StoryGraph

Review by eFreeware

StoryGraph is for readers who treat books as something to think about, not just a list to tick off. If you finish a novel and immediately wonder why it worked, or you keep a mental note of which genres pull you out of a slump, this app gives that instinct somewhere to live. It records what you read, turns it into charts and goals, and then uses the same record to suggest what comes next.

The pitch is straightforward: track your reading, get recommendations shaped by mood and favorite topics, and compare notes with friends without tripping over spoilers. Everything here is free to install, with an optional Plus upgrade for readers who want to dig further into their own numbers.

What appeals to me is the pairing of two jobs that usually sit in separate apps. Tracking is the quiet, cumulative side, and discovery is the part that nudges you toward the next book. StoryGraph keeps both in one place, which is why it has drawn a sizeable crowd.

Choosing a book by mood rather than genre alone

Most book catalogs ask what genre you want and stop there. StoryGraph asks how you want to feel. You can filter by mood, pace and other qualities, so a request for something adventurous, funny and fast-moving returns a different shelf than a request for a darker, slower, more emotional read. Mixing several filters at once is the point, and it is the feature I would expect to matter most to readers who finish a book and cannot name what they want next.

Recommendations lean on what you have already logged. The developer describes the recommendation engine as an in-house system that learns your preferences, and it is pitched as a stand-in for the friend who always knows what to hand you. Whether it matches that promise depends on how much you track, which is a fair trade for a tool that gets better the more you use it.

There is a social layer underneath the discovery tools. Following friends shows what they are reading, and the app can suggest reading buddies if your own circle is thin on fellow readers. Browsing similar books and finding similar users rounds out the ways to stumble onto something you would not have searched for.

Stats that reward keeping the log current

The stats side is where StoryGraph separates itself from a plain reading list. Charts and graphs show how your habits develop over time, and the app tracks streaks alongside annual goals for books, pages and listening. Half and quarter star ratings let you place a book between the usual whole numbers, which matters if you read widely enough that a three-star average starts to feel blunt.

There is also a built-in did-not-finish option, so abandoned books stay in the record instead of vanishing. Progress updates come with a reading journal, and a barcode scanner speeds up adding physical copies. Favorites and dark mode are the sort of small conveniences that decide whether an app survives on your home screen.

Plus adds a deeper layer for readers who enjoy slicing their own history. You can build bar and pie charts yourself, using tags or book-length ranges, with your own labels and colors. Stats can be filtered to a chosen time period or narrowed to fiction, nonfiction, a tag, a mood or a genre, and any two segments can be compared against each other, including segments from another user's library.

Reading with other people, spoilers included

Buddy reads and readalongs let two or more people move through the same book together. The clever part is how reactions are handled: comments attached to a specific point in the book stay locked for everyone else until they reach that page or chapter. That removes the usual hazard of a group chat where someone posts a twist three chapters early.

Book clubs extend the same idea to larger groups, and challenges give the whole thing a shape. You can set personal goals, such as a book from every country or one book a week across several genres, or join a challenge someone else has set up. Custom tags then let you sort and filter your library by whatever categories you invent, and curated lists can be shared with friends or made public.

Content warnings are the other community-minded feature. When you review a book you can flag material that might be difficult for other readers, and author-approved warnings sit alongside those submitted by users. In practice that means a search for your next read can show what you are walking into before you commit.

Moving your library across

The starting point for most people will be an existing shelf elsewhere. StoryGraph imports Goodreads data, bringing across your currently-reading, read, to-read and did-not-finish shelves. Custom shelves are not lost in the process; they are mapped to a custom tag on the new account, which is a sensible way to preserve the categories you built up over years.

Kobo owners get a further convenience: reading progress syncs automatically from Kobo to StoryGraph, so the tracking stays current without manual updates. Version 1.30 is described simply as general software updates, so there is nothing dramatic to note in the most recent release.

The app is free to install. Plus is the optional upgrade, and the developer frames it as a way to support an independent alternative to the big tracking platforms. Alongside the custom charts, stats filters, wrap-up graphics and comparisons, Plus includes a vote and comment on upcoming features, the ability to submit official requests, and priority handling for support tickets and book information updates.

Readers who will get the most from it

The clearest fit is someone who reads steadily and enjoys looking back at the pattern. If you like knowing how many pages you cleared last month, or which moods dominated your year, the charts and goals give that curiosity somewhere to go. The mood filters suit readers who choose books by feel and find genre labels too coarse.

It also works well for people who read alongside others. Buddy reads, readalongs and book clubs are built for shared reading, and the spoiler-locked comments make those features usable rather than annoying. If you are in a club that currently coordinates through a group chat, this is a tidier arrangement.

Then there is the reader who wants to leave a larger platform behind. Importing a Goodreads library and keeping custom shelves as tags makes the move practical rather than symbolic, and the Plus tier exists for anyone who wants to fund that independence directly. The 4.6 average from 6,846 ratings suggests the approach lands with a good number of the million-plus people who have installed it.

What Plus changes and what stays free

The free version covers the core loop: tracking, charts, streaks, goals, recommendations, mood search, buddy reads, challenges, tags, lists, content warnings, the barcode scanner and the journal. That is a substantial set of tools, and the basics appear to be included.

Plus is aimed at the reader who wants to interrogate their own data. Custom charts, extra stats filters, custom wrap-up graphics and side-by-side comparisons are the headline additions, along with exclusive year-on-year charts covering books read and genres. The roadmap vote, feature requests and priority support are the softer benefits, aimed at people who want a hand in where the app goes next.

The purchase is framed around supporting an independent platform, which is a reasonable way to present an optional upgrade. If you never touch the deeper stats, the free tier is likely to be enough; if you enjoy building charts and comparing periods, Plus is where that lives.

A tracker for readers who like the numbers

StoryGraph does two things well: it records your reading in enough detail to be interesting, and it turns that record into suggestions you might not have found by browsing. The mood and pace filters are the standout idea, and the spoiler-safe buddy reads solve a real problem for anyone reading in company.

It is free and built around importing the library you already have, which lowers the cost of trying it. The optional Plus tier adds depth for stats-minded readers rather than gating the essentials.

I would point this at readers who keep a log and enjoy looking at it, and at anyone who wants book recommendations shaped by mood rather than genre alone. If you read a handful of books a year and never think about the pattern, the tracking side will do less for you, but the discovery filters still earn their place.

What's new in version 1.30

What's new in v.1.30? • General software updates