Why I've fallen out of love with Goodreads

I've been using Goodreads to track my reading for years now. Not for community aspect or for the book recommendations - it's purely a way to keep track of the books that I've read. It has come in useful - a couple of times I've logged a 'new' book only to discover that I've already read it, and several times it has helped me to notice when I've enjoyed several books by the same author.

But I've always had one big problem with it. Once I log a book as finished, I can't help myself swiping down to read the reviews. Not only does that send me into an unwanted scroll fest, it can also really colour my thoughts about the book that I've just read. Many times I've loved a book, only to see that most of Goodreads apparently hated it.

I understand that people write negative reviews on Goodreads for attention - and attracting a lot of comments on a long and provocative review pushes it well up the rankings. Similarly, books that receive a lot of positive reviews are often labelled as having been review copies which is bound to have affected the score.

So I do understand that the review system is skewed and I shouldn't place too much faith in it, especially for more recently published or controversial books.

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But I really hate having the way that I feel about a book being tampered with by the reviews. It leaves me thinking - am I somehow inferior to other readers because I missed all the shortcomings of this terrible book? Or am I a superior reader when I don't enjoy a book that is loved by the masses, because of course my own tastes are much more highbrow?

So I'm going to take a step back from Goodreads. I still want to track the books that I've read, and so I've been looking into some other options. I recently wrote about how terrible I am at remembering the books that I've read and so I would like to come up with a solution that somehow helps the basic information about a book stick in my head. I don't want to commit to writing long reviews in a journal, but just writing down the author, title and a few notes might be the way to go.

I'll share what I come up with! 

Books that I've enjoyed recently

I must admit, some of the books that I've read recently have been a bit mid, as the young people say. But on the other hand, several of them have been fantastic enough to share, so here are a few books that have really stood out to me amongst my recent reading.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Ouden

This book was a wildcard entry to my to be read shelf. I received a book voucher as a gift, and was browsing the 'buy one get one half price' table in Waterstones when I spotted a book that I really wanted - The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. Short of time, and wanting to make up the offer, I chose The Safekeep mainly because it was a Women's Prize for Fiction winner and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. And also because it had a little handwritten card on it with a personal recommendation from a shop employee. It was an excellent choice because I loved it, and it's a worthy addition to my fiction bookshelf. 

Set in a rural Dutch province 15 years after the end of the Second World War, it tells the story of Isabel who lives alone in her late mother's country home, until her brother sends his girlfriend Eva to live with her for the summer. It's a story that begins by leading you to think think that it's about one thing, and then turns on its head to develop a completely different angle to the story. I loved the writing, and the story about an aspect of history that fascinates me.

Three Mothers by Hannah Beckerman

This book was borrowed from Amazon Prime Library, and I knew that I was going to enjoy it as soon as I started reading. It was beautifully written and the narrative just drew me in. The book follows the stories of three mothers who are interlinked by their teenage children and their involvement in a tragedy. I enjoyed the different voices of the mothers, and the way that the full story was revealed slowly but not too slowly, with plenty of twists and turns along the way.

Us by David Nicholls

This is a slightly older read that I picked up in a charity shop having enjoyed many of his other books. It was slightly familiar to me so I suspect that I may have already read it at some point before I started tracking my reading on Goodreads! The story is about a couple with a teenage son, trying to save their marriage by taking a family trip around Europe. Folded into the travel narrative are memories and anecdotes from their marriage, and I found the story telling really compelling.

High Adventure by Edmund Hillary

This is another book for my 'odd shelf' - where I gather all my Everest inspired reading material. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to summit Everest in 1953, and this is their story as told by Hillary. It covers Hillary's early climbing career, as well as the years of Everest expeditions to the south side of Everest which eventually led to a successful summit. It's really well written and engaging, and I love the way that these early expeditions involved large numbers of people all working together to achieve a team summit rather than it being about the individual effort. It was an incredible achievement.

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What I read and listened to in 2025

Happy New Year! As the New Year gets underway, I've been looking back on what I read and listened to in 2025.

What I read

I love to keep track of the books that I've read, and I've been doing this in Goodreads for a few years now. Every year I enjoy looking back over my reading year, and here are some of my stats from 2025:

I don't worry too much about the number of books, as I usually read a variety of books including some very long ones. This year I read 91 books, which compares to 115 last year, which wasn't a surprise as I knew that I had read less in 2025. But just look how much I read in October as I powered through my Kindle "To be Read" folder on a week long holiday in the Dominican Republic!

I was surprised to see that my top genre was Romance as I like to imagine that my reading tastes are more highbrow. A lot of those free Kindle reads probably fell into that category, and also at times this year I did seek out books which were a little easier to read rather than any longer classics.

What I listened to

We have the Spotify family plan so that we can all keep our listening interests separate. And although it's not cheap we definitely get our money's worth. I was quite impressed with my listening time of 7,182 minutes (119 hours) but it pales in comparison with my son who managed 61,191 minutes - that's over 1000 hours!

Here are my top stats:

Not surprisingly, Pulp are at the top, especially after the release of their new album this year which led to my three favourite songs from the album falling in my top songs list. Spotify gave me a listening age of 47 based on listening to music from the early 90s which is only a year out. However I think that my age estimate may have been lowered based on the fact that the K-Pop group Blackpink made my number two. 

This was mainly due to repeated listens to Shutdown before we went to see them in concert over the summer. I was learning the rap so that I could join in and embarrass my daughter! I also love their song Jump which reminds me of our trip to Seoul in the summer when we watched the video release of the single on a huge screen.

The top artists also reflects the amount of time I spent listening to set lists as part of our year of concerts. Maybe it spoils the surprise for some, but I like to be familiar with the songs that are going to be played so that I can make sure I know them well enough to sing along!

Reading and listening plans for 2026

My to be read pile is currently very manageable, but I'll be starting with books that I received for my birthday in October and haven't yet read!

I've decided that I want to really indulge my interest in Everest this year. I love reading accounts from climbers, and I'm particularly interested in the commercial side of climbing and the companies that take people up when they aren't quite as experienced as they should be. I've read a couple of books already, and I'm putting together a list to purchase second hand.

In terms of music I want to try and find some new-to-me music to listen to rather than just repeating through my favourites. I'm intending to look up a list of what are generally considered to be the best albums and work my way through those, as well as listening to older albums from my favourite groups where I'm only familiar with the singles.

My year in books - 2023

I track all the books that I read through Goodreads. I don't use it as a social network, or as a way to find new books, it's just an easy way to keep track of the books that I have read. I've only been using it seriously for the last three or four years, and more than once I've added a book to my To Be Read list only to discover that I've already read it! I also enjoy reading the comments on a book once I've finished it, although I very rarely leave my own reviews.

At the end of the year I love having a look at the My Year in Books feature which shows you all the books that you've read during the year along with a few stats. So I thought I'd share a little bit of my reading history from 2023! Click the link below to go to the full report. 

My Year in Books 2023 thanks to Goodreads. 

I read 96 books in 2023 which seems like an impressive amount! I don't like setting myself a goal of reading a certain number of books, because I think I would then be tempted to choose shorter or easier to read books. Some of the books that I've read this year have been long and challenging. In particular The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, which was my longest read. It took me several weeks, and plenty of looking up chapter summaries to keep me on track, but it was a brilliant book and I loved reading it.

Goodreads also provides some other data about the books I've read. My average book length was 367 which sounds about right. I think that's towards the longer length of a book, but I do read a mixture of longer and shorter books. My most shelved was It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover which I vaguely remember as being quite good but not outstanding. My least shelved was A Field Guide to Larking by Lara Maiklem which is an excellent little book but which I suspect doesn't have the same worldwide market.

I share some of my favourite reads every couple of months or so on the blog. But having looked through my list, here are just a few of my favourites, which have stayed in my mind long after I finished them!

Cloud Cuckoo Land - Antony Doerr

The Book of Form and Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki 

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

The Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver

The School for Good Mothers - Jessamine Chan

Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin

Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus

The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant - Kayte Nunn

I don't have any particular reading goals for the new year, although I would like to work my way through the To Be Read pile beside my bed which has grown since my birthday and Christmas. A large part of it is filled by War and Peace which I would love to read one day, maybe this is the year! I also have some books which I borrowed from the library during lockdown and loved that I've subsequently picked up in charity shops. I want to re-read them before I find a place to shelve them.

I've just started reading How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie which I'm loving, although it has drawn comments from my family members who usually don't pay any attention at all to what I'm reading!