Keeping up with yearly reading goals can be tough, especially when you start the year with the naive assumption you’ll be productive. Be honest, we’ve come around to that time in the year where we’re all lacking — as for me, I’m currently five books behind. This is the point wherein we take accountability. With the rise of BookTok, different apps have gained popularity to help keep track of reading goals and develop a sense of community with other readers.
And let’s just say, Goodreads has some competition.
5. Bookmory
Though the application has strong visuals and helpful features — layout, notes and a book calendar which displays the books you’ve read in a given month — its actual tracking statistics are stuck behind a paywall. To access your metrics ad-free, you can pay either $3.49 per month or $30.99 per year, which frankly doesn’t seem worth it and offsets any joy to be had from the aesthetics of the app.
4. Goodreads
It may be surprising that Goodreads ranks so low, despite being the original book-tracking app since its launch in 2007. For many readers, it’s the holy grail. It tends to be one of the first resources brought up at book clubs, and is often lauded by book influencers on social media.
However, the application can be slow at times and fails to provide pie charts that display a breakdown of your reading history. The home, which attempts to act like a feed, doesn’t allow much room for discourse or updates, and it fails at fostering any community between readers. The only real selling point of this app is its popularity and the giveaways.
3. Literal Club
The app also offers a better system in terms of highlighting quotes and annotating your thoughts while reading which earns its place as a relatively good book tracker. Literal Club is a slight improvement from Goodreads in that it introduces groups where you can discuss certain books among friends and other community members. When it comes to shelving and personalized lists though, it isn’t particularly striking and matches the features of other tracking apps.
2. Fable
Unlike the previous apps, Fable puts community at the forefront of its design, which is refreshing in a sea of book apps. You can join clubs where you can read a certain book and participate in chapter discussions. The feed feature is also built out a lot more than it is in other apps, acting like Instagram but just for books. You can post about current reads, follow your favorite BookTokers and message other readers, in addition to reviewing books. Having friends on the app that you can easily interact with is a great way to hold yourself accountable and may even help you reach your reading goals.
1. The StoryGraph
The founder, Nadia Odunayo created The StoryGraph out of the desire for features that weren’t available in Goodreads. The StoryGraph is my personal favorite and for good reason — it allows you to set specific page goals. It also gives content warnings. In terms of statistics, the app provides quarter-star ratings and breaks down your reading trends with pie charts that display the mood, pace, page numbers and genre of your most recent reads or reads from a given month or year.
There are also many community features that allow you to follow your friends, view their reading trends and even conduct Buddy Reads or Readalongs. If you have an extensive reading history on other book-tracking platforms, The StoryGraph allows you to import your data from Goodreads and consistently updates the platform to keep it running smoothly. It takes the best of all other apps and puts it in one.
Contact Yasmin Minos at [email protected].
