Are My Goodreads Recommendations Accurate?

I’ve spent an increasing amount of time on Goodreads at the moment. Naturally, as i’m not working and spending more time reading and on my laptop than ever, i’ve found myself scrolling through people’s read lists, looking and my recommendations and honestly just having a look how well i did on previous years challenges.

I came across my recommendations section a little while ago, and i don’t necessarily use it, but i thought it would be fun to see what my Goodreads page thinks i would enjoy. I don’t use any recommendation sites. I have an Amazon wishlist, and i rarely use the recommendation sections on that site either. I find they don’t always sit with me incredibly well, however i’ve not ever tried so i guess i should at some point!

For now i just wanted to go through what Goodreads has recommended to me and see what i’m interested in and what i’ve either never heard of or literally don’t care about.

I’m basing this post on the section of recommendations based on my Read list. I feel like this is the most accurate to my reading tastes. I had a flick through the recommendations based on my TBR list, however there wasn’t a lot i was incredibly interested in. Which probably tells me i need to lay off adding so much stuff to my TBR that i’m not bothered about.

There are 50 books on this list, and here are what the stats are –

Books i own – 14

Books i’m interested in (including owned) – 24

Books i’ve not heard of – 13

Books I’m not interested in – 26

There’s quite a high number of books that i already own in this list. It includes After The Fire by Will Hill, Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales and Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Clearly i’m very interested in these books as i’ve already picked them up and they are on my TBR.

It’s interesting that it seems to be pretty split in half of what i am interested in and what i’m not. I think my reading taste is pretty consistent. It might have wavered slightly as i’ve become older, and i’ve become interested in other genres. However it all follows the same suit usually. The fact that the result of interested and not interested in is pretty half and half is strange.

However, with the books that i already own, there is quite a high percentage of books that i already own on this list. So i must be interested in them, and the recommendations are somewhat accurate to my reading taste.

I have never really used recommendations from websites. I trust my friends far more than i trust the codes being used. Admittedly, i hadn’t heard of a couple of the books on this Goodreads list, and i have now added them to my TBR as something i’m really interested in.

I guess there’s no use for this post, except maybe to tell you that you should check out your Goodreads recommendations and see what there is on there.