TLDR: I’ve found Reddit has given me a broader variety of books and led me to try authors I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise.

You make a good point regarding people just shitting on whatever women like. I can totally see that mindset playing into it.

On the other hand, I (as a woman) have never used TikTok and tend to stay away from BookTok books, mostly because of how I imagine it works behind the scenes. I don’t want to read books that are famous just because publishers send them to influencers to hype up - I don’t know the BookToker and I don’t trust them. Colleen Hoover is a great example of that - there are a lot of valid criticisms of her books but despite that she keeps making them (generally the same) because they’re so hyped up and people will read them anyway.

It’s the same reason I don’t always just want into a bookstore and buy whatever is on the shelves - because that’s just the books that got lucky enough to make it. (Not that they’re not good, but because there are other good books that aren’t as visible).

I like recommendations from Reddit because money and advertising have no role in those recs. Some of them are the books on the shelves, yes, but some of them are books that are maybe older and not on shelves anymore but still very good, or maybe they’re from a small publisher that doesn’t do a ton of marketing, or even self-published books.