Her love for literature began at the age of twelve, when her mother read her "Skripka Rotschil'da" (“Rothschild’s Violin”), a short story by Chekhov.

[1] However, this love for literature did not immediately translate into a desire to be a writer – as a young woman, Tokareva initially applied to study medicine.

In her second year at the Institute, Tokareva published her first short story, “Den bez vran'ya,” or "A Day Without Lying,” in the literary magazine Molodaya Gvardiya.

Her books to date include Happy End (1995), Vmesto menya (Instead of Me) (1995), and Loshadi s kryl'yami (Horses with Wings) (1996), and she has published often in the journals Novy mir and Yunost.

Her writing can on occasion seem moralistic, upholding traditional values and gender roles, which has led to Western critics labeling her “pre-feminist.” Although she writes mainly in the realist tradition, she sometimes dips into what she calls "fantastic realism," weaving magical events into accounts of everyday lives.