Catherine Coles
Coles’ Notes
When I signed up for Goodreads almost 10 years ago, I was amazed that such a perfect resource existed for readers. If you are a booklover, you’ll find that Goodreads suits a number of purposes. You can use it to keep track of books you have read or want to read, discover new favourites, keep abreast of reading trends, or interact with other bibliophiles. While I still love Goodreads and use it several times per week, I recently read an article by Kat Smith, published in The Guardian on May 13, that made me question my Goodreads devotion. Goodreads has turned reading into a shared experience, but is that a good thing?
The article posits that tracking what you are reading, setting yearly quotas (the “Goodreads Challenge”), and sharing and comparing with friends and acquaintances, turns reading into a performative act. Instead of truly savoring a book, reading at one’s own pace, or embracing a reading slump, many Goodreads participants (myself included) feel pressure to meet self-imposed “reading goals”. It emphasizes the sense of accomplishment you feel when you finish a book and can log it in the system, rather than the enjoyment of reading itself.
I also miss the days when I went to a library or bookstore and picked up a title based on a whim. Now, unless I’m reading an early release, I look to Goodreads to tell me whether a book is worth diving into. If other users have rated it under 4 stars (out of 5), perhaps it is not worth my time. The problem is this approach is that early ratings of a title on Goodreads will no doubt influence future readers and their subsequent ratings. It creates hive mind, which is unfortunate because I’m sure there are just as many low-rated titles on Goodreads that I might have enjoyed as there are stinkers. Everyone has different reading preferences and priorities, so it is limiting to judge a book based on how it is perceived by strangers. This is especially apparent when you scroll down to read the reviews, and see that people will sometimes give a book a one-star or five-star based on whether or not they like the author as a person…without ever having read the book. Even those who rate books in good faith do not follow a standard rubric. One person may believe that a five-star read should challenge them; another may hate any book that fails to offer them a feel-good experience. I’ve seen reviews where people rated a book poorly because the plot was not completely devoid of unpleasant characters or events. Most reviewers, it seems, take a purely subjective approach. This being the case, I’m not sure how much value one should place in Goodreads ratings and reviews. NoveList, a database which the L&A Libraries subscribe to and you can access with your library card, does a better job at highlighting fair and balanced professional reviews of titles, as well as considering appeal factors that may resonate with individual readers. There is no rating system, and there are no good books or bad books.
All that said, am I planning to delete my Goodreads app? No, not quite yet. Knowing about a lot of books and understanding what titles are trending is part of my job, and I enjoy it. Plus, without the pressure of the annual Goodreads challenge, there are plenty of great books I might not have otherwise bothered to read. To me, the Guardian article served as a gentle reminder to avoid falling into a trap where I’m relying too heavily on Goodreads’s algorithms to inform book choices (side note: Goodreads is now owned by Amazon, so there is good reason to be wary) or getting into a habit where tracking and sharing takes priority over the experience of reading.
You can decide for yourself whether Goodreads is a net positive or negative for bookworms by checking it out at www.Goodreads.com or downloading the mobile app.