JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” tops bestseller list after Vice President nomination

Vance’s account of the poverty, abuse and addiction that surrounded his life in Middletown, Ohio, has been used by experts as a guide to understanding the plight of the white, working-class voters in the Rust Belt who gave Trump his first term in office. New York Times called it a “sociological analysis of the white underclass that helped advance the politics of rebellion,” and the book became a national bestseller.

Eight years later, Hillbilly Elegy is back at the top of the charts. The difference now is that Vance is running as Trump’s vice president and critics may punish him for that.

On Wednesday, the paperback and hardback versions of the book ranked first and second on Amazon’s bestseller list. The 2020 film adaptation – which, unlike the book, was panned by critics – shot into Netflix’s top 10 most-watched movies in the U.S. On Monday alone, viewership rose from 1.5 million to 19.2 million minutes, according to data from Luminate first reported in Variety.

Much has changed since the book was published in 2016. Vance was elected to the Senate in 2022 to represent Ohio after receiving an endorsement from Trump and financial support from tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Vance’s views on the 45th president have also completely changed. In February, the new senator even said that if he had been vice president in the 2020 election, he would have done what Mike Pence did not do: support Trump’s efforts to invalidate the outcome of the vote in the crucial swing states.

And now, in a development typical of 2020s internet culture, Vance’s fans and critics are voicing their opinions on his memoir.

There were over 400,000 reviews from Hillbilly Elegy on Goodreads, and nearly 70% of them were four or five stars. This week, ratings and reviews of the book were temporarily suspended, a sign that the site may be trying to prevent review-bombing of the memoir following Vance’s vice presidential nomination.

“This book is temporarily unavailable for review,” says the Goodreads website. “This book has temporary restrictions on rating and review submissions. This may be because we have detected unusual behavior that does not comply with our review guidelines.”

Goodreads declined to speak with Assets official, but recently updated reviews show that readers have adjusted their opinions over the course of Vance’s political career. “Just came in: Vance is now Trump’s running mate *facepalm*,” read a two-star review updated on July 15, the day Trump announced Vance as his vice presidential nominee. “The author has become reprehensible… and is helping to create a culture of crisis for our democracy,” read a one-star review published in November 2022, shortly after Vance’s election.

July 15 was also the last time a new review was left for Hillbilly Elegy. There were five reviews – three positive and two negative. One person who left a one-star review simply said, “I wish I could make it unread.”

On Amazon, which owns Goodreads, reviews of the book also appear to have increased since Monday. One person who left a positive review said they were writing on the e-commerce platform because Goodreads had suspended activity on the site, while two five-star reviews praised the author’s choice as Trump’s vice president.

An Amazon spokesman did not immediately respond to Fortune Request for comments.

“Review bombing” has become a constant problem on review platforms, as readers and fans use these platforms as a weapon to flood certain books with negative feedback – in some cases before the book is even published.

In December, a scandal drew attention to the issue when a debut fantasy author signed to Penguin Random House admitted to creating fake accounts on Goodreads to promote her next book and sabotage several other authors.

Last summer, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Lovehas indefinitely postponed the release of her upcoming novel set in Siberia after more than 500 reviewers left one-star reviews on Goodreads months before release. Gilbert said she faced backlash from Ukrainian readers for choosing to publish the book in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.