This Beloved Millennial Ritual Is Making A Comeback — And It's Bringing Back So Many Memories
This Beloved Millennial Ritual Is Making A Comeback — And It's Bringing Back So Many Memories
Monica Torres Tue, November 3, 2026 at 2:23 PM UTC
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On Oct. 26, the hottest party across America took place on a Monday night in bookstores across the country: the release of Sarah J. Maas’ “A Court Of Splintered Harmony,” the latest installment in the author’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series (ACOTAR).
On this night, adults with day jobs became simply fans, some donning bat wings and faerie ears in honor of Maas’ imagined realm.
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Hope Nelson, a member of TikTok’s book-loving community BookTok, was one of these first-time attendees at her bookstore in Lexington, Kentucky. Wearing a “Bat Boys” T-shirt, Nelson said she met people in medicine, business and teaching who were all coming together for the late-night launch.
“You can get it on your Kindle, and your husband, or whoever’s home with you, might not be reading the book, too, and all you want to do is desperately talk about the series,” Nelson said about the appeal of a midnight release party. “And you can do that at these events and make it a whole special experience versus just pressing a button, downloading it and starting.”
At New York City’s Rabbit Books and Bar, the midnight release party included themed cocktails, a bookmark-making station, and a popular large board where fans could write down their answer to: “What is your most unhinged theory about what’s going to happen?”
“A lot of people bought single tickets,” said Marianna Vaidman, the store owner of Rabbit Books and Bar. “They came by themselves.”
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Activities for swapping theories and sitting down together “give space for people to easily get pulled into conversations,” Vaidman said.
In Hickory, North Carolina, Jamie Dalton went to an “ACOTAR”-themed ball by herself, like she has done for previous midnight book release parties. “So many of us lost our communities as we have kids, as we move for jobs,” she said. “The book world has become a community, and these events are an opportunity” to join it.
Dalton has a strategy for making new friends at these events. “I look for the other people who are standing alone, feeling awkward like I am. I’m like, ‘Hey, you want to be weird with me?’”
Book Release Parties Recapture Millennial Nostalgia Of Reading Magic
During the millennial mania of “Harry Potter,” “Twilight,” and “The Hunger Games” series, staying up all night to be the first in line to get your physical copy of the book was a regular occurrence.
During the “Harry Potter” releases of the late ‘90s and early 2000s, dressing up and going out at midnight to a bookstore was a regular occurrence. Now, the same fervor and excitement can be seen for Maas’ “ACOTAR” books.Mark Sullivan / Getty / TikTok's @hopeisbooked
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Dalton, a 38-year-old millennial, grew up going to “Harry Potter” release parties at her local bookstore with her cousins.
“We would go to it and then we would just stay up all night reading the book and then we’d sleep all day,” she recalled. “It was so fun. It was like when you go trick or treating and you stay up too late eating your candy.”
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Back then, the magic was pretending being a Hogwarts student. Dalton would dress up as a witch, make wands and get sorted into a wizarding house.
Now, Dalton finds that the midnight releases she attends as an adult are being put on by nostalgic millennials seeking to recreate this childhood fun ― with some key differences, of course. There’s alcohol, for one, Dalton notes, and the food is more refined than the Hogwarts-themed cupcakes she had as a kid. Her recent $200 entry to an “ACOTAR” ball and midnight release party included a DJ for dancing, hors d’oeuvres and a dessert bar.
Rebecca Williams, an associate professor in media audiences and participatory cultures at the University of South Wales, said these new romantasy book release parties show “how a need for collective experience is still really important for fans, even as changes in social media and the success of BookTok affect how content is shared and discussed online.”
For Williams, what may also be driving this new popularity for release parties is fans’ need to avoid spoilers. In these gatherings, fans get to make new friends ― and they also get to read the book first before they learn who ends up with whom online.
“I knew that I wanted to get the book and then try to stay up as long as I could,” Nelson said. “I work a corporate job, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. I made it to like 3:30 a.m., and then I was like, ‘I have to call it a night.’”
Dalton, meanwhile, no longer loses a night’s sleep to binge-reading, like she once did. With the latest Maas book, “I’ve still got to get up and get my kid ready to go to school,” she said. “I need to be functioning.”
What remains the same in both eras of release parties is the joy of reading, which is sorely needed right now. It’s still novel to finish a novel. This summer, the Atlantic covered the literary crisis in America under the title “The End of Reading Is Here.” The article cited dire statistics, which find that the portion of Americans who read for pleasure or read a book of any kind has sharply dropped in recent years.
For fans of Maas’ Prythian world like Nelson, her accessible “ACOTAR” books are the reason stressed adults start rereading for pleasure again.
“No matter how the series ends or where it goes, it has done wonders, and really brought people back into the joy of reading,” Nelson said. For her, “ACOTAR” was her gateway to reading fantasy and reading for fun again. “And since then, it is such a comfort hobby to me.”
On its release date alone, Maas’ latest book sold 1.7 million copies, the latest example of why “romantasy” books with fantastical lust and love are a billion-dollar business.
A popular book is a boon for publishers ― but it’s also a friend-making opportunity for adults needing an icebreaker. Nelson said she was nervous and intimidated when she arrived to her “ACOTAR” midnight release party at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Kentucky. Nelson is new in town and hardly knew anyone there.
By the end of the night, she had exchanged Goodreads information with several people and made plans for coffee with new friends that all had one passion in common.
“We’re already making plans like, ‘Well, we’ll see you again in January at the next midnight release,’” Nelson said.
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