I’ve been reading for years and Goodreads has been an intricate part in the process. I initially didn’t have any issues with Goodreads because all my friends used it and there were a lot of features to explore. One of my favorites was tracking your reading progress with messages to show your thoughts and your friends can comment or like the message. However, this app is so outdated.
Goodreads was released in 2007 and it hasn’t really advanced at all. You have to go to someone’s profile to message them, and even then to see other threads that you’ve created with the person, you have to go to previous threads they’ve sent to find your messages. The messaging system is similar to an email rather than replicating texts, which our generation is more familiar with. It’s not a bad app, but there are off-putting features that take longer to navigate than it should.
Fable, on the other hand, is very simple to use. I transferred all of my data from Goodreads straight to the app and it organized all the books and reviews I already had. On profiles, there are statistics which show your reading goal, a pie chart of the genres you’ve read for the year (which pleases my bullet journaling heart), and the average rating for your books. Most of this is available on Goodreads, but it’s formatted much clearer on Fable. A feature that Goodreads doesn’t have that Fable does is a Did Not Finish (DNF) option. I frequently DNF books that I don’t think I will like, but majority of the time, I’ve finished at least half of the book and want that to be shown on my account.
On Goodreads, the review system is very cut and dry. You can only give books exact one to five stars and leave a review. The review system is very precise on Fable by including .25, .5, and .75 on the one to five star options, which if you’ve been reading for a while, you know that the star ratings can become way more specific than just a simple one to five system. On Goodreads, you would have to choose whether you wanted to round up or round down your stars, and many people will even leave in their review the actual star ratings with the point system. Fable takes it a step further by asking how the book made you feel, how “spicy” the book was, how you would describe the book through characters, trigger warnings, plot, setting, and writing style. This all pops up along with your written review making the experience more personal.
Overall, Fable is like Instagram and Goodreads combined, which helps me find more books that match my interests rather than offering me the most popular ones like Goodreads does. If you’ve been feeling that Goodreads is lackluster, then definitely switch to Fable, because I’ve been having a better time on that app!