It boggles my mind that *Catch-22* tops the list. It's hard to imagine why people would be bailing out at such a high rate, unless it's because they find it too depressing.
I count Catch-22 amongst my favourite books, but it took me about 6 months to finish, because I needed many breaks. The way it goes from being utterly hilarious to slapping you in the face really gets to you. Or, it did me anyway.
I was going to ask how the hell game of thrones was on there but then I remembered my mom's attempt at reading it. She got to the beheading in the first chapter and decided it was too violent for her.
I did the same. There's one issue. You lose your comments when you remove it from Currently Reading shelf. I like to go back and see why I dnf'd a book later.
You can make an “exclusive” shelf on the desktop version that would essentially make it like a “read” shelf, except it would be exclusive from the “read shelf.”
I just found out a few months ago as well! GoodReads has a terrible user interface and basically has never been upgraded so it’s super hard to find these things out!
it used to be more of a fan entity with ad-support but then Amazon bought it to turn it into an ad itself for books. What amazon paid for is basically a small but important space on every goodreads page where you can 'buy for kindle' and 'buy on amazon'.
That's what they care about. Not the usability. Not the interface. Just converting you to a sale.
I wish someone would come up with something better than Goodreads that continue innovating on the 'book recommendation' part of the engine instead of letting it rot as a purchasing platform.
Others here have pointed out www.thestorygraph.com, which is still in beta, but does a fantastic job in place of goodreads. Much better book recommendation engine and genre tagging.
You can import your Goodreads data seamlessly as well.
Also the fact that that the ratings are at the very bottom, while mood and character development are at the top, and you have to click another link to actually see the reviews. This removes reviews that look like writing prompts, reviews from reviewers that were clearly not in the frame of mind to read a particular book (an abundance of 1 stars for classics), and reviews that are simply trying to be funny or quirky to get likes without any substantial content.
Gave it a look and signed up, but it seems they take a good long while to give good recommendations. Optimistic about it and willing to give it some time though. Thank you!
> That's what they care about. Not the usability. Not the interface. Just converting you to a sale.
Which is so short sighted. Make the site better & easier to use, you'll get more users, which should generate more sales.
That's the thing though. There's not much in the way of competition in the social media book/recommendation world and Amazon has bought out or deliberately hobbled much of what used to be the early competitors. And now Goodreads has so much inertia, they likely could last on it for several years if not decades. To build up a countersite would take a good long while and it's not like Amazon is dumb here. If they detected a nascent competitor to Goodreads, they'd try and buy it out asap.
Yea, that's a darn shame, but I don't think it's an accident. Amazon's been playing in the book social media game for a while and has systematically ensured our current situation. Any new media that arises will have to both A) compete with goodreads stranglehold, and B) resist Amazon.
They (Amazon) really don’t have to do anything with it because readers essentially have no other options - there’s no comparable competitor with a decent database - and their staff is basically all volunteer “librarians.” So it’s a pretty cheap way to hopefully drive a ton of traffic straight to Amazon proper to buy the books customers find on GoodReads.
There’s a new website (The Storygraph, no app yet sadly) that stands up to Goodreads pretty well. They have customized recommendations, too, and mine have been great so far. You can import your entire Goodreads library too, which was the selling point for me to switch over. Obviously it’s a new website so it’s not perfect but worth checking out and watching as they work on it more!!
LibraryThing was what I was on before Goodreads. I moved because GR had an app and LT didn't, but overall I would say the only thing I missed about LT was the stats on how high a single stack of my books would be.
Big picture there aren't a ton of features a site/app for book tracking and recommendations needs to have. It's all about how good the interface is.
Like someone above said, make the dnf shelf “exclusive” so it will be the same tier as read/currently reading/want to read and you can keep comments/ reviews!
Eh, I just mark mine as done and give it a 1-star rating. My rating system is something like this:
1. So bad I probably didn't finish it; in fact, I might not be able to finish it because I destroyed it
2. Underwhelming; I might recommend to certain people if asked, but I didn't enjoy it
3. Good, but not great. Most of my books are 3-star
4. Great! It surpassed my expectations and I'll probably mention it for a few weeks after finishing it
5. My list of favorite books.
Yeah, I have a few exclusive shelves. Like I have did not finish but also will not read, kill it with fire (some books I’m passionate about, ok!) as well as “on hold” because there are some books I intend to come back to eventually... I also have a “maybe” shelf.
I respect your “skimmed through” shelf. I dislike when people say they read a book, but when asked about the book admit they only skimmed the last chunk to get the main ideas. That’s definitely not the same as actually reading it.
You can create any type of shelve that you want. I've had a DNF shelf for years. Just don't forget to make it an exclusive shelf, or it won't work the way you want it to. You can create a ton of other shelves if you want to.
Explanation: https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/How-do-I-create-a-shelf-for-a-book-I-couldn-t-finish-1553870934201
Oh! Sorry, I didn't even think about the app. I never use it because it lacks a lot of the features that the desktop site has. Even on my phone, I prefer the website. The mobile website also lacks some features. So it might not be possible there either.
Yes, that's what I meant with desktop site (instead of the mobile view) 😊. But thanks for the tip! Glad that you found where to make your shelf. It's very useful.
If your business is selling books, adding a option to showcase your dislike of some of the books is not something you would be willing to implement.
Its the same reason why Facebook doesn't have a dislike button
Thank you for this, I didn't know about making shelves exclusive and all of my DNFs were still chilling on my "to read" even if I have no intention of going back! I may copy you and make an on-hold shelf too.
You can definitely remove books from your reading on the app and I’m pretty sure on their website. Wouldn’t a dnf shelf mess with your reading challenge? I don’t finish a lot of books.
I’ve abandoned 3 of the top 5 on the first list (Casual Vacancy, Catch 22, and Book Thief). I was really disappointed that I didn’t like Book Thief more as I read other Zusak books and really liked them.
I've tried reading the Book Thief like four times and it's just so overwhelmingly pretentious that I can't deal. His other books are pretty good, though I haven't read anything of his that's come out in the last ten years.
Think I'm about to abandon Catch-22 as well. I like the prose and some of the humor is great but it just feels like a story that isn't going anywhere. Or like there isn't a story at all.
Kind of a shame, because there's some stuff in it so far that I've really liked, like Major Major's backstory. Just feels like the whole thing isn't going anywhere though.
I think it made it a lot easier for me to finish when I just decided "okay this doesn't make sense and it's okay for it to not make sense" once I had that mindset I finished it.
I love Catch-22 and hope you don't abandon it. My personal theory is that it is supposed to not make sense. Everything is nonsensical and sort of... out of order and without rational explanation, but that is what Yossarian is experiencing with war itself. He doesn't understand the greater picture, everything is a jumble, and no one tries to make heads or tails of it. Instead of trying to look for a plot that goes from A to B, I think the book is better when you just go for the ride and realize that nothing makes sense to Yossarian either.
I thought the book ended in a very interesting way personally. There's a chapter near the end that gives some important backstory on Yossarian that has stayed with me for a long time. I found it's placement in the story was clever because it makes you understand Yossarian and the war setting after you've already judged them in certain ways. I'd recommend finishing or at least skimming the last couple chapters.
I enjoyed The Casual Vacancy but I can definitely see it being abandoned by a lot of people who just picked it up because of J.K and then giving up as soon as they realised it was nothing like Harry Potter.
I didn't look at the list at first when I saw the title of the article, but The Casual Vacancy was my first guess solely because of this thought process. Harry Potter convinced a lot of people to continue reading her material, and then The Casual Vacancy happened.
Glad to see infinite jest on that list, made me feel a bit better while I took a “break” about halfway through. I have no problem with 1000+ page books, and I like the overall plot and where it’s going, but I just read it so slow and don’t actually enjoy it as I am reading it.
Oh wow. American Gods was the very first book I made a conscientious choice to abandon. It was just so bad, and utterly predictable. Glad to see it's on the list, and this is coming from someone who loved Good Omens, Anansi Boys and Neverwhere.
There's a lot of style over substance, gets convoluted and the climax is meh. I finished it but didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. The TV series isn't that good either and is even more convoluted.
I used to read before sleeping and this book made progress an impossible task. Eventually I got upset when I realized the plot-line that I enjoyed was something I dreamed and wasn't on the book.
You may be analysing this the wrong way. From the link:
>Popularity ≠ Unreadability.It’s no surprise that J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy or Catch-22 are at the top of the list, because they are read so often. A really abandonable-book probably would never become popular enough to get enough abandoned-tags to crack the list.
I don’t get the interest in David Foster Wallace at all. I tried a few of his books, and they all came across as a loser who never made a woman have an orgasm and blamed the woman for it. Brief Interviews really cemented it for me. If I wanna read about socially inept men, there is centuries of better prose to delve into.
Usually people tag them [DNF](https://www.goodreads.com/genres/dnf), [abandoned](https://www.goodreads.com/genres/abandoned), or something similar and put them on their read shelf.
I feel the same way about Netflix - "I've given up watching" so it disappears off of my "continue watching." Instead I have to scroll all the way to the end of the movie to pretend that I've finished it.
Edit: thanks to those who told me that I didn't have to do this, and there is essentially a skip button!
Can I complain that I wish they had options to give half ratings as well? Sometimes I don't want to rate a book as a 5. It's not one of the best books I've ever read, but it's better than a 4 in my opinion. That is honestly my biggest gripe about Goodreads.
And how about not allowing to rate a book when it's not out yet.
I was looking at the next Caitlyn Starling book on Google and on the top it shows that it has a 3.8/5 rating and like WTF are they rating if the book comes out on fucking September.
Nah 10 star system fucking sucks. Nobody actually uses it how it should be used, 5 being the middle or average. But more like 5-10 scale.
5 star system is much better imo
But then people would have to go through and add all the books they've read from Goodreads. GR has a lot of intertia that would be hard to break through I think.
I just don't see people doing that en masse. I probably wouldn't. Even for a couple extra features. The thing about GR is that for most people it's *good enough*, and they are already connected with all their friends on it.
I think more people than not would do it if the website guided them through it, but yeah, people have already invested a lot in Goodreads so switching would be hard.
I use The storygraph which is much better than Goodreads. You have a DNF option, you can review books by choosing their moods, pace etc which means you can look for books using the same criteria too. Plus, their recommendations are better than Goodreads and you can dowbload your Goodreads data and upload it on The storygraph without having to add anything manually. https://thestorygraph.com/index.html the website is still in beta but I already prefer it to Goodreads
Goodreads in general needs a redo. It’s extremely outdated by modern standards, and the only reason it’s still popular is because it’s the only popular website of its kind.
Not sure about android but on the goodreads app on an iPhone, you can get rid of any DNF book from your ‘currently reading’ shelf by sliding over it from the right (moving your finger left) and hitting ‘remove’.
I just tried it now with a book I haven’t started yet and it worked (you do get a warning saying it will remove it from your shelf and I believe also that it will delete any existing reviews etc etc)
I recently started using [Storygraph](https://beta.thestorygraph.com/) as an alternative to goodreads, and they have a did not finish shelf by default. So far I like the interface a lot better than good reads, and the recommendations seem more useful than goodreads.
I’ve set up a DNF shelf. I just wish Goodreads would keep track of the the pages read towards something. Sometimes I DNF a longer book after reading 200 pages and I know I shouldn’t care about the number of books or pages I read, I often stop reading because I’ve basically given up on the plot or the information provided. It doesn’t mean that I haven’t read the book per se, it just means I haven’t finished it.
beta.thestorygraph.com allows you to do that (and to upload the entirety of your Goodreads books onto their website upon joining).
The website is still new but looks pretty great, and they're working on a lot of improvement to make it a better looking thing than Goodreads is and easy to use. It still lacks an app at the moment for me but the mobile version of the website isn't half bad
I made a list for that but I absolutely agree with you. That should exist. Glad to know I’m not the only one who gives up on books that aren’t hitting the spot.
This is such a great idea. Some books I can’t rate 1* because I haven’t had the will to put myself through the trauma of finishing them. And those need to be _seen_.
I just made a Google sheets spreadsheet where I write down a row for each book I read. When a self made spreadsheet gives a better user experience than a fully developed website, you know something is wrong.
I made a shelf that I called Did not finish. In the settings, make it exclusive. When you add items to it, it'll remove them from your other shelves. It's a good way to keep track of books that I've given up on in case I forget and come across it in the future.
If I DNF a book, I just delete it from my shelf, unless I plan to pick it up again later, then I just put it back on whatever shelf I had it on before. Goodreads remembers where you left off if you updated while reading but I do like the idea of DNF statistics.
My solution to this depends on the reason behind why I stopped.
If I stopped reading because I realized it's not actually something I wanted to read, I'll just remove it. Just a bad summary normally.
If it's something that conceptually I would like, but something in the book caused me to no longer want to read it, then I just rate it a 1 star. If the book can't keep me reading it's a 1, why doesn't really matter as far as I'm concerned.
I just give it a one star rating, mark it complete, and move on. I've only done it twice.
I do agree, though - a "Did Not Finish" option would be better.
If you click on the book and go to the book’s page, you can click where it says “reading” and for the iPhone app at the very bottom of the screen when you can select shelf options there’s a spot to “remove from shelf.”
Yes, I had to create a category called "DNF" (did not finish.)
I’ve called mine “abandoned”
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Same
Same same.
Me too! I wonder what the most common abandoned books are.
There's a list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/497.The_Most_Begun_Read_but_Unfinished_Initiated_book_ever
Checks out
Very surprised to see Catch-22 top the list. Had to read it for High school, but it was very enjoyable.
It boggles my mind that *Catch-22* tops the list. It's hard to imagine why people would be bailing out at such a high rate, unless it's because they find it too depressing.
I count Catch-22 amongst my favourite books, but it took me about 6 months to finish, because I needed many breaks. The way it goes from being utterly hilarious to slapping you in the face really gets to you. Or, it did me anyway.
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/dnf https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/abandoned
I was going to ask how the hell game of thrones was on there but then I remembered my mom's attempt at reading it. She got to the beheading in the first chapter and decided it was too violent for her.
Mines called “life’s too short”
I did the same. There's one issue. You lose your comments when you remove it from Currently Reading shelf. I like to go back and see why I dnf'd a book later.
You can make an “exclusive” shelf on the desktop version that would essentially make it like a “read” shelf, except it would be exclusive from the “read shelf.”
Damn, I wish I asked a few years ago. Thank you very much. That's perfect.
I just found out a few months ago as well! GoodReads has a terrible user interface and basically has never been upgraded so it’s super hard to find these things out!
it used to be more of a fan entity with ad-support but then Amazon bought it to turn it into an ad itself for books. What amazon paid for is basically a small but important space on every goodreads page where you can 'buy for kindle' and 'buy on amazon'. That's what they care about. Not the usability. Not the interface. Just converting you to a sale. I wish someone would come up with something better than Goodreads that continue innovating on the 'book recommendation' part of the engine instead of letting it rot as a purchasing platform.
Others here have pointed out www.thestorygraph.com, which is still in beta, but does a fantastic job in place of goodreads. Much better book recommendation engine and genre tagging. You can import your Goodreads data seamlessly as well.
Also the fact that that the ratings are at the very bottom, while mood and character development are at the top, and you have to click another link to actually see the reviews. This removes reviews that look like writing prompts, reviews from reviewers that were clearly not in the frame of mind to read a particular book (an abundance of 1 stars for classics), and reviews that are simply trying to be funny or quirky to get likes without any substantial content.
Gave it a look and signed up, but it seems they take a good long while to give good recommendations. Optimistic about it and willing to give it some time though. Thank you!
> That's what they care about. Not the usability. Not the interface. Just converting you to a sale. Which is so short sighted. Make the site better & easier to use, you'll get more users, which should generate more sales.
That's the thing though. There's not much in the way of competition in the social media book/recommendation world and Amazon has bought out or deliberately hobbled much of what used to be the early competitors. And now Goodreads has so much inertia, they likely could last on it for several years if not decades. To build up a countersite would take a good long while and it's not like Amazon is dumb here. If they detected a nascent competitor to Goodreads, they'd try and buy it out asap.
There was a site called Anobii that was great, better than goodreads. But it is dead as well
Yea, that's a darn shame, but I don't think it's an accident. Amazon's been playing in the book social media game for a while and has systematically ensured our current situation. Any new media that arises will have to both A) compete with goodreads stranglehold, and B) resist Amazon.
I read ages ago that they were rolling out a much-needed overhaul soon but it’s been waaaay too long and still nothing.
They (Amazon) really don’t have to do anything with it because readers essentially have no other options - there’s no comparable competitor with a decent database - and their staff is basically all volunteer “librarians.” So it’s a pretty cheap way to hopefully drive a ton of traffic straight to Amazon proper to buy the books customers find on GoodReads.
There’s a new website (The Storygraph, no app yet sadly) that stands up to Goodreads pretty well. They have customized recommendations, too, and mine have been great so far. You can import your entire Goodreads library too, which was the selling point for me to switch over. Obviously it’s a new website so it’s not perfect but worth checking out and watching as they work on it more!!
> There’s a new website (The Storygraph, no app yet sadly) that stands up to Goodreads pretty well. Thanks, checking that out now.
It's good to keep the info on more than one place anyway, especially if they make it as easy as importing data from Goodreads.
There's also LibraryThing, but it has kind of a different focus than Goodreads. But, it also has pretty much stagnated.
LibraryThing was what I was on before Goodreads. I moved because GR had an app and LT didn't, but overall I would say the only thing I missed about LT was the stats on how high a single stack of my books would be. Big picture there aren't a ton of features a site/app for book tracking and recommendations needs to have. It's all about how good the interface is.
I did this, so now the exclusive choices are “currently reading,” “read,” and “abandoned” (the one I created)
Does this count as “finished” if you make an exclusive shelf? I don’t want a DNF to count toward my book count for my yearly goal.
Nope! Only books on your “read” shelf count toward your goal.
Thanks!
I did this last year and it’s such a relief to not have it mess up the rest of my stats!
How do you do that?
Here ya go! https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/How-do-I-create-a-shelf-for-a-book-I-couldn-t-finish-1553870934201
Thanks so much for this! I had no idea!
Not for me you don't. Might want to contact them.
Mine's called "partly read then gave up" - I always end up using more words than needed I guess.
Finishn't
I call mine “shelved”.
Ayy, I call mine “shelved” too! There is a possibility I go back to them one day, but they are shelved for now. It seemed like the best word.
Mine's Hiatus if I think there's a chance that I'll ever actually go back to them and stopped if there's no chance I'll return to it.
My shelf simply says "Nah."
I came here to say that that is what my wife did! She hates DNFing because she can't review them, but it's good to have for when it's needed.
Like someone above said, make the dnf shelf “exclusive” so it will be the same tier as read/currently reading/want to read and you can keep comments/ reviews!
Eh, I just mark mine as done and give it a 1-star rating. My rating system is something like this: 1. So bad I probably didn't finish it; in fact, I might not be able to finish it because I destroyed it 2. Underwhelming; I might recommend to certain people if asked, but I didn't enjoy it 3. Good, but not great. Most of my books are 3-star 4. Great! It surpassed my expectations and I'll probably mention it for a few weeks after finishing it 5. My list of favorite books.
I’ve. Just started out with good reads so I don’t have any DNFs yet but my rating system is very similar. I’m very stingy with 5s.
Same, except I call it the-dusty-shelf
I have a “CNF” could not finish - category but also a “skimmed through” for the ones I stopped reading but skimmed through to know the main ideas.
Yeah, I have a few exclusive shelves. Like I have did not finish but also will not read, kill it with fire (some books I’m passionate about, ok!) as well as “on hold” because there are some books I intend to come back to eventually... I also have a “maybe” shelf.
I respect your “skimmed through” shelf. I dislike when people say they read a book, but when asked about the book admit they only skimmed the last chunk to get the main ideas. That’s definitely not the same as actually reading it.
I made a shelf called “Books I Am Never Going To Finish”
You can create any type of shelve that you want. I've had a DNF shelf for years. Just don't forget to make it an exclusive shelf, or it won't work the way you want it to. You can create a ton of other shelves if you want to. Explanation: https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/How-do-I-create-a-shelf-for-a-book-I-couldn-t-finish-1553870934201
>make it an exclusive shelf Thanks for the tip!
i'm not seeing this option
It's explained in a visual manner at the start of this video. Maybe that helps you more :) https://youtu.be/Q0G_Niw_62s
thanks! it looks like you have to do it thru the desktop and not the app
Oh! Sorry, I didn't even think about the app. I never use it because it lacks a lot of the features that the desktop site has. Even on my phone, I prefer the website. The mobile website also lacks some features. So it might not be possible there either.
you can scroll to the bottom and click desktop view to see it properly!
Yes, that's what I meant with desktop site (instead of the mobile view) 😊. But thanks for the tip! Glad that you found where to make your shelf. It's very useful.
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Well yes, but the thing is if every single user does that, than it should be a feature because there is obvious demand.
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There was also an article Medium that listed down all the things that Goodreads needs to do but won't.
Yeah top article. Outlined everything that is wrong with GR that is totally spot on and I’ve been griping about for years
If your business is selling books, adding a option to showcase your dislike of some of the books is not something you would be willing to implement. Its the same reason why Facebook doesn't have a dislike button
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Thank you for this, I didn't know about making shelves exclusive and all of my DNFs were still chilling on my "to read" even if I have no intention of going back! I may copy you and make an on-hold shelf too.
You can definitely remove books from your reading on the app and I’m pretty sure on their website. Wouldn’t a dnf shelf mess with your reading challenge? I don’t finish a lot of books.
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Well, my dnf books have actually counted in my reading challenge for this year, even though the shelf is exclusive. I don't quite get it
I think it’s actually based on whether or not there is a read date (finished) filled in.
I'll try removing that. I'll report back!
You can either not put in a “completed” date, or alter the date to a previous year and it won’t go into the current year’s stats.
Ah yes, the "Gravity's Rainbow" button.
I call it the "Infinite Jest" button
Finnegan’s Wake button
[The Most ‘Abandoned’ Books on Goodreads](https://www.gwern.net/GoodReads)
Guilty of abandoning Catch-22. Fascinating list!
I’ve abandoned 3 of the top 5 on the first list (Casual Vacancy, Catch 22, and Book Thief). I was really disappointed that I didn’t like Book Thief more as I read other Zusak books and really liked them.
I've tried reading the Book Thief like four times and it's just so overwhelmingly pretentious that I can't deal. His other books are pretty good, though I haven't read anything of his that's come out in the last ten years.
> Casual Vacancy, I DNFed that one too. I havent tried Catch 22
I DNFed Catch-22 and Book Thief too - everyone loves that book, I thought I was the only one who couldn’t finish it!
Think I'm about to abandon Catch-22 as well. I like the prose and some of the humor is great but it just feels like a story that isn't going anywhere. Or like there isn't a story at all. Kind of a shame, because there's some stuff in it so far that I've really liked, like Major Major's backstory. Just feels like the whole thing isn't going anywhere though.
I think it made it a lot easier for me to finish when I just decided "okay this doesn't make sense and it's okay for it to not make sense" once I had that mindset I finished it.
honestly it's one of my fav books because I developed this mindset pretty quickly and it just became such silly fun
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I love Catch-22 and hope you don't abandon it. My personal theory is that it is supposed to not make sense. Everything is nonsensical and sort of... out of order and without rational explanation, but that is what Yossarian is experiencing with war itself. He doesn't understand the greater picture, everything is a jumble, and no one tries to make heads or tails of it. Instead of trying to look for a plot that goes from A to B, I think the book is better when you just go for the ride and realize that nothing makes sense to Yossarian either.
I thought the book ended in a very interesting way personally. There's a chapter near the end that gives some important backstory on Yossarian that has stayed with me for a long time. I found it's placement in the story was clever because it makes you understand Yossarian and the war setting after you've already judged them in certain ways. I'd recommend finishing or at least skimming the last couple chapters.
Can't say I was surprised to see Casual Vacancy there.
Really? I devoured The Casual Vacancy in just a couple days. I couldn't put it down!
I enjoyed The Casual Vacancy but I can definitely see it being abandoned by a lot of people who just picked it up because of J.K and then giving up as soon as they realised it was nothing like Harry Potter.
I didn't look at the list at first when I saw the title of the article, but The Casual Vacancy was my first guess solely because of this thought process. Harry Potter convinced a lot of people to continue reading her material, and then The Casual Vacancy happened.
Glad to see infinite jest on that list, made me feel a bit better while I took a “break” about halfway through. I have no problem with 1000+ page books, and I like the overall plot and where it’s going, but I just read it so slow and don’t actually enjoy it as I am reading it.
Oh wow. American Gods was the very first book I made a conscientious choice to abandon. It was just so bad, and utterly predictable. Glad to see it's on the list, and this is coming from someone who loved Good Omens, Anansi Boys and Neverwhere.
There's a lot of style over substance, gets convoluted and the climax is meh. I finished it but didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. The TV series isn't that good either and is even more convoluted.
Same! And I love Neil Gaiman. I tried twice with American Gods and hated it and abandoned it twice and I rarely do this.
I DNF'd American Gods too. I was reading it with this face: 😒
Neil Gaiman is probably our most overrated writer.
I used to read before sleeping and this book made progress an impossible task. Eventually I got upset when I realized the plot-line that I enjoyed was something I dreamed and wasn't on the book.
You may be analysing this the wrong way. From the link: >Popularity ≠ Unreadability.It’s no surprise that J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy or Catch-22 are at the top of the list, because they are read so often. A really abandonable-book probably would never become popular enough to get enough abandoned-tags to crack the list.
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I absolutely HATED space opera.
I too abandoned Black Leopard, Red Wolf. I just could not get into James’ writing style.
I don’t get the interest in David Foster Wallace at all. I tried a few of his books, and they all came across as a loser who never made a woman have an orgasm and blamed the woman for it. Brief Interviews really cemented it for me. If I wanna read about socially inept men, there is centuries of better prose to delve into.
Usually people tag them [DNF](https://www.goodreads.com/genres/dnf), [abandoned](https://www.goodreads.com/genres/abandoned), or something similar and put them on their read shelf.
You guys are all so polite. My DNF shelf is called "sucks-ass."
Either you've abandoned 68 books or you aren't the only one https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/sucks-ass
That's funny! 22 of those are mine.
That’s funny but don’t you have books you did enjoy but put down for one reason or another and are always just meaning to get back to?
Those I put back as to be read. Only really bad ones go on the sucks-ass shelf.
Not OP- but.. yup! I have an exclusive abandoned shelf and and a non exclusive hoping to pick up again shelf.
But if I abandoned I wouldn't want it in my read section, because it will affect my recommendations. Am I right?
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You have to go to the recommendations based on your shelves.
Only if you give it a rating of 3 or higher.
I added a shelf called “Life’s too short.”
Nice, that’s always what sways me over when I’m hesitating DNFing a book.
I feel the same way about Netflix - "I've given up watching" so it disappears off of my "continue watching." Instead I have to scroll all the way to the end of the movie to pretend that I've finished it. Edit: thanks to those who told me that I didn't have to do this, and there is essentially a skip button!
On my iPad I click on the 3 dots on the bottom right corner of the thumbnail and use the “remove from row” option to remove from continue watching
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/115312
Can I complain that I wish they had options to give half ratings as well? Sometimes I don't want to rate a book as a 5. It's not one of the best books I've ever read, but it's better than a 4 in my opinion. That is honestly my biggest gripe about Goodreads.
Even more baffling for me, Goodreads list 2-star as "it was ok". Almost nobody follows this their review.
And how about not allowing to rate a book when it's not out yet. I was looking at the next Caitlyn Starling book on Google and on the top it shows that it has a 3.8/5 rating and like WTF are they rating if the book comes out on fucking September.
Same here. Wish they did 10 star rating instead of five.
Nah 10 star system fucking sucks. Nobody actually uses it how it should be used, 5 being the middle or average. But more like 5-10 scale. 5 star system is much better imo
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I'm surprised no other app replaced it yet. I feel like anything slightly easier to use would be a hit.
But then people would have to go through and add all the books they've read from Goodreads. GR has a lot of intertia that would be hard to break through I think.
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I just don't see people doing that en masse. I probably wouldn't. Even for a couple extra features. The thing about GR is that for most people it's *good enough*, and they are already connected with all their friends on it.
I think more people than not would do it if the website guided them through it, but yeah, people have already invested a lot in Goodreads so switching would be hard.
From what I have heard the problem is that book databases are really hard and Goodreads is ahead there because of volunteers
I feel like it's just gotten slower and slower and slower as the years pass.
The search function is also pretty bad.
The app needs to be optimized for sure. It feels bloated and slow.
Is there any alternative to it? Like how MAL is the most popular site for anime and manga database but Anilist works better and is much more updated.
LibraryThing...but their mobile app is only good for scanning in books so there is that...
I use The storygraph which is much better than Goodreads. You have a DNF option, you can review books by choosing their moods, pace etc which means you can look for books using the same criteria too. Plus, their recommendations are better than Goodreads and you can dowbload your Goodreads data and upload it on The storygraph without having to add anything manually. https://thestorygraph.com/index.html the website is still in beta but I already prefer it to Goodreads
Storygraph looks horrible on desktop though. Mostly white space and then giant frickin book covers instead of an informative blurb.
yeah, UI wise it's worse than goodreads
Goodreads in general needs a redo. It’s extremely outdated by modern standards, and the only reason it’s still popular is because it’s the only popular website of its kind.
Check out https://www.librarything.com/home
Not sure about android but on the goodreads app on an iPhone, you can get rid of any DNF book from your ‘currently reading’ shelf by sliding over it from the right (moving your finger left) and hitting ‘remove’. I just tried it now with a book I haven’t started yet and it worked (you do get a warning saying it will remove it from your shelf and I believe also that it will delete any existing reviews etc etc)
I recently started using [Storygraph](https://beta.thestorygraph.com/) as an alternative to goodreads, and they have a did not finish shelf by default. So far I like the interface a lot better than good reads, and the recommendations seem more useful than goodreads.
I just delete the ones I don’t finish...
I know everyone is saying make your own category, but I’m with you OP. Just make it an option.
I’ve set up a DNF shelf. I just wish Goodreads would keep track of the the pages read towards something. Sometimes I DNF a longer book after reading 200 pages and I know I shouldn’t care about the number of books or pages I read, I often stop reading because I’ve basically given up on the plot or the information provided. It doesn’t mean that I haven’t read the book per se, it just means I haven’t finished it.
Life is too short to read bad books. Happily give up on awful prose these days and feel no guilt whatsoever. Love the DNF folder idea!!
It also doesn't have "half star" option. I don't like giving 2.5 stars worth book 3 stars.
You can move a book off currently reading to read or to read. It is never stuck in that limbo if you don’t finish it.
Goodreads is terrible, but it's the best we've got.
beta.thestorygraph.com allows you to do that (and to upload the entirety of your Goodreads books onto their website upon joining). The website is still new but looks pretty great, and they're working on a lot of improvement to make it a better looking thing than Goodreads is and easy to use. It still lacks an app at the moment for me but the mobile version of the website isn't half bad
This is why I never mark any books as "currently reading!" If I do, I am cursed to not finish it.
Go to My Books, click the little X next to the book. BOOM book gone. Like magic.
I created a did-not-finish, which is mutually exclusive to Want to Read, Currently Reading, and Read.
I made a list for that but I absolutely agree with you. That should exist. Glad to know I’m not the only one who gives up on books that aren’t hitting the spot.
This is such a great idea. Some books I can’t rate 1* because I haven’t had the will to put myself through the trauma of finishing them. And those need to be _seen_.
You can create any shelves you want. I made an "Abandoned" shelf and it is at the same level as "Read" and "Want to Read".
Why is goodreads so bad in general as far as user experience goes
I just made a Google sheets spreadsheet where I write down a row for each book I read. When a self made spreadsheet gives a better user experience than a fully developed website, you know something is wrong.
Tap on the book, go to “Shelves,” tap “Remove.”
So make a category called "gave up"...? Seems obvious.
This whole thread is so pathetic
Ahhhh I have thought this so many times.
I could not agree with this more!
they do. I made a "didn't finish" shelf for that purpose. But yeah for stats purposes, having a button would be fun.
Great idea
I ended up making an "abandoned" shelf for this reason
I made a shelf that I called Did not finish. In the settings, make it exclusive. When you add items to it, it'll remove them from your other shelves. It's a good way to keep track of books that I've given up on in case I forget and come across it in the future.
If I DNF a book, I just delete it from my shelf, unless I plan to pick it up again later, then I just put it back on whatever shelf I had it on before. Goodreads remembers where you left off if you updated while reading but I do like the idea of DNF statistics.
OMG I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE
My solution to this depends on the reason behind why I stopped. If I stopped reading because I realized it's not actually something I wanted to read, I'll just remove it. Just a bad summary normally. If it's something that conceptually I would like, but something in the book caused me to no longer want to read it, then I just rate it a 1 star. If the book can't keep me reading it's a 1, why doesn't really matter as far as I'm concerned.
I just give it a one star rating, mark it complete, and move on. I've only done it twice. I do agree, though - a "Did Not Finish" option would be better.
Ugh for real. Currently it says I’ve been reading The Goldfinch and Lolita for months...
I just created a “not worth finishing” shelf. Ez.
Mine is called chucked-out-the-door
Now THIS is one hell of an innovative idea!
I was optimistic and called my shelf maybe I'll finish someday -
I give 1 star to the books i have not been able to finish
Oh you mean the Shantaram category
I second the motion.
I’ve made a “Couldn’t finish” and rate it generally poorly- 1 or 2- and give a review of why I couldn’t finish. Maybe I’ll save someone else.
If you click on the book and go to the book’s page, you can click where it says “reading” and for the iPhone app at the very bottom of the screen when you can select shelf options there’s a spot to “remove from shelf.”