between guys that you adore.
❥ CR: Currently Reading
❥ CW/TW: Content Warning/Trigger Warning
❥ DNF: Did Not Finish - a book that a reader started but did not complete.
❥ DM: Direct Message
❥ HEA: Happily Ever After
❥ KU: Kindle Unlimited
❥ MC: Main Character - the primary character in a story.
❥ MFC: Main Female Character
❥ MMC: Main Male Character
❥ NA: New Adult . Typically, late teens (18+) early 20s.
❥ OTP: One True Pairing. A friendship between characters that you love.
❥ POV: Point of View - the perspective from which a story is told.
❥ QOTD: Question of the day.
❥ TBR: To Be Read - a list of books a reader intends to read.
❥ TSTL: Too Stupid to Love. A character who keeps making really bad decisions, almost gets killed, and doesn't learn from their mistakes.
❥ YA: Young Adult
Other Terms
❥ Bookstagram: Book-themed content posted on Instagram.
❥ BookTok: Book-themed content posted on TikTok.
❥ Backlist: All of an Author’s books that have been published.
❥ Binge-Read: Reading a book, books or series in a short period of time.
❥ Blurb: The book synopsis.
❥ Book Haul: Books that you purchase from a physical bookstore or borrow from the library.
❥ Buddy Read/Read Along: Reading a book together as a book club or group.
❥ Daphne: A female character who has to be rescued all the time. (In reference to Daphne from Scooby Doo).
❥ Fanfic: Fan Fiction (written by a fan.)
❥ Indie: Refers to a self-published author, who is an individual who chooses to bypass the traditional route of publishing their work through a publishing house, and instead opts to publish their own work independently.
❥ Info-Dump: When an author provides a lot of detailed information at once through narration or dialogue, and it can be overwhelming for the reader.
❥ Insta-love: Where a couple instantly falls in love with each other.
❥ Love Triangle: When the main character has two potential love choices.
❥ Mary Sue/Marty Stu: A character who is too perfect or good and feels unrelatable.
❥ Mood reader: Readers who pick out their next book based on how they are feeling.
❥ Plot Driven: The plot is driving the story. The focus is on the slot not things like the romance.
❥ Character/Romance Driven: The main character or the romance between the main characters is driving force of the story.
❥ Self-Published: Published by the author (same as Indie).
❥ Shelfie: A picture of your bookshelves.
❥ Ship: Two characters that you want to see fall in love.
❥ Spice/Spicy/Smut: When explicit sexual/romantic scenes are written in a book
❥ Spoiler: Anything details about the book that could ruin the story for a reader.
❥ Trope: Also known as a plot device, it is a common characteristic that might be seen in different books. Ex. friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, found family, second chance.
❥ World Building: The process of creating an immersive and believable fictional world/universe for a story, encompassing its history, geography, culture, and social structures.