What Your Goodreads Account Says About You

You can learn a lot about a person by perusing their library or observing their reading habits. What's on your bookshelf says a lot about you. If you were to have a glance at my room, you might assume two things: one, this girl clearly watched The Beauty and the Beast and wanted the library ultimately more than the prince, and two, she must be extremely well-read.

You would be 100 percent right about the first assumption, but as for the second, while I would like to think myself well-read, there are so many classic books that I've yet to read, like Sense and Sensibility or Song of Solomon.

But since you can't quite know what my aspirational Beauty and the Beast library looks like, following my social media presence is probably the next best thing. Like many book nerds, I Instagram and tweet whatever I'm currently reading, but it doesn't quite give you insight into what my reading history looks like, unless you have infinite scroll and endless patience.

Enter, Goodreads, which has become so popular it has its own annual Goodreads Choice Awards. Just take a look, and you'll find all my literary gaps and embarrassments. What you read says a lot about you, but so does how long you take to read it. And while nothing can quite beat an IRL conversation, looking through someone's favorite books can certainly be a good way of getting to know someone.

Based on my own experiences, I've found that Goodreads can be a good way of, well, reading someone. So here are five assessments I've found to be true in my own personal experience.

1. If You're Juggling Multiple Books on Your "Currently Reading" Shelf

You are amazing multi-tasker with an enviable memory, and you've been known to carry up to three books with you at any given moment, in your very literary tote bag, of course.

2. If There's One Book That's Been Haunting Your "Currently Reading" Shelf — For Years

Like the green light at the end of dock, this book taunts you. It is the Moby Dick to your Captain Ahab, but no matter how hard you try, you're not fooling your friends. The book hasn't been touched in a year at least.

3. If Your "Read" Shelf Is Small, But Well-Selected

You love a good book, but you're a choosy reader, which is why you'll only dedicate an evening to a very special book. Otherwise you're likely to be found out on the town living out of your very own bildungsroman novel.

4. If Your "Read" Shelf Is Impressively Long Because You Tucked In Some Picture Books

Maybe you haven't been reading quite as much as you should lately, but you want to impress your Tinder date who may cursorily glance at the sheer amount of books you've read. Maybe you just really, really love Goodnight Moon. As long as you've been reading, your picture book favorites will look just fine next to David Foster Wallace.

5. If Your "Want to Read" Shelf Is Impossibly Long

So many books, so little time. You want to read everything and take it all in, so whenever anything piques your fancy, you make a mental to read it. Luckily for you, you have an app for that.

Images: Fictiontea/Instagram; Sarah Galo/Goodreads (3); Giphy (2)