Molly Ringle > Status Update

As long as you stay on Facebook, I'll be good.

Olivia wrote: "As long as you stay on Facebook, I'll be good."

I have no plans to abandon FB so far, although I expect I've made it clear I have a zillion complaints about it and find it only slightly less toxic than Goodreads...or maybe even more some days... :D

Lauren wrote: "Why do you find Goodreads toxic and what is Storygraph? :)"

Thanks for asking!

Here is my answer, and know that this is the short version and I could go on and on:

The worst is the cruel, snarky tone of many of the negative reviews. They often go beyond "what didn't work for me" and well into scathing, hateful rants.

Then, GR lets you upvote reviews, so people may like those snarky ones because they find them funny, but those who disagree or find them unhelpful have no way to downvote them. So such reviews often float to the top and are the first ones people see for the book.

Also, Goodreads puts the star ratings front and center, and sometimes the mere number rating is enough to turn people off from trying a book.

And finally, GR is now owned by Amazon, which has not proven itself a great friend of the publishing trade on the whole. (Google it if you’re curious. Lots of publishers, authors, and industry pros have spoken on the subject.)

Storygraph, meanwhile, tucks away star ratings and reviews discreetly—you have to scroll a bit to find them at all—instead putting focus on the book’s genre, subgenres, tone, style, and pacing. It also, true to its name, makes some really cool graphs and charts of your reading habits once you’ve entered the books you’ve read.

And: yes! You can import your Goodreads reading history into Storygraph. It wasn’t hard for me to do at all. (You can google that too. That’s what I did.) So please find me there! We all deserve a calmer and less toxic reading discussion experience.

Goodreads won't let me post a link to another site (oh hey, another point against them!), but you can google Storygraph to find it. :)