Book reader community.
If you are near a local library or have the ability to borrow ebooks I would use that instead. At worst you read 3 pages and then say it's not for you and return it digitally.
There's no reason to not put down a book once you are unhappy with it even if you've read through a chunk of it either.
But yea, libraries are absolutely amazing for reading cheaply.
I usually read one or two reviews on Goodreads and take the average of the stars.
I use TheStoryGraph from time to time, it’s given me decent recommendations. The reviews are okay, you have to scroll a bit sometimes to find in-depth ones. Hardcover.app is another one that’s interesting but I haven’t used it much
bookwyrm.social has a rating system if you don't trust Amazon stuff, but it's less useful IMO because it's a smaller number of reviews.
I definitely find people are more critical readers on Bookwyrm.
You cannot trust ANY source.
There is no shortcut.
I've been burned by them all, but I tend to trust a few people on Goodreads (it takes a while to read through reviews to get an overview TBH).
Basically I grab the book via Annie's Archive and see how it goes.
So many books that so many people rate as being Amazing I find basically suck.
I also hate so many books on the 'Best Seller' or 'Best Reads' lists...
The last one (I pushed through it despite my reservations) was 'An Absolutely Remarkable Thing' and out of 5 stars I gave it a sucky 2... So then I find other reviewers who also gave it less than 3 stars and start looking at their other reviews.
Anyway, you can trust me... If you didn't read A Man Called Ove just do.
If you want a site with professional reviews, I like https://bookmarks.reviews/. There's not usually a lot for each book (and it's mostly more recently released stuff that's on there) but I've gotten some good suggestions from there.
Out of curiosity, why don't you trust the reviews on Goodreads? he asks, having written many Goodreads reviews
Mainly because it's owned by Amazon and because I don't like most of the reviews of the books I've read
I've seen so many five-star reviews before a book is published of "I love this author can't wait for this book to come out!" on there. I've also had enough times where I despise a book and goodreads loves it or vice versa that I just can't trust the reviews.
I think it's useful to sort by stars so you don't just see the 5 star reviews at the top. That way you can see why the one or two star reader hated it and if that matches things you tend to dislike.
That's a good question. In the past I've used r/books and seen what people recommend, though I'm now trying to avoid Reddit where possible. I think Goodreads can be a valid resource, but instead of relying on the overall review score you could find particular reviewers that give well thought out reviews and follow them.
That said, why not post something here to get the fediverse's opinion on a particular book?
I use Goodreads mostly but I will agree the reviews are mostly miss so I use it primarily for tracking
StoryGraph is great for both tracking your reading, finding new books and reading reviews. You can export your Goodreads list over too. Amazon can bugger off
I read new york times reviews, other than that I don't really read any. I certainly agree good reads are not reliable.
I’ll sometimes watch YouTube reviews to get a feel for the book.
I find reviews of books on Goodreads to be open and honest especially by users. I’m a frequent poster of reviews on books that I have read and try to be honest about them. If your really stuck you could always ask ChatGPT..!!
I know this is a late reply but I read them on TheStoryGraph.