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For all its popularity, Goodreads is far from the best way to find your next read. I want to show you some alternatives that I’ve been using for years which will help you find better book recommendations on the internet.
Why Goodreads Sucks
I first made a Goodreads account about seven years ago. Back then, it was just a tool for me to keep track of my reads, but I also picked up some of its book recommendations. Some were duds, but plenty of the suggestions were amazing reads.
Before Goodreads, I had only taken book recommendations from friends and librarians. It opened up a new world for me, and got me to search for more book recommendation resources online.
I found some awesome book discovery resources; at the same time, Goodreads started giving me repetitive, often irrelevant suggestions. I had other places to get better book recommendations. So, when the duds outnumbered the hits, I abandoned Goodreads entirely.
Recently, a friend of mine convinced me to join Goodreads again. When I signed up for a new account, the Goodreads onboarding screens had me pick up books that I had enjoyed or might be interested in reading. I was pleasantly surprised by how intuitive and personalized the suggestions were. It suggested a lot of books that I had already loved. Every time I tapped a book, it showed me a dozen more relevant recommendations. “The Goodreads algorithm is pretty sharp now,” I thought to myself.
The wonder didn’t last long, sadly. Beyond the onboarding, it was still the same boring and unintuitive Goodreads. The same old lists of thousands of books, barely personalized; a home feed with only what the people you’re following are reading, again barely personalized.
I gave it 100 book titles (and rated them each), and in return it showed me the same seven featured lists it gives everybody. The “Best Books Ever” list has 127,000 books right now, which isn’t helpful. The “Explore by Genre” suggestions are just as impersonal, and the lists are too short.
It’s a shame because Goodreads already has a good book discovery engine, but for some reason it’s only accessible during the onboarding process.
Pinterest Is Far Better for Finding Your Next Read
You know the feeling of rummaging through a yard sale or browsing an old book store? Discovering books on Pinterest is the digital version of that (except you only get books that might be relevant to you).
Take a look at my Pinterest board for books. I get book covers and sometimes they have little summaries or reviews on them. Other pins have visual book lists. I also get snippets and full videos from TikTok and Instagram.
If a book cover, list, or snippet catches your eye, you can save it by tapping the pin icon. The more you save, the more personalized your recommendations get. But they stay fresh—I’ve rarely seen the same book twice. Tapping a book gives me similar recommendations under the “More to Explore” tab.
Setting up Pinterest for book suggestions is pretty simple. Just sign up for Pinterest and create a new board. Then just look up your favorite reads and pin them to that new board. You can create as many boards as you like, perhaps divided by mood or genre. The more pins you add to a board, the more refined your suggestions become.
Discovering books through Pinterest is organic and intuitive. It’s my primary way of discovering books I care about. I get lost in my “Books to Read” recommendation board, and often come away with reading gems. I actually downloaded a book while writing this article.
You can’t look up book summaries or reviews on Pinterest, but that’s what Goodreads is for.
Make sure you save the pins you like because you may not find them again.
Try These Subreddits Too
Reddit has a few wholesome and active communities for book recommendations that you should definitely check out. People usually post a specific itch they want to scratch and other Redditors help them find the right book for it.
If you keep picking up duds, I strongly suggest either searching Reddit or posting your unique prompt or request in one of these subreddits:
The subreddit r/BooksThatFeelLikeThis in particular is special. Here you can post pictures and get book recommendations based on that. It’s a wholesome place to discover books when you can’t exactly describe what you want, but you can point at it.
Try StoryGraph for Eerily Spot-on Recommendations
StoryGraph is an intelligent book recommendation engine that gives incredibly personalized suggestions. I’ve seen book recommendations here that I’ve never found anywhere else. Many of those recommendations I’d already read and loved. That’s how you know it works. It’s simply a better Goodreads.
To get started, you can import your Goodreads profile (optional) and take a survey to train the StoryGraph algorithm. Storygraph then uses that data to build different lists of personalized picks. The “Based On Your Survey” and “Based On Your Recent Reads” lists tend to be most relevant. These lists refresh every day, so you can always come back for new suggestions.
You can sort and search for books through special tags that you won’t find anywhere else. For example, tags that describe the pace, how much character development a story has, whether those characters are lovable, how reflective, hopeful, or lighthearted a story is. Using these tags you can filter books by mood, pace, and length.
Each entry has the cover, book details, tags, and a button for quickly adding it to your reading pile. Click the title to reveal its community reviews, mood stats, and content warnings. Compared to Goodreads, the book info on StoryGraph is richer and more helpful.
It takes a bit of setup to get it up and running, but once you do, you’ll regularly come to it for suggestions.
Some Bonus Resources
If you don’t feel like setting up a new account just for book suggestions, you can ask an AI to suggest books. Or you can try these resources instead.
What Should I Read Next
WhatShouldIReadNext.com is simple. You search for a book title or author you like, and it’ll return a list of books you might enjoy. The suggestions it makes aren’t as personalized or spot-on as StoryGraph, for example, but it is a quick and easy way to get some decent recommendations.
Literature Map
Literature Map creates an interactive graph to help you find similar authors. You just type in an author’s name and it generates an interactive map. The closer a name is to your favorite author, the more likely you’ll like that author too. All names are clickable and each generates a new map.
RecommendMeABook.com
Instead of judging a book by its cover, RecommendMeABook.com lets you judge it by its first page. Every time you refresh this website, you’re presented with the first page of a random book. If it catches your eye, you can tap “Reveal Title & Author” to see the book. You can filter by genre and book type.
Check the Acknowledgments
This is a bit of a low-tech method, but I make it a habit of reading the acknowledgments page at the end of my favorite books. Often, I find new titles or author recommendations through books I already love.
Once you’ve built up a to-read list, you might want to check out our guide for finding free ebooks online and start reading.
