is GoodReads overly harsh?

The Title says it all.

Whenever I am interested in a book and want to do some research about whether to commit time to it, I check two sources.

One is amazon as I am likely buying the book there. The other is GR.

Amazon tends to have lots of positive reviews for said book (in the thousands) and GR tends to show on the front page of the book many very scathing 1* reviews.

I have noticed this pattern for years. GR seems to be a super harsh or more pessimistic cohort of reviewers than say amazon.