Week 4: GOODREADS LOVE!

Hi. My name is Jessica. I'm a GOODREADSaholic. 

Goodreads is without a doubt the most-used app on my phone. I check it in the morning when I wake up. I check it after my lunch. I check it sometimes when I'm in the bathroom. (TMI? Sorry.) I check it before I go to bed. Whereas most of my friends are tethered to their phones to post on FB or Insta or Twitter, I'm the one who is constantly monitoring my Goodreads feed to see what progress has been made on what books. (Jenny is on page 176 of Clash of Kings?!?! HOORAY! Jean just finished a book I have no interest in reading because she gave it 2 stars? Good to know!) I joined in 2008, and I've been so pleased how it has evolved over these years.

The disconnect I have with Goodreads is that I primarily use the app and not the website, so there are some features that I am not using all the time, namely the Explore and Listopia functions. 

As far as Listopia is concerned, well, it's a popularity contest, isn't it? There's a recent list going around Facebook about the list on Goodreads called, "Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once." While I certainly agree with a lot of the choices (*sigh* To Kill A Mockingbird...only two more sleeps until Go Set A Watchman comes out! Gatsby, Where the Sidewalk Ends, etc.) there are some head-scratchers. Twilight?!?! The Time-Traveler's Wife?!?! Look, I'm all for a book touching you in a way that changes your worldview and gets you to read non-stop. Both of those books probably mean that to people, and that's okay. If you had asked me when I was eight what the greatest contribution to literature had ever been, I would have responded with The Babysitter's Club #8: Boy-Crazy Stacey, so clearly I'm in no position to judge. (At age 15 it would have been Douglas Coupland's Generation X and at age 16 it would have been The Catcher In The Rye; at age 36 (almost 37), I have to go with the best book I've read in the past year, and that would be Station Eleven by Emily St. Mandel, but I'm sure this will change within in the week.)

Listopia can help me as a librarian; I tend to think that I'm pretty hip to the YA game and I love reading YA books (#noshameYA), but there are some on the lists of YA I haven't yet read or even heard about, and there's room for me to grow. 

With the Explore function, I was able to enter a few giveaways (yay, free books!) and then look for new releases for some upcoming books I may enjoy (a tell-all memoir written by Judy Garland's secretary?!?! YES, PLEASE!). At LA, we already are most of each other's friends on Goodreads, and it's easy to send some recommendations through the grapevine (See: Why Everyone At This Branch Has Read Both Station Eleven and Ready Player One, or Why Everyone Can't Escape Jessica's Loud Mouth and You're Welcome, LA!), but I will try a few more to get the word out.