Goodreads: Book Reviews 4+

Perfect for book lovers or casual readers.

I usually never write reviews, but my life as a reader was totally changed after finding this app. I love books and always have, but life keeps you busy and you end up putting things aside. Well, this app has helped me find so many books I NEED to read, and it has helped me rediscover my love for reading! I really can’t think of anything to improve. I love the layout. I love the ability to make “shelves” to save books. It even lets you track the progress of books you’re reading. You can read your friends reviews or any reviews in general. I also love that they have a vote at the end of the year (or beginning, I can’t remember) for best books in SEVERAL genres and also have best of the best and whatnot. Browsing books by categories is also great because it’s helping me find different kinds of books so my reading list can be more diverse. The only complaint I have (which actually isn’t a real complaint) is that every time I click on this app, I find a million more books I want to read and there’s no way I can read them all in my lifetime.

Social Media for Nerds

I love Goodreads. I have been using the site and app for many years. I love that I can keep track of the books I am reading and want to read. I love that I can see the books that my friends are reading and send them messages and comments based on their reading habits. I also appreciate that good reads includes multiple versions of the book in case you want to be very specific about which copy you read (nerd alert). Since I read so many books through my local library I really enjoy being able to see the covers of the books I have completed even though I do not own every book.

I have ONE request: PLEASE let me give ratings with half (or quarter) stars!!! Because I have a very restrictive number of stars, I struggle with what to rate books. I frequently go back to my shelves and think that I really did love that one book I read six years ago because I gave it four stars, but really I wish I could’ve given it 3.5 (which in my mind is a dramatically different rating). I know many people have “shortcut” this by adding their real rating in the comments, but it would be nice for this app to have a more intuitive rating system.

Wonderful!

I don't have room in my house for a bookcase nor do I have enough money to buy all the books I love and display them in my house. Therefore, when I found goodreads I found the perfect way to create a digital bookcase with reviews and all! I simply adore it :)

My only wish would be a DNF category aside from the usual ones (i.e.- "Currently Reading", "To Read", "Read"). Right now I have a handful of books on my "Read" list even though I didn't finish them. I hate taking credit for reading a book when I didn't but if I take it off my list I'll forget I tried it and try to read it later.

In addition, I read many books via audiobooks and I want to update my progress under “currently reading” but I have no way of knowing what page I’m on and typing in the percentage is a pure guess. In order for this to be more accurate to where I am in the book, it might be nice to have a category that tracks what chapter or minute you’re on. If this was the case I would have a more comprehensive view of my progress throughout the read. Other than these two small tweaks I love it!

Developer Response , 02/09/2018

Thanks for your feedback. In this case, I'd suggest creating a DNF shelf and making it "exclusive," which will allow you to bypass the default shelves ("read", "currently-reading", and "to-read"). Books added to exclusive shelves cannot be added to other exclusive shelves (like "read"), but they can still be added to any of your non-exclusive custom shelves. Here's how to make a shelf exclusive:
1. Click on My Books in the header.
2. Click on "edit" next to the "Bookshelves" header on the left.
3. Find the shelf you'd like to make exclusive on your list of shelves, and click on the checkbox beneath "exclusive."

As a work around to track your progress for audiobooks, simply divide your current audiobook progress in hours into the total length of the audiobook to work out your %. For example, if you're 3 hours into an 8 hour audiobook, you have made 38% progress (3/8 = 37.5%, rounded up to 38%).

Hope this helps!