My unsolicited opinion on Goodreads

The other day I was on my quarterly diatribe about how I have no hobbies. My husband said “Reading is your hobby” and I said “If you think I’m so boring why are you married to me?” Then I took my attitude and my book to bed and disassociated for an hour.

Anyway, he’s right. Reading is the closest thing I have to a hobby, and it’s a great one because:

It’s accessible
It’s relatively inexpensive
It can occupy 3 minutes or 3 hours depending on what time you have
It can take up virtually no space in your house
It’s usually done while seated (or laying!!)
It’s basically like you’re hallucinating yourself into another reality which is rad

So it is for these reasons and others I will not be casually picking up golf, astronomy, or paddle boarding. Sorry you married a nerd, Tyler.

There’s a social aspect to reading, too. I love talking about books with other people and think you can learn so much about someone this way. (I have a similar theory about why Spotify Wrapped has us in a chokehold, which is a topic for another day.) There’s just one elephant in the room readers need to address and it’s the monstrosity that is Goodreads. I want to love this app for its potential to create a great community for readers, but it’s just un-lovable.

The UX has lost the plot.

I preface by saying my career is in design — which is less of a credential and more of a curse — but frankly anyone with eyes and thumbs can see how bad this app is. The style is uninspired, the Discover feature and recommender are garbage, the reading challenges are full of missed potential (I know it’s crazy to mention Spotify Wrapped twice in a month that’s not December but maybe take a few notes, @Goodreads).

There are lots of other problems with the experience (like asking users to use HTML to apply basic formatting to reviews?!) that have been critiqued in case studies like this one, but the bottom line is that I expect more from an app owned by Amazon, which through pure ubiquity established most of the online shopping paradigms we interact with today.

And I know there are other options out there, but frankly I’m in too deep now (how else will I keep up with what percent of the way through his current book my random Facebook friend from high school Latin class is?).

We need to get on the same page about the rating system.

Goodreads’ book ratings alone have given me trust issues. Either some people really need to reflect on their own standards, or we just need to all agree on a common set of them. I know best, so let me explain the value of a star.

⭐️ : Maybe you didn’t finish it, or maybe you did and you hate yourself for it.
⭐️⭐️: Somewhere in the range of slightly bad to mediocre. You don’t need to drag the book but you wouldn’t recommend it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️: A 3-star book is okay. Most books will live here, statistically speaking. It’s called a bell curve, look it up.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: This was a really good book you’d tell your friend about, or maybe even buy as a gift.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: It is my unwavering belief that a small percentage of the books you read in your life will be 5 stars. These are the ones that change your life, that won’t get out of your head, that you will re-read 10 years later just to feel something again.

All this said, I realize folks have differing opinions on what makes a book objectively good, or if such a notion even exists. What makes art art, you know?? What I am saying is I just don’t believe that some of these books on Goodreads are above 4 stars, and I want better for us.

My Five-Star Books

One thing about me is that I have always acted like everyone cares a lot about what I think, so in the spirit of staying true to myself, here are a few of my five-star books. I would love to know yours!