Hi Friends,
Happy Bookmas Day Six! Today, I’ll be sharing why I’m officially leaving Goodreads in 2025—or at least, mostly leaving. There are several reasons behind my decision to step away from the popular reading tracker and personal library site, but here are the main ones.

Amazon
I don’t love that Goodreads is owned by Amazon. There’s so much about the company that I don’t agree with. While I can’t completely cut ties with Amazon (it’s often the only viable option for many indie authors), this felt like one small way for me to show less support for the company.

Outdated Features
Compared to other book-tracking platforms, Goodreads feels outdated. Its interface looks clunky, and the features are limited. Forums aren’t widely utilized, the giveaways don’t appeal to me, and aside from adding books to your shelves and tracking your reading, there’s not much else to do. It just doesn’t feel engaging.

Recommendations
I’ve found Goodreads’ recommendations underwhelming and heavily skewed toward popular titles. Their “Most Read” lists and personalized recommendations almost always spotlight the same mainstream books. And don’t even get me started on the Goodreads Choice Awards! It’s purely a popularity contest. I’ve even heard some readers speculate that publishers pay to get their books nominated. Some winners and nominees just don’t make sense to me.

So, what’s next? Moving forward, I’ll be using StoryGraph to track my reading—and I’ve been loving it so far! Not only is it women-owned, but it also offers so many fantastic features. You can still set a reading goal and join an interactive challenges. Plus, when you add a book, you can mark whether or not you own it. One of my favorite features is half-star ratings, which Goodreads still doesn’t support.

StoryGraph also provides amazing stats, like your most-read authors and fun pie charts about your reading habits. The only downside is that its database isn’t as extensive as Goodreads’. That said, I haven’t run into a single book I couldn’t find yet!

Let me know in the comments how you track your reading! If you’re on StoryGraph, feel free to friend me—my username is BooksWithBunny. The only thing I’ll keep up with on Goodreads is their yearly Goodreads Choice Awards, purely because if I didn’t, I’d probably have major FOMO! And before you go, don’t forget to follow the blog so you’ll be notified whenever I post something new.

Until The Next Chapter,
Bunny