I don't know about the quality of Goodreads but I don't see a big problem with her two search examples. In the first one she searches for "the confession" and

I don't know about the quality of Goodreads but I don't see a big problem with her two search examples. In the first one she searches for "the confession" and another "the confession" title is shown, together with other way more popular titles with "confession" in their titles. I'm guessing most people want fuzzy google-like searches but sure, exact matches of more obscure books can be given more relevance or search options can be given. The second example is even worse; she searches for "title" and complaints that a book with "title" and one with "title:subtitle" are ranked higher than her "title:some other subtitle"