Goodreads: Why I won't be using it in 2026

at least not the way I've used it before

Goodreads was the first “social media” platform I ever joined. I began my Goodreads when I was about seventeen or eighteen. Before I was an author, I used to write reviews on there. I had a screen name or username instead of using my name because, at the time, I had initially intended to write books under a pen name.

Then I decided to use my name. And when I became an author, I stopped writing negative reviews because that’s the common courtesy.

I deleted all my negative reviews, and eventually I stopped writing reviews altogether, save for a few books in many of my favorite series.

But, in doing so, I have found this lack of critical thinking when it comes to reading. I’ve stopped allowing myself to really process negative emotions about certain books because I’ve conditioned myself to stop believing that it’s okay to not like certain books. (Except for one particular series. A couple people will know exactly what I’m talking about.) I’m a small author with a small audience. But there is still a lot of pressure on authors perform a certain way in the internet space. And while I don’t mind most of these guidelines, I sometimes miss being able to actually analyze the books I’m reading.

So what will be changing?

I obviously will be keeping my Goodreads account. My books are there, for one thing. But also many years of cataloguing the books I read.

I will still mark books as read. But I will no longer be writing reviews at all, nor participating in the reading challenges. Instead, I will be keeping a physical reading journal to document all of my thoughts. I will also be doing some book analysis here on my Substack as I become more literature themed. I will only be talking about books I like online, due to the common courtesy I talked about a moment ago. But I’m also excited to be able to think critically about books, even ones I love with my whole heart.

(Now, Stephanie Garber has said there are more books to come in the Once Upon A Broken Heart Universe, so there will probably be reviews on Goodreads for those, as well as any future Hunger Games books or Inheritance Games books because those are my trifecta of favorites.)

I became inspired to do this after watching Dylan Joseph’s journal video on YouTube. (Click here for the video.) He talked about the journals he keeps and how he doesn’t participate in Goodreads. It got me really thinking about how nice it would be to go back to a simple time where my reading habits weren’t dictated by the internet.

Sure, Goodreads has it’s uses and purposes. I still enjoy scrolling on there from time to time to see book recs. But overall, the website has not kept me interested in books in a very long time. I want to reignite that passion I have for literature, to reopen the doors to critical thinking in my brain. I’m tired of living by the social media fluff and the brain-rotted memes. I want to strive for something bigger than that.

I’m also excited to get back into journaling, to write something physically and keep physical documentation of my thoughts. Sometimes I have trouble journaling my feelings and my thoughts, but to be able to focus intently on books will be helpful to keep me focused on writing something.

Plus, it will bring me back to the gold ol’ days of reading, before I was chronically online. It will make me slow down and focus on what I’m reading and what I think about it. And, as a bonus, it will allow me to really think about my own writing and how I want to present myself as an author, as described by my writing voice.

(I don’t care who claims you can be a writer without reading. That’s simply not true. You have to keep growing as a reader to grow as a writer. Even if you only read five books in a year, it’s about quality, not quantity.)

I’m also tired of the limitations we put on ourselves as readers with reading challenges. I understand that for some, it’s motivation to set a goal and complete that goal. For me, the Goodreads reading challenge used to be that. But now, it’s been a comparison. Many of my friends are skilled at the art of reading fast while still comprehending things. Unfortunately, I am a slow reader. And I’ve decided the best way to accept that is to stop comparing myself to the other readers in my life.

That’s not to say having reading goals is a bad thing. I will definitely still be keeping a goal for myself of what I would like to read. But I’m not going to be upset if I don’t read 100+ books in a year.

I want to focus on the quality of books and the way they make me think and feel, as opposed to focusing on the amount of books I can consume.

We live in a time where overconsumption is big, and while we can all be guilty of this, I don’t want literature to be something I go through mindlessly, trying to read so many books that I lose sight of what the books actually mean.

Authors spend literal years, countless days of tears, and so much emotion devoted to their books. To consume them mindlessly is a disservice to the authors as well.

While I will still be keeping track of books I read on Goodreads with marking them as “read,” I will no longer be using Goodreads to really keep track of my reading.

And if you like Goodreads or the alternatives, that’s totally okay, too! I just want more from my reading life than what Goodreads or really the entire book world has to offer right now.

So, that’s my plan that I will begin to implement in the coming months, but going full force into it coming up in 2026. (Which is only a few months away! How the time flies!)

Until next time,