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I’ve had my Kindle Paperwhite for nearly a decade and love it. When Amazon announced Kindle integration, I was so excited at the time. I used Goodreads to track my reading, so having my ebooks and reading tracker all on one platform seemed like a dream.
However, I recently disconnected Goodreads from my Kindle because, over time, I’ve begun to find the functions more annoying than productive, and it’s just not as useful as it once was.
What Features Does Kindle’s Goodreads Integration Offer?
Goodreads is available on most Kindles and takes you to a simplified web version of the site.
On a Kindle, you can choose to have Goodreads automatically mark books as “currently reading” or “read” as you open and read through your ebooks. This means you don’t have to manually open the website or app version of Goodreads to update your reading list.
Additionally, the home screen of the Kindle will show books on your “to read” list available on Kindle, and you can access the web version on Kindle to add or remove books from your lists, add ratings, and further catalog your shelved books.
Why I Stopped Using Goodreads on My Kindle
I’ve gone through phases of reading physical books exclusively, then jumping back into ebooks only. I recently started reusing Goodreads on my Kindle.
My first gripe with the integration is it would mark books as finished when I hadn’t finished reading them. This created a lot of confusion when I’d check my yearly reading challenge and see it claim I finished some books twice or mark that I finished a book I was only 25% done with.
Additionally, if I opened a book I had finished reading, Goodreads would automatically mark it as “reading.” This was especially frustrating when I would misclick a book I’d finished and have it crop up on my “currently reading” shelf.
These nuisances required me to open the Goodreads website or app on my laptop or phone, creating more work to properly log and shelve my books. Instead of having a seamless reading experience with Goodreads on my Kindle, this integration ended up creating double the work for me. At times when I didn’t have an internet connection, Goodreads would not log my books, either, so I would occasionally forget to update my reading status.
Also, the load times to access Goodreads on Kindle were painfully slow. Sometimes, the limited website wouldn’t load correctly, or I flat out wouldn’t be able to access my Goodreads account on my Kindle. This got incredibly frustrating.
With a plethora of other issues I had with Goodreads, I ended upleaving Goodreads and switching to this superior alternative.Now, I don’t have to worry about what books may or may not be logged correctly and instead trust myself to manually log all my reading updates.
How to Unlink Your Goodreads Account from Your Kindle
If you’d like to unlink your Goodreads account from your Kindle, it only takes a few simple steps.
Screenshot by Marissa Zupancic — no attribution
It’s important to note that if you unlink your Amazon account from Goodreads, you will no longer be able to log into Goodreads with your Amazon information. If you choose to unlink, your Kindle progress will no longer transfer to Goodreads.
You can alsolearn more about how to get Goodreads on Kindle and if it’s right for you.
While I was an avid Goodreads user back in the day and was initially excited about using it on my Kindle Paperwhite, the service caused more headaches than help. Now I’ve disconnected my Goodreads account from my Kindle, I can enjoy basic reading without incorrect reading status updates.
