>So what is this app really for?

Different people use it for different things. I've posted before on some of the lesser-known features Goodreads has and how I use the site.

I get most of my recommendations from BookTube, podcasts, and r/suggestmeabook.

I take no notice of Goodreads recommendations. I use it for recording my thoughts on the books I have read.

I use it for keeping track of the books I have and the ones I read, and also my opinions about them.

The recommendations by the site are useless to me, and the opinions of other readers are more hit than miss. Often the most voted ones are full of emoticons and memes, or do not say anything useful about the book but are upvoted because the reviewer is popular or something. A lot of reviewers have not even read the book, and are mad at the writer because of some Twitter controversy or things like that.

Lists are also extremely useless, same as the newsletter.

I use it to keep track of what books I've read and save books I think look interesting that I might want to read. Not much else really but I do find their shelf feature useful for organizing books in my to-read list.

I've mostly found their recommendation algorithm to be pretty useless. Though I have heard Storygraph is better on that front.

What everyone else said. I track the books I've read, use the Book Challenge, see what other people are reading (I've gotten some interesting books that way). But I didn't even realise it could give you suggestions. Haha. Good Reads is owned by Amazon, so it's not surprising you may be getting certain suggestions.

The recommendations seem to be based on what's currently popular with the people who have the same books you have on their shelves ... not the best way to discover hidden gens.

It's owned by Amazon so it's essentially a marketing tool to collect, store and sell your data and push whatever the publishers have paid them to promote that month.

You could try The Storygraph. While it can also be used for tracking and challenges, it has really good recommendations in my opinion. If you want them to be based on the books you read, you need to join the plus plan, but there are other ways of discovering new books as well:

Firstly you can fill out your preferences (genre, mood, some keywords, etc.) and you'll get a list of books based on that.

Secondly you can simply pick one of the books you enjoyed and click on "Browse similar books". Often the recommendations are quite good and the platform doesn't only show the popular one's (I've had books recommended with no more than eight ratings).

Sounds great! Thank you!

I did not realize that it is owned by Amazon. Thanks for the insight!

I have been like a kid in a candy store since discovering reddit book suggestion sites because I can learn what other readers love to read. These include r/historical fiction, r/romancebooks, r/horrorlit, r/fantasy, r/printsf, r/audiobooks.

I also check the staff picks shelf at my local bookstore. Best of the year articles from reputable newspapers. Lists of award winners.

I only use Goodreads to store my I might like to read this book list, because it is convenient to have the linked summary right there when I choose my next book.

Your post is AMAZING!! I came here to say something you covered beautifully...

”Stalk” like-minded readers for recommendations. In a similar vein, if you find a user with similar taste—especially if they have a “favorite books” shelf that’s similar to yours—their profile can be a great source for book recommendations. It’s worth reading some of their reviews, though, to see if they like books for the same reason you do (eg, if I love Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” because of the prose and another reader loves the same book in spite of her descriptive writing style, we might not be a great fit).

That's 100% what I do - particularly for a specific genre. There's someone I found and follow where I pick up all my hick-lit and the like suggestions. She reads several books a week and I know her well enough to know which books are for me. Rarely a miss. Sometimes beyond amazing!

When I see a review that totally clicks with me - I'll start by doing a book comparison with the review writer. That's a pretty straight forward way to see if you have enough in common and which type of books you have in commom.

I never use the recommendations module.

Things GoodReads is good for:

1. Tracking reading progress
2. Researching books to read and reading others reviews
3. Reviewing books you read
4. GIVEAWAYS, GIVEAWAYS, GIVEAWAYS

I love storygraph!

Goodreads can be helpful, but often the algorithm is just pushing the biggest authors. I'm an author and I am not a fan of Goodreads at all.

I just joined Storygraph and it's so much better than Goodreads