I love Goodreads. There is something so wholesome about seeing what all your friends are reading, how they rate books, and how they review them. It often helps me decide what to read next. Sharing opinions on books with trustworthy people helps me maintain the enjoyment of reading. An especially fantastic feature is seeing my ‘Year in Books’ at the end of the year, and reflecting on what I have read.
I also believe that Goodreads can be toxic and can help you lose any reading motivation that you may have. The Reading Challenge, for which you set yourself a target number of books to read in a year, can make reading more of a chore. I find that I am constantly comparing myself to my friends. How many books have they read? How many have I? Why have they read more than me? I have gone through phases of being constantly obsessed with Goodreads, constantly checking how many books everyone has read. This toxic reaction to the app takes away the positives of reading.
I have to frequently remind myself that reading is not linear. I find that I read more in the first half of the year. I have much more motivation then. In the early warm months, I prefer reading in the morning. In the second half of the year, whilst I enjoy reading before bed, I still read less. Also, when I have an essay due, it is unlikely that I will just be able to curl up and read a book in a sitting. In the same way, during the summer, I have a lot more time on my hands, and naturally, my volume of reading increases.
I think that the way you can log books is also problematic. I often force myself to continue reading a book I hate just so that book can be added to my reading count. We should not be finishing books we don’t enjoy solely to get a mark on Goodreads. When scrolling through the books I have read, several spring to mind as being painful to finish. Here is my solution: there should be a setting where you can mark the book as ‘decided not to finish’. It is perfectly reasonable to start reading a book and then loathe it. If we enjoyed everything we read, life would be boring.
Will I stop using Goodreads? Most likely not. I’m hooked. However, I will be using the app with much more caution in the future. Most importantly, I will no longer be comparing my reading progress to anyone else’s.
Image of the author’s Reading Challenge courtesy of Maisie McGuffie