Post #4 - GoodReads

Though it doesn’t distribute or sells books, I want to take a look at a website that very recently I’ve grown very attached to, GoodReads. This website’s sole purpose is for readers to recommend and review books to each other based on preferences, genres, other books you like, etc. In general, as you read more and more of the review set forth by different people, you realize that they all have one thing in common; many of them practiced in terms of reading and reviewing. That may sound like a very obvious or general statement, but think of it this way; so many of these reviewers are able to so easily dissect a book’s meaning and compare it to other books because they’ve read and reviewed so many books before. It’s also very common to see the other extreme, reviewers who are reviewing a book for the first time and have no idea how to do so that will be helpful. For example, if I’m reading reviews for a certain book, and one reviewer posts, “Great book, loved it!” that doesn’t really help me at all. It tells me that she loved the book, great. Hell, for all I know, that book could have been great because she liked the character’s dog. So in terms of the reviewer’s voice you get one of the two extremes, either a great review or a completely useless review.

I personally don’t look at book reviews that often. In my opinion, they’re very subjective and are really only helpful to those who have similar reading tastes. My reading tastes are sometimes odd; books that others thought were great and deserved to be classics, I thought were crap, and some books that others thought were childish and stupid, I enjoyed a lot. Personally, I keep my eyes off the reviews and generally the ratings too; I choose my books on the summaries and as everyone does (anyone who says otherwise is full of BS), the cover.

On GoodReads, I don’t really share what I’ve read or purchased. If what I’m reading happens to be posted on Facebook by GoodReads saying that I’m reading that book, I don’t take it down. There’s no particular reason, I just see no need to. The only thing that could come of it is that those who’ve read the book would give me their opinion, and generally I really couldn’t care less, I prefer to read the book myself before I hear opinions from others.

I think book reviews impose a very helpful cultural value for society. Some people read based only on what other people have read, rated, and reviewed. Though that may not be how I choose to read my books, this is a very helpful way for some people to build a community of reading multiple books, and sometimes even a great way for the reviewers to connect with the author, by giving them their opinion as if they were in conversation with them as a friend. What are your guys’ opinions? Do you read a lot, and if you do, do you use book reviews to help you in decided whether or not you read the book?