How to Annotate Books BookTok Style: Complete Guide

Those beautifully tabbed, highlighted, marginalia-filled books on BookTok? You can create them too. Annotation transforms passive reading into active engagement—and looks gorgeous.

The Basic Supplies

• Tabs - Different colors for different purposes
• Highlighters - Mildliners are BookTok favorites
• Pens - Fine tip for margins
• Sticky notes - For longer thoughts

Tab Color Systems

Common approach:

• Pink - Romance/relationship moments
• Blue - Beautiful prose
• Yellow - Important plot points
• Green - Character development
• Orange - Foreshadowing
• Purple - Quotes to remember

What to Annotate

• Quotes that resonate
• Your emotional reactions
• Questions you have
• Predictions
• Connections to other books
• Character observations

Good First Annotation Books

RESONANCE - The philosophical content invites marginalia. The Ubuntu concepts deserve unpacking.

The Song of Achilles - Quote-heavy, emotion-heavy, perfect for annotation.

Permission to Write in Books

Some people find it sacrilegious. We find it intimate. Your books are yours. Mark them up.

Why Annotate

Annotation transforms passive reading into active engagement. When you mark passages, summarize ideas, and record reactions, you process the book more deeply. This active reading improves comprehension and retention. What feels like extra work actually makes reading more rewarding.

BookTok annotation also creates artifacts. Months later, flipping through marked pages brings the reading experience back. Your notes become conversation with your past self. This record has value beyond the immediate reading. Some annotators keep books specifically for this archive of responses.

Finding Your Style

There is no right way to annotate. Tabs, sticky notes, underlining, marginalia. Some people color-code. Others use symbols. Experiment to find what works for how your brain processes information. The best annotation system is the one you will actually use.

Building Your Annotation System

Effective annotation develops through experimentation. Start simple with basic underlining and margin notes. Add complexity as you discover what helps your reading. Some annotators use elaborate color-coding systems. Others stick to minimal marks. Neither approach is superior. The best system is one you will actually maintain across many books.

Consider your goals. If you annotate for study, you need retrieval systems that help you find information later. If you annotate for emotional engagement, recording your reactions matters more than systematic organization. Mixed purposes are fine, but clarity about why you annotate guides method choices.

Digital vs Physical

E-readers enable annotation without marking physical books. Highlights sync across devices. Search functions find marked passages. For some readers, this convenience outweighs the tactile pleasure of physical annotation. For others, the physical act of pen on paper creates deeper engagement. Try both to find your preference. You may use different methods for different kinds of reading.

The Art of Active Reading

Annotation transforms passive reading into active conversation with text. Every mark you make represents a thought, reaction, or connection. Over time, annotated books become records of your intellectual and emotional growth—not just the author's words but your responses to them.

BookTok has popularized aesthetic annotation, but the practice predates social media by centuries. Medieval scholars annotated manuscripts. Renaissance readers filled margins with commentary. You're joining a tradition of engaged reading that connects you to readers across time.

Essential Supplies

Your annotation toolkit shapes your practice. Tabs in multiple colors allow categorization without permanently marking pages. Highlighters make passages pop. Fine-tip pens enable margin notes. Some annotators use separate notebooks, while others prefer marking books directly.

Archival-quality supplies matter for books you'll keep forever. Acid-free tabs and archival pens won't yellow or bleed over time. For library books or borrowed copies, removable options let you annotate without damage.

Developing Your System

Consistent systems make annotations useful. Color-coding might indicate character development, themes, beautiful prose, and confusing passages. Symbols can mark favorite quotes, questions, or connections to other books. Whatever system you develop, apply it consistently enough to remember what your marks mean.

Some readers annotate everything on first read. Others read through once, then annotate on reread. Experiment to find what works for your reading style and purposes. There's no wrong approach, only approaches that serve you better or worse.

What to Annotate

Character introductions and development moments help track arcs across long books. Thematic passages reveal the book's deeper concerns. Foreshadowing catches details that pay off later. Beautiful sentences deserve highlighting simply because they're beautiful.

Questions and confusions deserve annotation too. Marking "?" where you don't understand creates opportunities for later clarification. Disagreements with the author or characters show your critical engagement. Your reactions are as valuable as the author's intentions.

Sharing Your Annotations

BookTok annotation videos inspire others and build community. Sharing your marked-up pages invites conversation about books you love. Some readers find their annotations more personal than they want to share publicly—both approaches are valid.

Reading partners can exchange annotated copies, discovering how differently the same book affects different readers. Book club discussions deepen when participants bring annotated copies, able to reference specific passages and their reactions quickly.

Digital Annotation

E-readers offer annotation features that complement physical marking. Digital highlights and notes sync across devices, making passages accessible anywhere. Some readers maintain both physical annotated copies and digital note collections, each serving different purposes.

Apps like Notion, Obsidian, or simple note files can organize digital annotations. Exporting highlights from e-readers creates searchable databases of favorite passages. These digital libraries become resources for writing, conversation, and memory.