This week’s question comes to us from Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews who asks—
Do you use Goodreads as the main website to keep track of what you have read? If not, please share what you use?
First things first. I hate Goodreads with the fire of a thousand suns. It is the clunkiest, ugliest, most poorly-designed software that I currently use. It’s an embarrassment to Amazon, and to amateur rocket-scientist and professsional cowboy-hat-wearer Jeff Bezos.
Having said that…yes. I use it. It’s where all my book friends are. More importantly, it directly connects to my Kindle, so that I don’t have to manually enter anything, and because it does that, I am loathe to try any other service because those other services will depend on me entering things, and I know that won’t happen with any consistency. Plus, again, it’s where all the bookpeople are.
So, yes I use it and yes I hate it.
How about you? What do you use to keep track of your books?
The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book-related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog
fifty-two 
I also use Goodreads – though, possibly oddly, I refuse to connect it to my Amazon account so it doesn’t get things auto-entered from my kindle. I enter everything by hand.
You’re right; it is clunky, has issues, is painfully slow, and has about the most braindead search feature anywhere (how can the exact title match be on the 3rd page of the results???). But having used it for years that’s where my reading history is — and that history is the main, nearly sole, reason I use the site/app.
“What was the name of that book I liked that I’m trying to tell you about””, “Did I read that already?”, “Did I like it enough to bother reading this next book that’s finally come out?”, “Let me flip through the books I most highly rated and see which I might suggest”, “How many books dis I read this year; and from where?”
At least in theory I’d be willing to give up the social aspect of it (which I use very little) if there was a better site that could effortlessly import my entire Goodreads history and give me quicker access to enter my reads, and look at my reading, via both website and app.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love it conceptually but hardly ever use it. But yes I have a lot of book friends there, and these kinds of posts always make me want to go and update and use it better. I need to do that! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I quite like Goodreads – though more for the bookish groups I’m in on there! I do love how much easier it is to search through MY reviews than Amazon is, on the Zon I can’t find my older reviews as the page just won’t go back that many years!
LikeLike
I feel like I get a lot of bots liking my status updates on Goodreads.
Has anyone tried out Storygraph?
LikeLike
I don’t hate it, but it isn’t great. Problem is, there’s nothing out there that works better so… yes, I use it too!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh my! Your angst made me laugh!
I feel like Goodreads is a must-have for book enthusiasts. I personally don’t hate it, but there are things that could definitely be improved upon. I do love that there is a place for all the book people to connect and keep track of all the books.
LikeLiked by 1 person