Give Up Your Goodreads Challenge
By Adalyn Lowe
More than 150 million people log their reading habits on Goodreads, a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to track books they’ve read, review them, and set goals. In January, a user is asked to set a reading goal for an amount of books they plan to read that year. I’ve put in a number every year since 2021 and I’ve completed the challenge exactly once. This year, I’m six books behind, which Goodreads is so graciously notifying me about. And to be completely honest, I will not be finishing it again.
I think as a society we tend to get consumed in numbers, mostly from our constant engagement with social media. We have something to prove, perhaps to our peers, but also to ourselves. They’re so easily comparable, and yet so base level; they say nothing about the sorts of people engaging with our content, the books we’re reading, or perhaps even the number of real people versus bots that follow us. But it doesn’t even matter, the number is there, and the number is fact.
For example, perhaps Person A read three hundred self help books this year, each totaling in at under one hundred fifty pages. Perhaps Person A hated each one. But their Goodreads score looks excellent— three hundred books to brag about! But Person B has only read ten, how awful and deplorable! What one wouldn’t know, from that number on that person’s profile, is that each book was six million pages long. Maybe Person B had loved each one thoroughly.
Obviously (I hope), those examples are outstandingly farfetched— no one is truly consuming that long of books or reaching so many in one year. But at it’s core, the message remains true. Social media, Goodreads in specific, does not promote the enjoyment on reading, but the act of consumption. It doesn’t matter what you read, or how much you love it, it just matters that you are finishing books as rapidly as possible.
This month, I began reading Jane Eyre, which I knew would take me ages to complete, therefore setting me behind on my Goodreads yearly challenge. I was right, I’m seventy five percent of the way through the story and the number of books I’m behind to reach my yearly goal is ticking up. But I adore it, it draws me in and reminds me why I love reading.
People have seemed to be forgetting more and more that reading is meant to be an enjoyable act. And for this, one must remember that something you do for fun is not meant to be forced. If your reading time feels like a forced activity, perhaps choose a different book. It’s meant to be taken at your own pace, without a nagging number telling you how slow you are at reading.
So you can do it. Abandon your Goodreads goal for this year. And as January arrives and the site asks you to set your new reading goal for the year, exit the page. You’re free. Read to your heart’s content, but most importantly, read for yourself.
