Goodreads: Book Reviews Reviews

by Excellent714

As I sit here listening to 60 Minutes report on the abuse of private data by online social media and others. In the US we have almost zero privacy. While Europeans have total control over their own data. Goodreads might have been good. First the forced noting a rating for at least 20 books before they will give you personal recommendations. The books are thrown on the screen with no way to tell if a member has read a book or not. Now I see where the huge numbers of people who like a book are from. It’s a time consuming process and at the end, with 60 Minutes warnings in my ear, they try to force
you to allow them to share your ratings with Facebook. Facebook of all the worst sites to share any info! When I declined, Goodreads stopped until I looked at my contacts which they also want access to. THIS IS THE WORST INVASION OF PRIVACY IVE EVER SEEN. I said no to the first batch of contacts they wanted to send ads to. What horrible people these folks are.
So now I am stuck with all that work and nothing more to do with Goodreads .
DO NOT GIVE THESE PEOPLE ACCESS TO YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT OR YOUR CONTACTS. THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW WHAT THIS SNEAKY APP WILL DO WITH IT. BUT YOU SHOULD PICTURE A TIME WHEN YOU APPLY FOT A JOB AND THE POTENTIAL EMPLOYER DISLIKES YOUR BOOKS READ! Be careful and stay away from this intrusive app.

by The Blonde Cookie

So, I decided to wait on the update for a day or so, because I saw a couple recent reviews that were expressing issues. I figured I was happy with status quo, and was intending to take a wait and see posture. Didn’t even click the button, then change my mind, and click it to stop it. Went to open Goodreads tonight, because I had finished a book, and it wants me to sign in. HOW COME? Fortunately I keep a notebook with such info, but in my mind, I shouldn’t have to do so until (perhaps) I update Goodreads . Which, as I previously stated, I haven’t done yet. I’m not looking to borrow trouble, but I hope this isn’t an indication of a problem. Anyway, you folks are generally so good at responding, I thought I’d let you know, and hope you’ll get back to me, at which point, I’ll raise the 2 stars back up to 5 stars. You’ve done so in the past, and I commend you highly for your expediency and responsiveness.

The 2 stars I’m giving you is to get your attention. Your app is wonderful, and honestly, is one of only 2 on my iPhone that has (till now) been basically trouble-free. I use it all the time, and find it easy to use/intuitive, timely and filled with excellent information, (true story). Thanks for a great product.

FYI, I’m running Goodreads on an iPhone 8 Plus, with IOS 13.1.2.

by The Ink Wyrm

Overall, I think this is a decent app for tracking your reading progress (though by no means the only one in its category). The process of finding a book, adding it to your shelf, tracking its progress, and leaving a review is simple and easy. It’s when you spend a little more time on it that I think it could use improvement. I’ve included my complaints/suggestions below in order from most to least important.
1.)the thing that I find most annoying about Goodreads is that when I go to edit down my want-to-read shelf, it constantly refreshes the page even if I’m not actually removing a book from it. Like I’ll click a book just to remind myself what it’s about, and when I click to go back to the shelf, it will refresh the page and I’ll have to scroll back down to where I was. It’s both annoying and inefficient to constantly have to be scrolling down the shelf to find my place (especially because I have A LOT
2.) shelf won’t load beyond a certain point if you have a lot of books
3.) if I’ve DNFd a book, there’s no option but to add it to my read shelf, even if I add it to my separate DNF shelf
4.) adding a book to want to read shelf as part of a giveaway

by Sa300

I LOVE this app, don’t get me wrong. I have been using it for around 2 years now and it has been wonderful, however it is missing something many book lovers crave. STATS! Graphs!! There is a way to access some graphs, however there is some major problems with those. Primarily being it is hard to find and only on computer versions of Goodreads , so mobile users can not find it (at least I have not been able to on my phone). Second problem is with the graphs themselves, there is no way to look at a specific month or year which can be very annoying when there is an outlier or large scale that ruins most of the data since the graph is zoomed out to much (found this to be true especially with the dates published section). Also this app is missing graphs like what genres we read the most or the pace of books. I find a lot of readers have been switching to Storygraph, which does have all those graphs, however Goodreads is annoying in the areas that this app excels at and ultimately isn’t worth it for me. However the graphs are worth it for a lot of people, so this app PLEASE add a bigger stats emphasis!

by Bex0619

this app is a great app for keeping track of what you’ve read. BUT, the reviews are inaccurate. If someone doesn’t like a certain author, they gather their “squad” and give it a bunch of one star reviews and start bashing the book before it’s even released TO ANYONE, Including Beta readers or Bloggers. I’ve been in the book world for 6 years and have seen this time and time again. On the flip side, the same can be said for diluted books theat have never been out of the authors hands with 5 star reviews and raving and bragging how great the book is (they never read) Don’t get me wrong, there are some books that are that bad, however, how can they be judged before anyone has laid eyes on them 🤷🏻‍♀️ IF YOU WANT AN APP TO KEEP UP WITH WHAT YOU HAVE READ OR WANT TO READ OR HAVE READ with nifty little shelves, this is Goodreads for YOU. If you aren’t interested in grown ups acting like child, stalking, false reviews and all the other BS that comes with it, I wouldn’t waste my time OR you can just ignore it like I do 🖤 I mostly just keep my shelves on my Paperwhite now but when it asked me to review it, how could I not share my honest opinion

by Meowitsmolly

Anytime I read a book that I’ve read before, the activity history doesn’t reflect the new dates. It will list the first time I read the book and the second time I read the book, but it will continue to say “the last read on” date is the first time I read it. When you click “add/edit dates read” it lists both sets of dates read, but when i click on “see all activity on this book” and then click “edit review” it only lists the first date read and nothing else. Even when I try to edit that date it won’t reflect the change. Even when I’ve deleted the entry of the original dates just to test it out, it still only lists the original dates in the “edit review” section and on the main page for the book for the “last date read”. This has happened to me on multiple books and it just doesn’t make any sense that the section for the “add/edit dates read” doesn’t sync up with the “see all your activity on this book”. It drives me a little bit insane honestly.

by Raema00

i use Goodreads religiously but it needs an revamp BAD. the UI looks like it hasnt changed since day 1 and itd be nice if i could see my friends activity more often than i see ads on my feed 😑. would be nice if we could personalize our profiles, but not necessary. also recommendations or searching through genres could be greatly enhanced by further filtering of intended audiences—i dont want to scroll through twenty 20 childrens fantasy books before even finding one mediocre adult fantasy book im not interested in. ABSOLUTELY would benefit from half star rating system or even 10 star rating system im tired of seeing a 3 star review with “3.5 stars …” or a 1 star review with “0.5 stars…” in the actual review. Goodreads is also not super user friendly and is generally clunky. lots of unnecessary tapping needed and idk what it is but the searching function is super clunky too. i feel like the search option should first search our shelves for matches before searching the rest of the database for matches. definitely need a multi-select option to make shelving multiple books easier. i have over 300 books in my read im not reshelving each individual book, jeffrey. add tags in reviews so we can filter by tags. basically more filtering options for everything. add private reviews only your friends can see so that they dont affect the overall review of the book (sometimes you can acknowledge a book is well-written and still hate it).

by Ashlee🙃

Right now I’m 15 years old and a average reader. I use Goodreads to track my reading and also compete with my friends over our yearly goals (they’re also readers) I do have some suggestions I would love added. Currently the books tell you how far you are based off a set page number however this doesn’t take into count the fact that based on the book it might be longer or shorter making the percent off. I would love if you could edit the page numbers or maybe select out of an array of numbers based on various copies. Another thing I would love to be added was to create a sort of filler book where you can edit it and add it to your shelves if it isn’t officially published or not yet on this app so it would still count in your goal. One last thing I’d love is the option to have a leauge where you challenge friends based off how many books you read with rankings I think it would make Goodreads much more fun and enjoyable for younger or older readers!

by GS0892

I like Goodreads overall, but I really wish it would include a few things. I tend to listen to audiobooks, so when I switch it to that version and want to update my progress, I can’t input the time I have left listening to the book. It only allows me to input the percent or page/s I've read.

I saw the developer’s suggestion to a reviewer about dividing the time read but it’s not something that as a reader I want to be concerned with. If the site/app is allowing you to select different versions/formats of the book then it should also provide a progress section that compliments the selected version/format. It would be really awesome if I could sync my Audible account the way I can with my Kindle.

I like the to-read list feature because it allows me to see which book to read next. This is extremely convenient when you’re participating in a reading challenge. Overall, I enjoy Goodreads very much and highly recommend it.

by Donaldtrumpslefttoe

Goodreads is wonderful. It is almost perfect. BUT every person I’ve talked to who uses this app have all been in agreement it would be a GAME CHANGER if these were added:
1) A 0.5 star option. It sounds silly but it can be so frustrating deciding if a book it 4 or 5 stars. If there was a 4.5 option for example, I think all my life problems would be solved.
2) Private ratings. I’m sure if you’re an app developer you know of Letterboxd, and for me personally, if some similar features could be added to this app that would make it just *chefs kiss*. For example: one of my favorite things about Letterboxd is how your ratings don’t account to a larger average rating for a movie (but in this case it would be a book). You can rate a movie and write your OWN review describing how that movie fit into your personal taste. I would love to see this on this app in a way in which I could do a private review (almost like a personal diary) rather than a public rating. Sometimes i’ll read a book and recognize it’s objectively a great book, but I might give it two starts because maybe that sub-genre of fantasy romance wasn’t up my alley, so maybe that review would be nice to have in a personal journal rather than a public one because my review is sort of niche. I hope this makes sense. :))) I LOVE Goodreads!!!

by Green Bean66b

I absolutely love this app! There are so many features and I love being able to see what friends are reading, and also looking back on the books I’ve read. Additionally, the want to read list is really helpful so I can just look on it when I want to check out a book at the library. For the first year of using Goodreads, I encountered zero problems. However, I have recently started getting random likes and follows on my account and their profiles have links to porn websites. I keep getting more and more every week and it have come to the point where I get at least one per day. Every time I make an update, it gets celebrated with sometimes up to 6 likes from these spam accounts. I’m getting tired of constantly getting notifications and then having to block and flag them. I’ve reached out to this app and it seems like this is a common problem, but all they told me to do is to flag it. I’m really hoping an update is made so I don’t have to deal with this spam anymore. It is getting really annoying.

by Aaron19726

I love Goodreads. I use it every day. (Scroll to bottom to see reason for 4 star rating.) I love to new track of books I’ve read and what I’ve thought of them, in case a friend asks for a recommendation. I like to update what I’m currently reading as I go to see how far along I am in percentages. I also like to see what my friends have read/are reading, and what they thought of those books. I LOVE being able to make a list of books I want to read, instead of slowly typing them all out in my notes app, I can just check my list here while at the library or bookstore.

However, I WISH there was a feedback submission area of Goodreads . I’d like to be able to point out when I notice a problem. For example, I must’ve accidentally followed someone recently, but it won’t let me unfollow them. Another example, I was reading “The Help” recently and was updating it as I went. It told me I was 100% complete when I was only 90% through the book. I wish there was a feedback area so I could tell Goodreads makers about these little problems that are probably easily fixable.

by BetterThanItSounds

I love Goodreads! I love that you can scan books into it for easy cataloging, I love that I can use it while doing unnecessary book shopping to make sure I don’t buy what I already have. I love that I can update my progress on books in Goodreads . It’s literally missing just one thing - the ability to enter dates on my activity for a book showing I’ve re-read it. I know I can edit when I first started and finished a book, but I can’t add more dates as I re-read books, which is all I tend to be doing lately. I know I can add these dates on the site (which, tbh it’s really difficult to get to the page I need to enter re-read dates, so that could be improved, too), but, while a majority of my books are actually physical books, I do have a lot of kindle and audio books that I consume on my phone, so when I finish them, it would be nice to be able to update my activity with a re-read date while I’ve already got my nose stuck in front of my phone. My rating is a 4 out of 5, but I will gladly give it a perfect 5 if that missing feature can be added!

by Mlu__

Ok so... it took me a while to see a couple of things I really really wanted this app to change.
First is that I can’t seem to edit my shelf other than change its name and delete books. But it should also let you change the order of the books and let you put them in other shelves without having to click on them and THEN adding them. E.g: you enter Want To Read and see a book you want to add to some shelf. Instead of clicking and opening EVERYTHING including the synopsis and all, you hold your finger onto the name of the book and all the shelves are available for you to insert it.

Also, I’m from Brazil and constantly I check all my books to see if they gained a Brazilian edition. But some books have like, a 100 editions and it takes SO MUCH time to find a portuguese one. PLEASE let it have a box or whatever in the beginning of the page so I can search already “portuguese” and find an edition with my language.

by Digitaltease

I like Goodreads a lot. I like the fact that I can see what my friends are reading and get a perspective on a book that they loved. It also helps me find something that is worth reading.. but my problem is that I’m only limited to the friends that has been registered on Good Reads.

Granted for the fact that I can invite friends but I believe Goodreads would be better if we could follow anyone regardless of favorite author, friends and family. There are some celebrities, musicians, and also Sober bloggers that I admire and would love to see what they are reading. I think Goodreads can be something popular if they opened it up to more celebrities or inspirational speakers.

I love my friends but I want to know what Laura Mckowen, Talib Kweli, Jimmy Fallon, and more are reading. I want to see what they find as good reads for them. I also think this would expose people to more authors and help them gain more revenue for their books. So that way authors can write more books!

by Jules📚

This is Goodreads I use most when looking at books. I love all the features in it and I like how features are still being added.
•A few things I would suggest, though, are adding an option for when you are recording which days you read the book (from start to finish), to also have an option for the time. I usually know what time I started and finished a book so this would be helpful for me. And to put in settings whether you would rather have the standard “Military time” version for the time or the version where the numbers start over after twelve and use AM and PM.
•Also when marking a book as “Read” I think there should be an option to click directly to the page where you record the days you read the book from start to finish. A direct click from one page to another would be very helpful for me.
•The only thing that I am not so happy about is that I can’t use this app when I don’t have WiFi, so if I’m eagerly trying to find a book in the car or on my school bus, I can’t look at any books because there is “no connection”.
•Also, I love the fact that I can connect my Kindle Paper White to this app and add in new books that I want to read, am currently reading or have just finished. It makes it so much easier!!
Anyway, overall, this is an amazing app and I’ve recommended it to all my bookworm friends and I recommend it to anyone reading this!!!!

by ❤️❤️❤️HUFFLEPUFF❤️❤️❤️

Goodreads is amazing. I use it all the time!! It’s fun to keep up with all of your reading and to look back at everything you've read. I love how you can tell it what page your on and it will tell you exactly how far into the book you are. The database is huge!! Even books I don’t expect to find are here. You can find books that you’ve been wanting to read, put them in a folder and when your looking for your next book you can scroll through said folder until you find one. It’s amazing, I love Goodreads, it’s just great! One thing I do wish is, when I tell it I’ve read a book, it doesn’t mean I just finished it. There should be a different button (but next to the ‘I’ve read this book button’) that says I just finished this book; and the I’ve read this book button should just put it in the Read folder and not on my reading challenge list. The I just finished this book button should add it to the reading challenge.

by Squirrelpotpie

UPDATE: this app contacted me and suggested I make my son’s bookshelf “exclusive”, meaning books on the shelf wouldn’t be on two shelves (that one and “currently reading” at the same time). It’s exactly what I needed. Thanks this app! I updated my review!

Original Review: I like Goodreads. I would like to use it for its intended purpose for my own books (meaning: marking this as read, currently reading, want to read), and also keep a “shelf” of my son’s books to share with his grandparents. It is frustrating that you are FORCED to choose “read”, “currently reading”, or “want to read” for every book—I don’t want to mark my son’s books with these tags; I just want to catalog them with a shelf. I only want to use these tags with my own books... it’s annoying that I have to see his books in “currently reading” when I just want to see mine!

Please add this option so I can use Goodreads for myself! Right now I’m “currently reading” 50 children’s books! :(

by Klsy303

I don't have room in my house for a bookcase nor do I have enough money to buy all the books I love and display them in my house. Therefore, when I found this app I found the perfect way to create a digital bookcase with reviews and all! I simply adore it :)

My only wish would be a DNF category aside from the usual ones (i.e.- "Currently Reading", "To Read", "Read"). Right now I have a handful of books on my "Read" list even though I didn't finish them. I hate taking credit for reading a book when I didn't but if I take it off my list I'll forget I tried it and try to read it later.

In addition, I read many books via audiobooks and I want to update my progress under “currently reading” but I have no way of knowing what page I’m on and typing in the percentage is a pure guess. In order for this to be more accurate to where I am in the book, it might be nice to have a category that tracks what chapter or minute you’re on. If this was the case I would have a more comprehensive view of my progress throughout the read. Other than these two small tweaks I love it!

by Momma Flan

I usually never write reviews, but my life as a reader was totally changed after finding Goodreads. I love books and always have, but life keeps you busy and you end up putting things aside. Well, Goodreads has helped me find so many books I NEED to read, and it has helped me rediscover my love for reading! I really can’t think of anything to improve. I love the layout. I love the ability to make “shelves” to save books. It even lets you track the progress of books you’re reading. You can read your friends reviews or any reviews in general. I also love that they have a vote at the end of the year (or beginning, I can’t remember) for best books in SEVERAL genres and also have best of the best and whatnot. Browsing books by categories is also great because it’s helping me find different kinds of books so my reading list can be more diverse. The only complaint I have (which actually isn’t a real complaint) is that every time I click on Goodreads, I find a million more books I want to read and there’s no way I can read them all in my lifetime.

by Zoomcity

Goodreads is convenient. I use it daily. There are a few things I wish Goodreads could handle—Input on book recommendations, for instance. I am never going to read that book. Dealing with it on my phone’s tiny browser is frustrating. But that’s among the “some day” hopes, and it’s not a big deal. I wish I could quote messages to make it clear which message I’m replying to: someday, I hope. I wish I could link to books in my messages like the “big kids” do with their computers. Again, maybe in the future.

They’ve recently changed the way I see group messages from the notification tab, however. I used to see the bottom of the list of messages (most recent). Now I see a random message from the middle of the thread and have to scroll down to see the newest messages. A pointless change.

By far the worst feature of Goodreads is reading messages. They frequently have words missing from the message. I don’t know why. I have to deduce the meaning. Sometimes if there’s a hyperlink in the message, resting my finger on the link will make the missing words appear. But not always, and not all messages have hyperlinks, anyway. It’s a huge deficiency.

by Sjellie

This is my go to app for bookmarking (haha) books I want to read and check out what my friends and other people are reading. The shelves, the ability to read and create reviews, browsing for books, and creating a book challenge for the year are really nice, and it feels great to move a book from in progress to read.

That said, the social aspect of Goodreads doesn’t seem to be fully in touch with the other areas. I wish there were a way customize the feed you see. The friend list doesn’t seem to really refresh outside of when you first sync Goodreads to your fb account, you can’t cancel friend requests, can’t unfollow people, and you still get a feed for people who are no longer exist on your friend list. The basic features work, and I guess there’s no other app like this app yet, but the social features could be developed and polished more to give a more streamlined app.

Apart from all wishful thinking, I am still thankful for this :)

by Its_brb

This would be a five star app for me if it had the following: an option to abandon books and not have to include them count as read books, want to be read (no thanks, I abandoned it for a reason) or currently reading. I know I can add an abandoned shelf but it has to be marked as one of the main three and I wish it would be its own separate thing so it could still be listed under my books. The next one may be hard to add but I wish you could add who recommended the book to you on Goodreads . Most times I am adding books while listening to a book podcast and don’t have my computer by me so I will never remember who told me about the book. I’ve made a compromise by creating shelves based on which podcast has recommended it but I really wish there were another way to do this. Otherwise, Goodreads is the most frequently used app on my phone and has connected me with so many new and old friends through books and I really love it for that.

by Corinea D.

This book was an entertaining plethora of short stories with intense imagination & recognized fears. It offers humor, science fiction, expressive drama, & an intriguing array of interpretations that can be perceived in your own personal magnitude. It starts with ‘Mercy’, about an innate light on intellectual survival through an invasion of poisonous warfare & the immense possibility of other forms of existence. It ends with ‘Season Finale’, which is an explicit version of an alternative to the truth of resurrection.
The author’s mind is filled with a playground of slip-n-slide ideas involving some of our worst enemies entwined in the cobwebs of a haunted forest. There are devils inside some of the featured stories disguised as angels with a twisted tilt to their glowing halo that you’ll fail to notice until the final words. Thought-provoking views inspires challenging ideas exploring unique personalities in the characters & of alternate universes. This book offers the twists & turns of a roller coaster with jolting endings to each story leaving you wanting another ride.

by Buck&De

I truly enjoyed the book due to the characters. It also had a view point of what comes around goes around. The main character, Marcy, is a tired overworked divorced women who has a truly terrible ex. The ex before divorcing her empties all of their back accounts after she puts him through his schooling to be an orthodontist. He empty’s the account designated for his daughter’s college fund and does not pay child support. He is a liar and a cheat. Marcy is glad to be rid of him, but she is upset on her daughter’s behalf as the ex ignores his daughter. The story starts with Marcy being desperate for money. She works in an casino in Las Vegas as it is a better paying job. She works double shifts just to get by. It starts with a gamer who drops a hundred dollar bill. Marcy sees it and knows she has a decision to tell the man or not. She makes the decision to tell the man and tries to give him the money back. That decision opens up a new job opportunity for her and romance. Very steamy in the sex department.