There’s been a lot of talk of migrating away from Goodreads lately, so I thought it would be the perfect time to finally finish this post I had been working on! I’ve been a member of Goodreads for 10 years and I love the site, but there are a lot of things that need to improved. And sadly, these are all issues that have been occurring for years and still nothing has been done about them. Here my top five gripes with Goodreads:
1. THE SEARCH FUNCTION IS HORRIBLE
If anyone uses Goodreads, I don’t think I even need to explain myself. For a website owned by Amazon you would think the search bar would be user friendly. Why is it when I start typing a title, the book shows up, but if I type one more letter it disappears again? And why is it that many books that I have shelved/read don’t even show up in the search? Those should be the first ones to populate, followed by popularity. And I HATE that when I hit enter, it automatically selects the first option instead searching of whatever phrase I had typed.
2. THE APP IS CONSTANTLY DOWN
The Goodreads app is one of the worst and with its popularity, it’s amazing the developers don’t care enough to fix it. It’s constantly down. I mean, constantly. And there never seems to be any rhyme or reason for when/why it crashes. If I’m reading reviews of a book, random reviews just won’t load. The app can work one minute and then go down the next. It’s so frustrating.
3. FORMATTING REVIEWS
In this day and age of the internet, why do I still need to type <i> or <b> throughout my review to make something italicized or bold? Do you have any idea how long and tiresome it is to format one single review on Goodreads? Come on Goodreads, get your shit together.
4. DISABLED URLS IN THE ABOUT ME SECTION
This was supposed to be a temporary problem, but now it looks like it’s been made permanent. I’m still baffled as to why URLs are no longer allowed in the about me section of the profile. This is really unfortunate for me, and many other users, as I can no longer link to my Twitter/Instagram or display my NetGalley badges.
5. EDITING A PREVIOUSLY POSTED REVIEW
It doesn’t matter how many times I painstakingly proofread a review before posting. I will eventually read it months later and still find a grammar or spelling error. On the website, I can uncheck the box to keep the review from showing on the my feed if I go back to edit it. But on the app, it will show on my profile/home feed that I just finished reading that book. STOP IT. I just want to be able to edit my reviews as many times as needed without it reposting numerous times.
Goodreads is the worst, but I still love that website and it’s convenience for keep tracking of my books and books I want to read. There’s a lot of talk of switching over to BookSloth or Storygraph but I don’t see myself ever leaving Goodreads, especially since those alternative sites don’t seem to have the same function or capabilities as far as sorting books and shelving.
Do you use Goodreads? What aspects do you think need to be changed or fixed? Let’s chat in the comments!
Paws & Paperbacks 