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The 13 Best Book Review Sites and Book Rating Sites

Knowing where to buy books can be challenging. So, here are the best book review sites to help you avoid buying books that you'll regret reading.

Nobody likes to spend money on a new book only to face that overwhelming feeling of disappointment when it doesn't live up to your expectations. The solution is to check out a few book review sites before you hit the shops. The greater the diversity of opinions you can gather, the more confidence you can have that you'll enjoy the title.

Which book review and book rating sites are worth considering? Here are the best ones.

1. Goodreads

Goodreads is arguably the leading online community for book lovers. If you want some inspiration for which novel or biography to read next, this is the book review site to visit.

There's an endless number of user-generated reading lists to explore, and Goodreads itself publishes dozens of "best of" lists across a number of categories. You can do a book search by plot or subject , or join book discussions and reading groups with thousands of members.

You can participate in the community by adding your own rankings to books you've read and leaving reviews for other people to check out. Occasionally, there are even bonus events like question and answer sessions with authors.

2. LibraryThing

LibraryThing is the self-proclaimed largest book club in the world. It has more than 2.3 million members and is one of the best social networking platforms for book lovers .

With a free account, you can add up to 200 books to your library and share them with other users. But it's in the other areas where LibraryThing can claim to be one of the best book review sites.

Naturally, there are ratings, user reviews, and tags. But be sure to click on the Zeitgeist tab at the top of the page. It contains masses of information, including the top books by rating, by the number of reviews, by authors, and loads more.

3. Book Riot

Book Riot is a blog. It publishes listicles on dozens of different topics, many of which review the best books in a certain genre. To give you an idea, some recent articles include Keeping Hoping Alive: 11 Thrilling YA Survival Stories and The Best Historical Fiction Books You’ve Never Heard Of .

Of course, there's also plenty of non-reading list content. If you have a general affinity for literature, Book Riot is definitely worth adding to the list of websites you browse every day.

Bookish is a site that all members of book clubs should know about. It helps you prep for your next meeting with discussion guides, book quizzes, and book games. There are even food and drink suggestions, as well as playlist recommendations.

But the site is more than just book club meetings. It also offers lots of editorial content. That comes in the form of author interviews, opinion essays, book reviews and recommendations, reading challenges, and giveaways.

Be sure to look at the Must-Reads section of the site regularly to get the latest book reviews. Also, it goes without saying that the people behind Bookish are book lovers, too. To get a glimpse of what they’re reading, check out their Staff Reads articles.

5. Booklist

Booklist is a print magazine that also offers an online portal. Trusted experts from the American Library Association write all the book reviews.

You can see snippets of reviews for different books. However, to read them in full, you will need to subscribe. An annual plan for this book review site costs $184.95 per year.

6. Fantasy Book Review

Fantasy Book Review should be high on the list for anyone who is a fan of fantasy works. The book review site publishes reviews for both children's books and adults' books.

It has a section on the top fantasy books of all time and a continually updated list of must-read books for each year. You can also search through the recommended books by sub-genres such as Sword and Sorcery, Parallel Worlds, and Epic Fantasy.

7. LoveReading

LoveReading is one of the most popular book review sites in the UK, but American audiences will find it to be equally useful.

The site is divided into fiction and non-fiction works. In each area, it publishes weekly staff picks, books of the month, debuts of the month, ebooks of the month, audiobooks of the month, and the nationwide bestsellers. Each book on every list has a full review that you can read for free.

Make sure you also check out their Highlights tab to get book reviews for selected titles of the month. In Collections , you'll also find themed reading lists such as World War One Literature and Green Reads .

Kirkus has been involved in producing book reviews since the 1930s. This book review site looks at the week's bestselling books, and provides lengthy critiques for each one.

As you'd expect, you'll also find dozens of "best of" lists and individual book reviews across many categories and genres.

And while you're on the site, make sure you click on the Kirkus Prize section. You can look at all the past winners and finalists, complete with the accompanying reviews of their books.

Although Reddit is a social media site, you can use it to get book reviews of famous books, or almost any other book for that matter! Reddit has a Subreddit, r/books, that is dedicated to book reviews and reading lists.

The subreddit has weekly scheduled threads about a particular topic or genre. Anyone can then chip in with their opinions about which books are recommendable. Several new threads are published every day, with people discussing their latest discovery with an accompanying book rating or review.

You'll also discover a weekly recommendation thread. Recent threads have included subjects such as Favorite Books About Climate Science , Literature of Indigenous Peoples , and Books Set in the Desert . There’s also a weekly What are you Reading? discussion and frequent AMAs.

For more social media-like platforms, check out these must-have apps for book lovers .

10. YouTube

YouTube is not the type of place that immediately springs to mind when you think of the best book review sites online.

Nonetheless, there are several engaging YouTube channels that frequently offer opinions on books they've read. You’ll easily find book reviews of famous books here.

Some of the most notable book review YouTube channels include Better Than Food: Book Reviews , Little Book Owl , PolandBananasBooks , and Rincey Reads .

Amazon is probably one of your go-to site when you want to buy something. If you don’t mind used copies, it’s also one of the best websites to buy second-hand books .

Now, to get book reviews, just search and click on a title, then scroll down to see the ratings and what others who have bought the book are saying. It’s a quick way to have an overview of the book’s rating. If you spot the words Look Inside above the book cover, it means you get to preview the first few pages of the book, too!

Regardless of the praises or criticisms you have heard from other book review sites, reading a sample is the most direct way to help you gauge the content’s potential and see whether the author’s writing style suits your tastes.

12. StoryGraph

StoryGraph is another good book review site that's worth checking out. The book rating is determined by the site's large community of readers. Key in the title of a book you're interested in and click on it in StoryGraph's search results to have an overall view of its rating.

Each book review provides information on the moods and pacing of the story. It also indicates whether the tale is plot or character-driven, what readers feel about the extent of character development, how lovable the characters generally are, and the diversity of the cast.

13. London Review of Books

The London Review of Books is a magazine that covers a range of subjects such as culture, literature, and philosophy. Part of its content includes amazingly detailed book reviews. If you feel that most modern book reviews are too brief for your liking, the London Review of Books should suit you best.

You'll gain insight into the flow and themes of the story, as well as a more thorough picture of the events taking place in the book.

Read Book Reviews Before You Buy

The book review sites we've discussed will appeal to different types of readers. Some people will be more comfortable with the easy-to-interpret book rating systems; others will prefer extensive reviews written by experienced professionals.

Although it’s easy to be tempted by a gorgeous book cover, it’s always best to have a quick look at the book reviews before actually buying a copy. This way, you can save your money and spend it on the books that you’ll be proud to display on your shelves for a long time. And check out recommendations, as well, to help you find what's worth reading.

Breaking up with Goodreads: The best book-logging apps for 2024

Fed up with the amazon-owned book app check out these alternatives..

When Karen Ben-Moshe, a 43-year-old public health program manager in San Francisco, learned that Amazon owns Goodreads — the app she used to log her reading habits — she started hunting for an alternative.

“I just don’t love the monopoly Amazon has on our lives and our spending,” Ben-Moshe said.

Goodreads, which was acquired by Amazon in 2013, is one of the most popular book review apps. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) But as the app faces criticism for its buggy, outdated tech and poor content moderation, other options are rising in the ranks.

Some don’t like that Amazon uses Goodreads data to inform its book-selling business, while authors allege the app doesn’t do enough to combat bad-faith “review-bombing” and author harassment. Goodreads vice president of marketing and editorial Suzanne Skyvara said the company has expanded its customer service team and added a feature that pauses review submissions during “unusual activity” such as review-bombing.

If you want a less contentious or more privacy-friendly home for your to-be-read list, here are our CliffsNotes on four of our favorite book-logging apps for Goodreads defectors. (Keep in mind that any time you search a linked database — such as Google, Apple Books or Amazon — inside one of these apps, that company will receive information about your query.)

Port over your Goodreads lists

Ben-Moshe ended up switching to StoryGraph, a Goodreads-like app that doesn’t share data with Amazon.

Compared to Goodreads, StoryGraph, which has versions for iOS and Android, puts less emphasis on social reviews and more on personal metrics and automated recommendations. After I filled out its (quite detailed) recommendation questionnaire, the app generated a spot-on list on suggested reads. (First up is “Parakeet” by Marie-Helene Bertino.) Its “stats” tab generates monthly or yearly analyses of your reading habits, with fun breakdowns like mood and genre. And its colorful graphs are more shareable than Goodreads’ annual snapshots.

If you use book apps primarily to connect with other readers , StoryGraph may not be for you. However, the app does have user profiles, and you can invite friends to “buddy read” (go to a book’s page, tap the three dots and select “start a buddy read”). Or, visit the “community” tab to view active “readalongs.”

StoryGraph is free, but you can pay $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year for advanced features. To upload your Goodreads data, visit StoryGraph on the web. Go to your profile icon at top right, choose “Manage account,” then “Goodreads import.” Upload your .CSV file and select “Import my Goodreads library.”

LibraryThing

If you want to log music and movies alongside your books, check out LibraryThing.

LibraryThing has bare-bones apps for iOS and Android, but it works best on the web. Search for past and future reads to add them to your personal library, or pull titles from Amazon, Overcat or the Library of Congress. You can also add movies and music from Amazon’s database.

LibraryThing, which is free to use, says it has about 3 million users. Detailed book pages include links to relevant discussion threads, as well as crowdsourced suggestions for similar reads. If you share your location on your profile, the site will connect you with local friends, bookstores and libraries.

Reading List

Looking for a book-logging tool with no social component? Try Reading List, available on iOS. You can add books and leave reviews for your eyes only.

This app is no-frills, but still includes some sought-after features like month-by-month statistics and the option to “pause” a book without messing up your metrics.

The “buy online” link on Reading List allows you to buy from independent booksellers through Bookshop.org.

Reading List works without an internet connection, but you’ll need one to add new books from the Google-powered search bar. A selling point for privacy buffs: The app’s developer says he doesn’t store or share user data. Reading List is free, and you can pay $2 a month, $14 a year or $34 a lifetime for additional features.

Easy wins, good habits, better living.

Unlike other book-loggers, BookWyrm is decentralized, meaning it’s owned by its users rather than one entity. (The social media platform Mastodon is probably the most popular example of a decentralized online network .)

BookWyrm is a collection of communities , but the largest is bookwyrm.social with about 15,000 users. Making an account is simple, so you can start tracking and reviewing books right away.

One unique BookWyrm feature is the “books” tab — a feed that shows activity from other users if they’re engaging with a book on your shelf.

BookWyrm is free and web-only. It’s clunkier than other options, but perfect for readers who want a homegrown online hangout.

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The best book review sites for enthusiastic readers.

Book lovers, stop us if you’ve heard this one before: you’ve just finished a mind-blowing book and you need to hear some discussion about it. What do you do? Dive straight into the limitless realm of the Internet and search for book review sites, of course. 

Or here’s another scenario: you’ve finished reading a novel and now you’re searching for something to fill the void. Maybe you want more of the same, or maybe something completely different to switch things up. You’ll probably also scour the Internet for ratings and trustworthy recommendations. 

Fortunately, there are endless review blogs and book review sites that you can peruse. Un fortunately, not every one of them features a wide enough variety to help you. But don’t worry: we’ve got you covered with ten of the best book review sites to satisfy the bookworm in you. If you want to cut to the chase and get a personalized pick for a book review site in 30 seconds, we first recommend taking this quick quiz:

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Then read on for the full explanation of all of the best book review sites out there!

1. Goodreads 

It’s impossible not to mention Goodreads when discussing book communities: it’s the Facebook of book reviews — the ultimate social media platform for bibliophiles. If you’ve somehow managed to go this long without stumbling upon this omnipresent site, here’s the run-down: you can use Goodreads to organize, display, and discuss your virtual bookshelf with other users. 

Goodreads recommendations are based on your listed interests. You can follow authors and book influencers ranging from Celeste Ng to Bill Gates . This allows you to see all their reviews, which vary from compact one-liners to critical analysis, and watch the new reviews roll in. For a quick verdict, just take a look at the star rating that they give the book. 

Also if you like to browse lists, Goodreads compiles the best and most popular books for every genre. There’s also the annual Goodreads’ Choice Awards to celebrate each year’s new releases, where you can cast your vote or peruse the list of contenders to find a new book to read. It’s a site for every kind of reader, with abundant ways to comment and interact. 

2. LibraryThing

This is the OG of all online book catalogues and discussion boards — take a look and you’ll see that it’s an oldie but a goodie. Of course, the basic functions of LibraryThing are rather similar to Goodreads: there are millions of books that readers can add to their lists, as well as review with star ratings.

While the interface harks back to the earlier days of the world wide web, LibraryThing has a secret weapon that’ll appeal to all readers, especially modern ones: their Zeitgeist . This page displays the latest crème de la crème of the whole site, from the most popular books to the hottest reviews , which you can also write with the help of a good book review template . Just a glance shows that the readers here know how to read between the lines and wield their words!

So if you’re hoping to read or share some in-depth literary thoughts with fellow sharp-minded users , LibraryThing is the site to browse. (You can even access it without creating an account!) 

3. Reedsy Discovery 

Now, if you’re searching for some hidden gems to peruse, Reedsy Discovery ’s got your back. While our blog features everything from classics to contemporary hits, Discovery’s specialty is indie publications, many of which are accompanied with succinct comments from experienced reviewers . There’s no better way to broaden your horizon! 

Moreover, if casual and creative reviews are more your cup of tea, then rejoice: the burgeoning community of readers on Discovery can leave comments, one-line reviews, and video reviews (calling all Booktubers!) on just about any book. It’s a fun and interactive way to geek out over your favorite reads and discover all the coolest new titles you won’t find anywhere else.

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4. LoveReading 

Though it’s UK-based, this prolific site caters to audiences around the world. LoveReading is strictly a reviewing site, with a base of staff writers and carefully selected contributors, so you know the reviews are top-notch. The staff often give quite personal reading experiences in their reviews, which make their recommendations very endearing, like they’re from a close friend. They even offer you presents — well, if you think of giveaways as presents! 

LoveReading covers books from every genre you can think of. They also have weekly, monthly, and yearly list features to keep you up to date with the latest stellar releases, so you’ll never be in want of something to pore over. 

5. The Millions 

In search of reviews that really dive into the themes, metaphors, and overall executions of interesting and highbrow books? The Millions has got you covered. 

Written by a collection of seasoned critics, these reviews are speckled with memorable quotes, elegant analysis, and plentiful comparisons to other works — which means extra reading recommendations for you! If contemporary and literary fictions are your go-tos, then The Millions is the site for all your lit nerd needs. 

6. SFBook Reviews 

Those who think quantity and quality don’t go hand in hand, you clearly haven’t encountered SFBook Review . The five reviewers on the team here share two common and important goals: firstly, to follow the outpour of new titles in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres every year, and secondly, to give thoughtful reviews to as many of them as possible.

This team knows their SFF niches inside out, so their verdicts are very credible. Still, their reviews are quite friendly and personal — they discuss other related books and share their reading experiences to help you make your own reading choices. 

7. Bookpage

Bookpage features all kinds of genres: from children’s books to nonfiction, from the works of household names to debut authors, and so much more. Their format is neat and straightforward — they bring you the volumes they think are most worthwhile, recommending them to you by summarizing and concisely commenting on the prose, the theme, and the plot of each chosen book.

In addition to this, Bookpage also features author interviews and articles that unearth the deeper themes and purposes of certain books. If you’re a true book lover seeking like-minded literary aficionados, this may be the perfect place for you.

8. Book Riot 

Avid readers, you’ve probably stumbled upon Book Riot more times than you can remember. While it’s not a site that individually assesses titles, it has lists for everything — from timeless literary giants to the top books in each genre. What’s more, Book Riot has lots of thinkpieces that dive deep into the way certain titles make readers feel — be it exhilarated, motivated, or enraged — and that’s really all you need to know when deciding to embark on a new reading adventure. 

Additionally, if you’d rather listen to discussions and reviews rather than read them, you'll be happy to know that Book Riot has a range of podcasts for you to choose from. 

9. NetGalley 

NetGalley is another platform bringing you new and unconventional recommendations. They specialize in connecting authors who are publishing to readers who’d like to preview and put in their two cents. While the database of books available here are not the most expansive, those that are featured are certainly worth your time. 

Readers can benefit most from NetGalley via their book recommendation site, Bookish , where the staff reviewers update you with their recent reads and in-depth thoughts on those reads. Along with that, Bookish also has book club kits, equipped with comprehension questions and discussion points, to help readers explore stories mindfully. 

10. BookBub

While it’s very similar to Goodreads, BookBub focuses more on connecting readers to books that might suit them specifically — which is partly why you’ll see plenty of bargains and deals promoted on the site.

Because of this promotional value, BookBub has quite a strong author community. Diana Gabaldon and Gillian Flynn , for instance, are constantly recommending books on their accounts. So if you’d like to tag along with your favorite author, this is an excellent website to visit. The only drawback of BookBub is that they only have community reviews from users based in the US, and you have to sign up in order to read them. 

With these ten sites, you’ll be sure to find your little community of fellow book lovers regardless of what your interests are. Here’s to exciting TBR lists and nourished minds!

If you want to try your hand at reviewing, we’ve got a little guide to help you out ! On the other hand, if you want to plough away at your books, why not consider the Kindle Cloud Reader ?

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The Apps You Need To Actually Buy, Read, & Review Books On Your Phone

It can be incredibly difficult to keep up with all the new books being released all the time — but these book apps certainly make it a lot easier . Even though I'll always be a traditional hardcover book-lover, I do read books on my e-reader and listen to audiobooks from time to time on my phone. In my mind, it seems that real books will never go out of style, but that doesn't mean I can't keep up with technology that makes it easier and more convenient to read.

My phone is full of downloaded e-books and audiobooks, and I have my ever-growing TBR list jotted down in multiple places. Not to mention, I've taken screenshots of so many pictures of books that I just find pretty (don't judge me for judging a book by its cover, OK?). Needless to say, my phone has become my go-to resource for finding — and reading — new books.

If you're looking for new ways you can show your love for books, review them online, keep track of what you read, share photos of your bookshelf with friends, and, of course, discover new books to read, take a moment to consider these literary apps:

Let's get this out of the way: You already know what Goodreads is, but how does the app measure up? Despite its outdated interface, the Goodreads app actually functions fairly well for all the tasks you would typically complete on your desktop: Adding books to your "Want To Read" shelf, reviewing and rating books you've already read, and seeing what your friends have recently finished. The app, unlike the desktop version, allows you to scan the barcodes/ISBNs of books to add them to your library, which might save you time if you're cataloging more than one book at once. Learn more.

If you want to privately catalog your books without the social media aspect of Goodreads, try Libib. You can either manually insert all the information (which is a pain, since you also have to manually upload cover photos) or scan the barcode/ISBN, which automatically pulls in all information and photos. Libib offers very few bells-and-whistles, but I preferred its scanning functionality to the other book apps I tried. You also have the option of making your library public, if you do want to share what you're reading with your friends. Learn more.

We don't talk often enough about the library is a place where you can get free books as often as you want. With Libby, borrowing is made easy — and you can read e-books from the library without actually having to leave your couch . You sign up, type in your library card information, and pick your library of choice. You can also download e-books and audiobooks for offline reading, send the books you borrow to your Kindle (if you prefer to read it on that platform), and sign up with multiple library cards. Learn more.

If you adore podcasts and books, Serial Box is a must-have. Week after week, new "episodes" of books are released, and you have the option to listen or read (or do both). Just like your favorite TV shows, each season contains 10-16 episodes, and each can be read or be read to you in about 40 minutes. Some of the serials are originals (like the continuation of Orphan Black, available as an ebook or an audiobook narrated by Tatiana Maslany) and others are classic books, released episodically. Learn more.

Scribd is simply one of the best book apps on the market. While it does come with a monthly price tag (though it is less than one paperback book), the cost is well worth it if you're an avid e-reader and audiobook lover. Basically, it's a subscription service that allows you unlimited access to their selection of e-books, audiobooks, and magazines, for the cost of $8.99 per month. (You get one month free when you sign up .) Of course, not every book or audiobook is available, but if you read just one a month, you're probably saving yourself a few bucks. Learn more.

Whether you've been introduced to the growing world of self-publishing or not, Wattpad is here to show you the way. It's a community of writers and readers, and a place to share thoughts, read something new, or take a crack at writing something yourself. Remember, some of the best authors working today got their start writing fanfiction, and there's no reason you can't flex some of your creative muscles, too. Learn more.

I'm a big fan of Audible, and when I found Downpour, an app that takes your audiobook experience to new levels, I was stoked. You can set sleep timers (this was super helpful for me since I usually listen to books when I'm too tired to read), and it allows you to bookmark certain spots that you loved or wanted to go back to at some point. You can purchase books individually, or purchase a monthly subscription for $12.99, which includes one credit per month. Learn more.

Libro.Fm allows you to purchase audiobooks directly from independent booksellers. (You have the option to support "all bookstores" or support a specific bookstore of your choosing.) You can purchase audiobooks individually or purchase a $14.99 per month membership that allots you one audiobook per month. (The first month is free, and there are options for three month, six month, and 12 month memberships.) Plus, you're supporting small business! It's a win-win.

Unfortunately, you can't sign up for the service within the app, nor can you actually purchase any audiobooks with it. The only thing you can do on the Libro.Fm app is listen to books you've already purchased on your desktop. It's definitely annoying, and I hope they upgrade the app in the near-future. That being said, this is still a service worth supporting. Learn more.

The interface of Gutenberg isn't as sleek as the interface for the Kindle app or Apple Books, but it does have one advantage: Everything is free, because all the books are in the public domain. I keep it on my phone for days when I need a pick-me-up in the form of a Jane Austen re-read. Learn more.

Additional reporting by Cristina Arreola.

This article was originally published on Aug. 4, 2016

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The 9 Best Book Reading Apps of 2024

E-readers are great, but don't count your phone out. These apps make reading on your phone a breeze

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Book lovers no longer lack choices regarding quality ebook and audiobook apps. Here are some of the best book reader apps for Android, iOS , and Windows devices.

Best Free Book Reading App: Media365 Book Reader

Massive library of popular and niche ebooks that can be read for free.

Ability to import your own ebook files for reading in the app.

Offline reading requires a $1.99 upgrade.

Only for Android.

Media365 is a free reading app for Android that lets you read any of the books in its library in exchange for the occasional fullscreen advertisement. Authors can self-publish on the Media 365 platform, which is why so many niche and indie titles are available. Many mainstream books are also available, like the entire Harry Potter book series.

The Media 365 library stores eBooks in 15 languages, while font size can be adjusted simply by doing a two-finger pinch on the screen. There’s also a text-to-speech function, which lets the app read books to you. You can also upload your ebooks with supported EPUB, PDF, AZW3, CBC, CBR, CBZ, CHM, FB2, LIT, MOBI, TCR, AI, and PUB formats.

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Best eBook Reader App for Amazon Prime Members: Kindle

Massive library of ebooks to choose from.

Apps are updated on a very regular basis.

The Kindle app for Windows is more for traditional computers than touchscreens.

Can’t buy ebooks within the iOS or Android Kindle app.

The official Kindle apps on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows are Amazon’s way of letting their customers consume their Kindle ebooks without having to buy a Kindle.

Any Kindle-branded ebook on the Amazon website can be read within the Kindle app. A variety of features set this app experience apart from its rivals, including the built-in dictionary, the ability to skip ahead without losing your place, and Amazon’s X-Ray tech, which reveals extra information on a book’s characters and world while you’re reading.

The Amazon Kindle apps aren’t perfect, though. The Windows Kindle app is designed more for traditional desktop computers than modern devices with touchscreens, and the iOS and Android versions don’t support ebook purchases. However, Kindle eBooks can still be purchased on the Amazon website and will sync to the Kindle app almost immediately.

Most-Available Reading App: Rakuten Kobo

Loads of options to customize the reading experience.

There’s an official Kobo app for most phones in existence.

The Windows app is incredibly outdated, and the Facebook login doesn’t work.

Audiobooks are only available on the iOS and Android apps.

Rakuten’s Kobo is a major competitor to Amazon, with millions of ebooks and a growing number of audiobooks on its platform. The iOS and Android Kobo apps are clearly where the company puts most of its attention, with each app offering an impressive variety of font sizes, styles, and color options to make the reading experience more personal and comfortable for individual users.

The Kobo app is also available for Windows 10 in the Microsoft Store app store. Windows users will want to download the separate desktop version of the app, though, which is updated regularly and offers more features. The desktop app also works on Macs.

Best Reading App for Kids: Epic!

Lots of in-app gamification that encourages kids to read more.

Great selection of classic and modern children’s books.

App requires a monthly subscription to use, though a 30-day free trial is available.

Changing settings is a bit of a convoluted process.

Epic! is like a Netflix for kids, but instead of TV shows and movies, it supplies the user with a massive library of ebooks and audiobooks . Parents can make unique profiles for each of their children, who can customize their profiles based on their tastes.

While many classic children’s books are available to download, there are also many modern releases, such as one series of books covering famous pop culture icons. Children can also choose from family-friendly comic books like Snoopy and The Smurfs and numerous short video clips created by DreamWorksTV.

Best iPhone eBook Reader App: Yomu EBook Reader

Supports EPUB, MOBI, PRC, AZW, AZW3, KF8, CBZ, CBR, and PDF files.

eBooks can be saved to the Yomu app from any iOS web browser.

Settings menu is very hard to find after adding books.

Download links should be in the main menu, not in the tutorial.

The Yomu EBook Reader is a fantastic app for iPhone and iPad users who download their ebooks in various file formats and want to bring them all together for a cohesive reading experience.

Yomu, Japanese for “to read,” supports all of the popular ebook file formats and those supported by Amazon Kindle. Files can be imported to the app via a cloud service like iCloud , Dropbox, Google Drive , or OneDrive , and once the app is installed, Yomu will appear as a source when saving ebook files from any iOS web browser app.

PDF eBook Reading App: Foxit PDF Reader

PDF files can be shared directly to the app on iOS.

Reflow options makes all files readable on small screens.

Ability to create a new PDF file requires a $14.99 monthly subscription on iOS and Android.

Lack of a back button on app screens makes navigation very confusing.

Foxit PDF Reader Mobile is one of the better PDF apps and is an ideal solution for those who prefer to consume ebooks in the PDF file format . Unlike many similar apps that display a PDF as is and require you to pinch and zoom to read its content, Foxit features a reflow setting that resizes and reorganizes the text on a page to fit perfectly on a mobile phone’s screen.

PDF files can be transferred to the Foxit app via Wi-Fi , iCloud, or Foxit’s own Foxit Drive service. Those using an iOS device can import downloaded files directly from the share feature while using other apps. A monthly subscription is needed to take advantage of many advanced settings, but those looking for an app to simply read their PDF ebooks will be fine with the free functionality.

Best eBook Reader For Android Phones And Tablets: AIReader

Supports a lot of Android devices with the minimum OS requirement being Android 2.3.

Multiple profiles can be used for different app settings. 

No support for PDF files.

Scrolling can be very jittery on lower-end Android tablets.

AIReader is a popular reading app on Android due to its support for older Android smartphones and tablets running operating systems as out-of-date as Android 2.3. It should be mentioned that many of the scrolling and related animations aren’t as smooth as they should be on older devices, but the ebook reading experience is still solid. Most major file types will work no matter which Android device you’re on.

Best Reading App on Nintendo Switch: Inky Pen

Large selection of free comics from lots of popular franchises.

Comics look great on the Nintendo Switch.

$7.99 a month will be a bit expensive for some people.

No Marvel or DC Comics series.

Most would think the Nintendo Switch is just for playing games, but its library of non-game apps has been slowly growing since its launch. One of these apps, Inky Pen, is a full-fledged comic book reading app that lets anyone read full digital issues from popular comic book series on their Switch.

Inky Pen does charge a monthly fee of $7.99 for unlimited access to its entire library, but there are an impressive amount of free issues available that will keep most comic fans entertained during long car trips or lazy weekends. What’s cool is the app works when the Nintendo Switch is docked so that a group can read comics on a TV.

Best Reading App for Google Addicts: Google Play Books

Very smooth reading experience with a page turn animation looks fantastic.

Runs really well on cheap, low-end Android tablets.

App needs to switch to the Google Play app every time you want to read more about a book.

Has a much smaller selection than Amazon.

Google Play Books, as its title suggests, is Google’s first-party app for reading ebooks and listening to audiobooks bought within the Google Play Store . The book selection isn’t as extensive as Amazon’s, but it’s still large enough to please the casual reader. Those who enjoy reading at least one book a day may want more.

The good thing is that Google Play Books doesn’t need a subscription service. It can be used to enjoy a purchased ebook or audiobook one weekend, then ignored for a week without feeling financial guilt for not taking advantage of some monthly fee.

It’s a very solid reading experience for when you want to use it, is incredibly stable and easy to use, and has some of the best page-turn animations out of all the book-reading apps.

Google Play Books is an excellent reading app, especially for those immersed in the Google ecosystem.

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.. and press ENTER to ask a question on web5, how to write code and more.

Build a Book Review App

There are many sites that allow users to write book reviews such as Amazon, GoodReads, Barnes & Noble, LibraryThing, and BookBub just to name a few. Some of these apps even function as social media sites for book enthusiasts.

Let's create a decentralized app for readers who want to keep reviews on the various books they've read. Rather than being locked into one book review app, they wish to have control over their reviews and easily share them across different platforms.

This tutorial demonstrates how to use Web5.js to create an app that stores users' book reviews within their DWNs so that they can be accessed by any app on the web that has permission .

Running Locally ​

Download a copy to your local machine and run the following commands to start the app.

Note: If you don't have pnpm installed, you can install it by running npm install -g pnpm .

Online Playground ​

• Install Web5
• In the root of your project, find and open package.json and add module as a type:

Within a code editor, create a new JS file (e.g. book_reviews.js ).

Open this JS file and import Web5

Now we have the Web5 SDK installed and are ready to start building!

Connect to Web5 ​

The first thing we want to do is connect . In Web5 apps, this replaces the traditional login step. Instead of centralized accounts that belong to one application, users have DIDs and DWNs , decentralized identity and storage, respectively.

Without parameters, this function will look for a local DWN and DID on the user's device and will connect to it. If it doesn't already exist, a DID and local DWN will be automatically created.

The connect() function returns an instance of Web5 as web5 as well as the user's DID as did . The web5 instance gives you access to Web5's three core pillars: web5.did , web5.vc , and web5.dwn .

Note that your app can allow users to connect with an agent and provide an existing DID and remote DWN.

Create Interoperable Data ​

Now that the user has connected, your app can obtain any public or permissioned data from their DWN, even if your app didn't create the data. This is the power of DWNs - users are able to keep their data with them and utilize it in any app that allows this.

In order for data to be interoperable across apps, the apps must understand and support the same data structure. Fortunately, this is not a new concept. In fact, schema.org exists for this very reason - to provide a shared vocabulary for structured data.

There's a schema for just about anything you can think of, including reviews !

Provided this is the schema the app will support for reviews, let's indicate that within our code:

Get Book Reviews ​

The objects that are written to a DWN are called records. To query for records from a user's DWN, we call web5.dwn.records.query() and pass in filters to find the specific records we want. In our case, we want to query for all records that follow the Review schema.

This returns an array of records that match our schema. Your app can display the user's existing reviews as you see fit.

Add Book Review ​

Your app may offer the ability for users to create new book reviews. If so, you'll write their reviews to their DWNs as opposed to your own backend server.

Your interface may allow the user to enter a star rating (1-5) as well as a review for any given book. Your app would then take that data and structure objects that match the Review schema.

This JSON represents multiple reviews the user wants to add and follows the Review schema.

Notice that the reviews contain author.identifier that specifies the DID of the user who is authoring the review.

Now that we have the data in an interoperable format, we want to write it to the user's DWN. But first, let's make a function to see if the review they are submitting already exists within their DWN.

Within our addReviews() function, we'll loop through the reviews that the user wants to add, call isReviewPresent() to make sure it doesn't already exist, and if it doesn't, we'll call web5.dwn.records.create() to add the review to the user's DWN.

Let's look a bit closer at the call that creates the record:

We see that create() accepts data and message . The data is the payload of the record and the message is metadata about that payload.

Notice that we provide the actual book review as the value of data , and for the message , we're specifying the:

• URI of the schema
• format of the data
• publicity of the data. Because we specified the records as published, they are available for public queries without requiring authorization.

All of this metadata helps with the discoverability of the data by apps.

Also note that while the user wants to create multiple reviews, there's no way to create multiple records at the same time with Web5. Instead, we called create() for each record that needed to be added, via a loop.

Update Book Review ​

Your app may have access to update book reviews as well. Let's write a function that calls the web5.dwn.record.update() method to change the rating of one of the reviews.

Delete Book Reviews ​

If your app is permissioned to do so, you can also delete book reviews from the user's DWN.

Congrats! You've created an application that creates, reads, updates, and deletes book reviews from a user's DWN. The user is free to take their reviews with them and use it in any app that they grant permission.

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Contribute: Contributing Guide

• Running Locally
• Online Playground
• Connect to Web5
• Create Interoperable Data
• Get Book Reviews
• Add Book Review
• Update Book Review
• Delete Book Reviews

TBR - Bookshelf 12+

The most in depth book ratings, tbr - bookshelf, llc, designed for ipad.

• #17 in Magazines & Newspapers
• 4.6 • 2.7K Ratings
• Offers In-App Purchases

Screenshots

Description.

Have an everflowing TBR list? See any good book recommendations and forget about them? Introducing the TBR - Bookshelf app! Track books that you want to read in the TBR, track books you've read, and track books you're currently reading! (No book limits) Rate your books once you've read them and log your favorite moments with our quick and easy log rating system. Finding books is easier than ever with our public ratings so you can easily see what pov a book is in, what tropes it contains, reread rate, and 4 genre specfic ratings (Example: Romance has Spice, Fluff, Humor, and Tear ratings). Your ratings will be kept anonymous so that you can be honest with your book review. Within our rating system, you can log: Your reading book format, 5 Star Rating (Including Half Stars!), Up to four genre ratings, If you'd reread or not, If you DNF the book, Favorite Characters, Favorite Quotes, Pro Quotes and Annotations (Paid Subscription Required) and Any additional thoughts about the book We also have a Pro Rating Feature (Subscription Required) Within the pro-rating screen you can log: Book Tropes, Book Playlists, (These are to keep track of songs, they cannot be played within the app) POV format and amount, TV Show and Movie Adaption Ratings, and 4 Seasonal Ratings Make your own custom reading goal for the year! When you finish reading a book it will automatically get placed into your yearly reading goal bookshelf. TBR - Bookshelf is here to help you keep track of your evergrowing TBR list while making it more fun along the way! TBR - Bookshelf is free to download and use. No online account or sign-up is needed. TBR - Bookshelf Pro includes a 7-day free trial period and then you change choose between the monthly plan ($4.99 a month), 6-month plan ($19.99 every 6 months), or the yearly plan ($29.99 a year). All the other features will remain free to use indefinitely. A monthly, 6-month, or yearly purchase will be applied to your iTunes account at the end of your 7-day free trial period. Subscriptions will automatically renew unless canceled within 24-hours before the end of the current period. You can cancel anytime with your iTunes account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial will be forfeited if you purchase a subscription. For more information, see our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. *These prices are for United States customers. Pricing in other countries may vary* *Note: This is an app to track your reading journey. Reading is not available within this app.* Privacy Policy: http://jordanpetersonstudio.com/tbr-bookshelf-privacy-policy/ Terms of Service: http://jordanpetersonstudio.com/tbr-bookshelf-terms-of-service/

Version 3.6.6

Ratings and Reviews

2.7K Ratings

Favorite Book Review App!!

I’ve been using TBR for over a year now and I absolutely love it! I have a few suggestions tho. I would really like a way to log in or save my data. I would be seriously upset if my phone broke and I lost all my notes and reviews and what not. Another thing I keep accidentally doing is when I look at my reading goal I keep trying to click on the titles to open up the reviews and thats not how it works. Maybe that could be a feature in the future?? I really like how each book has its own color when you log it. When I’m looking at my read section I wish there was a way to organize it. Right now its every single book I’ve ever logged and if I wanted to find a book review for a book I read say in May of 2021 I would have to scroll all the way down. I would like if there was a way to sort by year or month. Over all though I am the biggest fan of this app. Especially with how much content you can access with just the free version. I am looking forward to buying the premium version and updating all my reviews! I feel like the app is simple enough that adding a review doesn’t feel like a chore (like on other tracking apps). Though it would be cool if there was a way to share your reviews with friends/be able to view other peoples reviews.

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for writing such a detailed review! We recently released an update that allows you to sync between devices and backs up your data with iCloud sync in case of accidental deletion. If you’re searching for a specific book you can search at the top of the read book page. We will be looking into a filter/search by date option as well! We love all your ideas and we will be looking into them all! Thanks again :)

I’ve already left my raving review and now I have some constructive criticism for the developers! #1 For a series I’d love for there to be an options for putting the whole series in your TBR and/or read list with one button and to somehow keep them in order when looking at them so it’s prettier and more organized! #2 I would love a way to see other peoples reviews on books! #3 I would love some sort of sign in option so I don’t have to worry about losing anything if my phone breaks. #4 I love to genre option but most of what I read is fantasy/romance and thriller/romance. When reviewing I’m only given an option to choose one genre and I would love it if I could pick multiple! And lastly I’d like to say that for the app being so new it’s still a hit! And I understand all of what I’ve said above is probably being worked on for future updates! I’ll just be here patiently waiting :)! Great work!!

Hi! Thank you so much for writing this detailed review! We love hearing all your suggestions on how to make the app better and more enjoyable for our users! We will be looking more into these suggestions to see if we can add them into the app! :)

Such a good idea-so many bugs

I want to love this app SO bad but the glitching and whatnot is driving me a little crazy. First thing that happened was when i first downloaded the app and tried to change the theme, it kept on undoing the theme i chose. Same with the plant. When i tried turning off the falling snow the snow was still there. I imported my books from goodreads which went very smoothly but once i went to my read shelf and tried to switch the view from bookshelf to book cover it kicked me out of the app. When i went back on the snow was off…lol. A common occurrence is trying out a feature and then the app either kicking me out of the app or just undoing the feature. No matter what i do i cannot change the view of my read books from bookshelf to book covers without being kicked out of the app and i cant change the color of the books on my tbr shelf without being kicked off the app. I thought i could push through but at this point i can barely use the app without whatever im doing being undone or being kicked out of the app. Im sure this can be fixed and once the app works I DEFINITELY will be using it, its just unfortunately unusable for me right now

App Privacy

The developer, TBR - Bookshelf, LLC , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

• Search History
• Diagnostics

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

• Pro Access $4.99
• Pro Access $29.99
• Pro Access $19.99
• 1500 Gems $2.99
• 4500 Gems $5.99
• Lifetime Purchase $99.99
• 20,000 Gems $9.99
• App Support
• Privacy Policy

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• Book Reviews
• Product Reviews

Best Book Summary Apps 2024 – Tested and Reviewed

I love reading books.

Yet I finish most of my days with the regret I was not able to carve out enough time for reading. Between blogs, podcasts, and chatting with friends, nowadays I’m getting so many recommendations for nonfiction books that my Kindle library grows way faster than what I can read.

I have another problem. Business books usually fall into three categories:

• Great ones: full of interesting ideas and enjoyable to read (like The Unicorn Project or Lost and founder )
• Boring ones: a lot of good ideas written in an extremely boring way
• Bad ones: few ideas lost in a plethora of useless and boring pages

I love books in the first category, and they are usually the ones I review here in my blog. Unluckily, I hate the others.

It usually takes me forever to get to the end of boring nonfiction books.

I give up within the first couple of chapters when I read a bad one. And that sucks because sometimes they still have some interesting concepts I’d like to absorb.

That’s why over the weekend I came up with a new strategy: reading the entire book when it’s great. Fallback to book summaries for categories n. 2 and n. 3.

So, I’ve spent the last couple of days testing out the 4 best book summary apps to see which one is worth subscribing to. And now, I’ve decided to share my findings with you to save you some time should you be facing the same question.

The book summaries apps and websites I’ve tested are:

• getAbstract
• Mentorist (2022 update)
• Headway (2024 update)

But before I declare the best book summary app in 2024…

Is it worth reading a book summary?

Yes and no.

But before we dive deeper, a quick premise. I’m considering only nonfiction books. It would be crazy to read the summary of a novel in my opinion. This also seems to be a consolidated trend in the industry. All the book summary apps I’ve reviewed focus on nonfiction books.

Now, back to your question.

If I had enough time, I’d probably avoid reading book summaries… it feels a bit like cheating.

But I have to admit it’s an effective way to learn the key concepts of an entire book, usually in less than 30 minutes. The big question mark is… will they stick?

The value of reading a full book is that you usually get a lot of examples and repetition of the key concepts. This is useful to make it stick and to convince yourself it’s a good idea you should put into practice.

Reading the summary you get to the core concepts immediately, but you lose a lot of contexts. It feels like eating meal replacement powders: you likely get all the nutrients. But you lose all the taste .

This problem can be big or small depending on the kind of book you’re reading.

If it’s a book about “HR best practices”, it’s likely fine to read the key ideas in 30 minutes.

If you’re reading personal development books or self-improvement books … well, my personal take here is that the key ideas are almost the same on all of these books. And you probably already know them. You’re lacking the motivation to implement them.

In this scenario, reading the original book could be better. The way the author communicates the message. The motivation examples he uses to reinforce it are what really matter and they’re likely gonna be missing in the summaries.

So, if you are the kind of person that could benefit from nonfiction book summaries, let’s find out what’s the best app for you.

My criteria to pick the best book summary apps in 2024

Before I started the free trial of all these book summary apps, I’ve defined some personal criteria to pick which one I would subscribe to and which will be canceled.

I defined four main categories to rank the apps:

• Book catalog : How many book summaries do they have? Do they have the books I want to read? This is a big one and a deal-breaker for me.
• Summary quality : Another critical factor. Is the summary good? Did they capture the core ideas? Is the quality consistent across multiple books?
• Original content : Do they also have their own original content on top of book summaries? Are they any good?
• Features : do they have a mobile app? Is the website or app easy to use? Do they have any interesting unique features?

As you can see I’ve not added price as a relevant category. That’s because, no matter what’s the cost, if I’ll read summaries in a consistent way, I’ll save a lot of money compared to buying each individual book.

I actually added the last two categories after I started testing the various apps. Seems like all of them are moving beyond just book summaries and are starting to produce their own original content. Often curated summaries of multiple books on a specific topic.

On the features side, most of them nowadays also do audio summaries of most books (but machine-generated audio). I also find the usability of the app a very important factor given I’ll be using it every day.

Finally, if you’re curious to know how I tested the catalog section, here’s the list of 12 books I’ve been looking for:

• Why we sleep
• Atomic Habits
• No Rules Rule
• The subtle art of not giving a f**k
• AI Superpowers
• Lost and Founder
• The revenue marketing book
• The unicorn project
• How to lie with statistics
• Traffic secrets
• The making of a manager

Ok, time to start reading some book summaries and pick a winner!

Blinkist is probably the most known summary app in the market and the one that really started this industry. It’s reasonably priced, starting at $14.99 per month or $89.99 per year and it works like a charm.

They divide book summaries into what they call blinks. It’s usually a good mapping to the book chapters or main ideas. Each Blink usually takes no more than 5 minutes to read (or listen). At the end of the book summary, there is always a final part that recaps all the core ideas of the book.

Being the oldest book summary service the quality and catalog are usually very good.

Catalog – Vote 8

In Blinkist I was able to find 8 out of the 12 titles I used for the test. Good but not crazy good. I was actually expecting something better from their 4,500+ book summaries catalog.

Clearly, they’re focusing more and more on their original productions. If a title is a bestseller, it’s 99% sure you’ll find it in Blinkist. When you look for more niche books, there’s a 50-50 chance of not finding them.

Quality – Vote 7

The good thing about Blinkist is their consistency. You can expect all the book summaries to have quite good quality. They summarize a lot. Sometimes I would have preferred some more info on specific details.

The average summary takes 15 minutes to read. I would have preferred to go up to 30 minutes and get more details.

Still, they did a pretty good job in identifying all the core concepts of each book and expressing it in a very compelling way.

Original Content – Vote 7

Most of their original content is in form of Shortcasts. You can think of them as mini podcasts where every episode is usually 10 minutes long. There’s also a written summary for each episode.

They are of good quality and with a good selection of authors. However, I’m not a super fan of the audio format so I ended up not consuming them a lot.

Features – Vote 7

Blinkist has a very good offer. You can read on a desktop through a browser, on mobile, and on tablets.

The quality is very good with very high readability of the book summaries.

The thing I didn’t like was the inconsistency of the user experience across devices.

I LOVE the fact that you can highlight text and save it for later. Going back through my highlights of a book is something I do often. Yet I was not able to understand how to do it on my iPad. And the sync between browser and iPad is odd.

On the browser, the main dashboard is focused on the books you’re reading. On iPad on the discovery of new content. Overall, their book summary app is good but not yet great.

One very nice feature that is worth mentioning is the capability to sync your highlights with Evernote and book summaries with Kindle to read them over there and keep under the same umbrella summaries and full books.

Update May 8th 2023: Blinkist has just been acquired by EdTech startup Go1 . While this will likely have no impact in the short term, things often tend to get messy post-acquisition and we’ll need to check if they’ll keep up with their current mission or align more with Go1 needs.

Update Jan 25th 2024: Luckily, the acquisition doesn’t seem to have impacted Blinkist. So far, they have kept releasing new book summaries at the same pace, and the quality has been consistent since the acquisition.

Shortform was relatively new to the game when I first wrote this blog post, but it’s now one of the market leaders. Their catalog, once relatively small is now almost on par with Blinkist and they keep adding new books consistently with a weekly cadence.

They charge $24 per month or $197 for the annual subscription. They offer a 5 days free trial where you can explore the catalog for free.

Overall they have the best book summaries of all the apps reviewed here, and three years later since I originally wrote this post, I’m still subscribed to their service, and it’s the only book summary app I use nowadays .

The catalog is smaller than Blinkist as you can expect from a newcomer in the market. They claim 1000+ book summaries and, as you can guess, most of them are bestsellers.

I was able to find only 5 of the 12 books used for the tests. I was hoping for something more, to be honest. Most of the marketing books were missing, and even in the bestsellers, there were some gaps.

The upside is that they seem to be adding new titles at a good pace.

( 2022 Update ) The catalog keeps growing slowly but consistently. They have recently launched a Video Summary series which is free on Youtube. They are also publishing super-short summaries on Instagram .

(2023 Update) Since they keep adding books at a great pace, with around 3 to 5 new titles published every week, I’ve rechecked my list, and now 7 out of 12 books are present, absolutely in line with the other top players. I’ve increased the score in this category to a solid 8.

(2024 Update) I’m really impressed by the work Shortform is doing to improve its catalog. I’m now (Jan. 2024) reading “Feel Good Productivity” which I bought from Amazon the day it was released assuming it would take forever to get a summary. Well turns out that after just a month, Shortform has already released the summary! Great job!

Quality – Vote 8.5

The quality of their summaries is the real strength of ShortForm. I love how they structure summaries and the level of depth.

Shortform has the only summaries that can really replace reading the whole book, in my opinion .

All the other apps are only useful to understand if you might like a book before buying it or absorbing a few quotes to sound smart with your friends.

They have a generous 1-page summary to get started with. It’s really high quality, and for a quick read, you could stop there.

But if you want to go more in-depth they also offer a more detailed summary chapter by chapter. When it makes sense, they also have exercises at the end of some chapters.

Another incredible strength of ShortForm is how they make connections outside the specific book to really help you understand the topic. They often mention other books covering the same topic to add value to the summary and give you more context / different points of view.

ShortForm has the best book summaries of the apps reviewed here. Period!

Original Content – Vote 6

They don’t offer original content, but they feature summaries of top articles from the US press. The selection is still fairly limited, with around 500 articles in the catalog. Nothing to go crazy for.

There’s an audio version for all the summaries, but it’s not human-narrated, it’s actually an AI voice, which I would not listen to for 30 minutes.

Features – Vote 8

Good web and mobile versions, so avid readers will enjoy their summaries everywhere.

The experience is consistent across devices and there’s full support for highlighting text or adding notes which, unlike Blinkist, works very well also on mobile.

A nice touch is the support for dark mode in the reader to enjoy your summaries also at night.

The mobile app improved a lot over the last year and it’s now very fast and responsive. Overall it’s a very pleasing experience.

A big one for Shortform is the possibility to download a book summary as a PDF . Way more flexible than the Kindle integration found in Blinkist.

Another feature that I love is their support for ReadWise syncing. ReadWise is my app of choice to gather together all the highlights from books and articles I’ve read and check them daily to brainstorm. It’s great to have my ShortForm highlights imported there.

Update 8/8/2022: Shortform has just released another great feature that saves me money and makes my life easier. They now integrate and sync notes with Notion!

Overall, it’s a great book summary app from a software standpoint, and they keep improving it at a good pace.

The cherry on the pie is a useful summarization Chrome extension that can help you summarize in one click any webpage you’re reading, even youtube videos. It works extremely well, and I’ve been using it more and more to extract key information from posts I was reading. Since we were talking about Notion, I also use it in my daily note-taking workflow to attach some notes to the URLs I’m storing in my second brain.

GetAbstract

GetAbstract has a very unique approach. They’ve been in the book summary apps space forever with a strong focus on enterprise offerings.

Looking at their website, it’s clear that their main focus is selling to companies to give multiuser access to their employees. Still, they also have subscription plans for private users with a $29.90 monthly price tag. It goes up to $290 for yearly subscriptions.

Oddly enough, if you connect from Europe, there’s also a cheaper plan that gives you access to a more limited catalog.

Their approach is different from all the other players. While everyone is playing in a grey area from a copyright standpoint, GetAbstract acquires the rights from the publisher before writing a book summary.

Catalog – Vote 4

Even tho’ they have the largest catalog with 20,000+ book summaries, they also have the worst catalog.

Since they try to acquire rights to summarize books, you’ll find a lot of niche books but very few best sellers. I found none of the 12 books I was looking for, which was shocking.

For some of them, a review was available. For others, they said they had selected the book as interesting and were trying to secure rights. For many nothing could be found.

Clearly, the focus of this book summary service is different from the others. If you’re looking for random books to read or some very niche stuff it could be a fit. Otherwise, I’d stay away.

Quality – Vote 6

Given their unique approach, I was expecting really high-quality summaries. I was disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, they are good. But not mind-blowing. They are also quite short, in a way comparable to Blinkist. Audio summaries are available for most books and are usually 8-12 minutes long.

Unique Content – Vote 0

They don’t seem to have any unique content added to their offer. It’s not a big issue for me, as I’m mainly looking for book summaries.

My take here is that other players recognize there’s a copyright threat to their core offer. So, they started differentiating with more and more unique content. GetAbstract secured legal rights before writing a review so they didn’t feel the need to diversify their offer.

Features – Vote 6

Everything works smoothly both on the website and the mobile app.

They support highlighting, and they have the concept of channels where you can create (or consume) curated collections of books.

I don’t like the reading experience on browsers. A lot of distracting elements in the interface and small fonts make them look more like regular blog posts than the interface of an ebook reader. The experience is way better on the iPad app.

On the bright side, you can download a PDF version of all their summaries. Overall, it’s not among my favorite book summary apps.

Another consolidated player in the book summary apps space. Instaread ‘s unique take on book summary apps is to produce a lot of high-quality, unique content on top of summaries.

Pricing is relatively cheap; they start at $8.99 per month or $89 if you go yearly. They also have a nice lifetime deal where you can get unlimited access forever at $299. It’s not bad at all if you are planning to read book summaries as a life habit.

The free trial lasts 7 days.

Catalog – Vote 5.5

Instaread has 1,000+ book summaries like Shortform but in my selection of 12 books, I was able to find only 4 of them, the big hits. None of the more niche books I was looking for were available.

This may also be due to the fact that within the 1,000-plus books, they also list a lot of fiction.

When it comes to the quality of the content… It’s okay but not my favorite one. It’s basically a collection of chapter summaries with the key takeaways of each chapter.

Everything is very condensed and schematic with a bullet-point approach. I don’t love it, but that’s a matter of personal taste. I have to admit it’s well done.

I missed the one-pager introduction that ShortForm has.

An audio version is available for every book. Like the other apps, it’s not human read, but it’s a generated voice.

Unique Content – Vote 8

Instaread clearly bets heavily on original content.

First of all (even tho’ it’s not unique), they have a large collection of article summaries from top publishers they’ve partnered with. This includes articles from The New York Times, Harvard Business Reviews, and many others.

On top of this, they have a lot of Instaread Originals. Short-form books on almost any subject. A strong area of attention seems to be biographies. They cover anyone from Kamala Harris to Jack Dorsey. They are usually well-done and insightful. Reading time for their originals averages on the 15 minutes mark.

Features – 6

They support both web and mobile with a pretty good app.

The reading experience is ok, even though moving from one chapter summary to the next could be better.

A unique feature of the mobile app is the Cards section, where you can read through cards, each containing a key takeaway from the book.

It’s not possible to save highlights from the summaries… this, for me, is a real deal-breaker.

Headway is a newcomer to this list, added in 2024. It’s becoming really popular and has an impressive growth.

Pricing starts at $14.99 per month, but, full disclosure: they were nice enough to give me a free account for this review.

I just discovered that as of January 2024, it’s being listed on AppSumo to purchase as a lifetime deal for $59. A true bargain if you end up liking the app. This is great news but also a bit scary… I’m often a bit skeptical of mature companies running lifetime deals… they are great when you get started as a marketing opportunity, but in the long run, they are not economically sustainable.

Headway has a very unique positioning within the book summary apps space. While competitors focus a lot on the core idea of book summaries, Headway wants to position itself as a personal growth tool with a lot of emphasis on self-assessment tests and reading lists based on which area you want to improve.

This approach is somehow refreshing, especially for users who are not book nerds with a long list of titles they want to read but rather have an objective they want to achieve.

Now, let’s see how it compares to the other tools in my four categories!

Catalog – 8

The catalog is large, even though it’s slightly skewed towards personal growth books. However, I found 7 out of the 12 books in my test list. It’s worth noting that 3 to 4 books in the list are very niche, and it’s not surprising that they’re not here.

Anyway, they keep adding new books quickly, and I found many relatively new books. It’s worth noting, however, that in the last few months, they appear to have reduced the pace of publishing.

Overall, I think it’s almost comparable to Blinkist and maybe larger than Shortform.

Quality – 6

This is probably the most disappointing part of Headway… it’s also very personal so you should decide by yourself: I don’t like too much their summaries.

The idea is good; for every book, they highlight some key concepts and you can read through each one of them to go more in-depth. Each point, on average, is longer than alternatives like Blinkist, but is nowhere near the depth and quality of Shortform.

Very often, it seems more like a collection of quotes and sentences taken from the book rather than a straight-to-the-point summary. 

The idea of having one or more key concepts within each chapter that you can easily save and then access later in the form of a flash card is very nice. And effective when well executed. It’s not always the case.

As an example on a page from “AI Superpowers” about the AI revolution and how it will eliminate manual laborers, the key takeaway that you can save is: 

“The internet connects the world easily and quickly, creating an environment where ideas can be exchanged and discussed.”

This is completely off-point and obvious… thank you for reminding me what the internet is!

The quality varies a lot from book to book, and it’s often inconsistent.

Original Content – 4

Headway doesn’t produce original content, but I’m feeling generous, and I’ll consider as original content their effort in content curation.

They do have many guided “challenges” to learn something new. Each challenge has a duration of days, and each day it’ll recommend reading a specific book from a curated list to learn a new skill. It’s nice and well-curated.

They also produced some “Visual stories” for bestsellers. Think of them as Instagram stories for book summaries. There are few of them, and honestly, they are pointless. Here’s an example:

Can you see the problem? it looks half-baked. The text is small for the amount of space available but most of all… the illustration is nice but completely useless to help you better understand the concept.

I think this is a big missed opportunity. Some people need visuals to learn new concepts. And an Infographic-like approach could have helped a lot differentiate Headway from competitors. These illustrations are nice but don’t add anything in terms of value.

Features – 5

The app is overall okay but doesn’t shine.

It has a nice UI in category pages, but I don’t love the reading interface… it’s too minimal and with little control over fonts.

One key feature that is missing is a web version; I get it… their approach is so unique it needs to be mobile first. On the other hand, now and then, I find it useful to access book summaries from the web browser too. Especially for copying and pasting to take notes.

Notes are the other issue I have with the App. While Headway lets you highlight and store text, everything remains within the app. As of now, there’s no integration with ReadWise or Notion.

Mentorist is a new entry I’ve discovered in January 2023.

It has a unique twist. Their focus is not only on summarizing books but more on helping you execute what you learn.

I can relate to the core value proposition of this app. Way too many people use the number of books they read in a year as their key metric rather than focusing on really understanding the book and taking action.

That’s what intrigued me the most about this app. Let’s see if it lived up to its promises.

Catalog – 5

The catalog here is very limited. Out of the 12 books in my basket, I was only able to find 3, the most popular ones, and focused on self-growth. Quite surprisingly, they didn’t even have “No rules rule” which is very popular.

A back of the napkins calculation based on their books page as of March 2022, shows only 182 books in their catalog.

Somehow this was expected, Metorist launched later compared to its competitors in the book summary space, and clearly, it still has to build its catalog.

The good note is that since I’ve signed up to the service, they’ve been adding 2 to 4 books every week and the browsing of the catalog is very pleasant with a lot of curated collections.

What can I say… it’s acceptable but not great. The summaries are very short, divided into short pages. Most books range from 10 to 20 pages, and there’s a bit of inconsistency among the length of the pages from one book to another.

What I did like about Mentorist is the audio summary. It’s usually in the 20-minute range, and finally, it’s not recorded by a robotic voice but read by a human being. Overall listening to the summaries has been quite a pleasant experience.

Personally, I think I’d use it to understand if I want to buy and read the full version of a book or to read something I’m not really interested in. For something that I care about, the summaries are too short.

Unique Content – 0

Right now Mentorist doesn’t have any unique content and they’re only focusing on summarizing popular books.

It’s a choice that somehow makes sense given they’ve chosen the app dynamics as a differentiator while other players in the space all have the same kind of app and are trying to diversify themselves more based on the catalog and their unique content catalog.

Features – 8

Feature-wise, Mentorist built a pretty good App to consume summarized books. As you can see it support dark mode and overall it’s always pretty fast and responsive.

The thing that I like the least is the reading experience. Instead of a full-page reader, it opens the summary in a relatively small window.

Highlights work very well with a dedicated page to check them and the capability to set reminders to read them again and set aside some time to brainstorm.

Finally, at the end of each book’s summary page, there’s an actionable takeaway that you can add to your list. It only takes one click and comes with some quick steps to execute it.

Once added you’ll be asked what’s the objective you want to achieve with that specific takeaway and you’ll receive reminders.

You can also log your progress and add notes.

Overall it’s a very good app with a strong idea behind it.

Good enough to forget about the small catalog and the mid-quality summaries? Not for me. I don’t think a “todo-list” tied to a book summary will make much of a difference for me. But if they improve the quality and the catalog they might be on the right path to have real differentiation in this market.

Other Book Summary Websites

There are a lot of other players in the space. I’ve tried a bunch of them, like 12min , Perlego , and ReadinGraphics for visual learners.

All of these websites offer their own take in the “app that summarizes books” space. I don’t think it’s worth mentioning them in this comparison because of their catalog size.

It’s gonna be interesting to revisit them in a year (yes, I promise I’ll keep this updated at least yearly) and see which one increased its catalog the most to become more appealing.

What’s gonna happen to the book summaries space?

My personal take is that this space is too crowded with very little differentiation between players.

Adding more books, of course, is the best way to get more customers. On the other side once all the best-sellers are covered, scaling up the number of summaries for niche books might be too expensive compared to the number of potential customers they could bring in.

This might also open opportunities for smaller players that focus on a specific niche. As an example, I’d be 100% happy to signup even at a premium price to a service specialized in marketing books.

The other question mark is legal. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know if book summaries are legal or not. For sure, things are changing. A few years ago, all the services were using original covers of the books. Nowadays, no one does.

For sure, there’s a level of risk involved in this business, and should the space become big enough, publishers could partner with these apps or go hard against them and keep all the pie for themselves.

Finally, another potential disruption to this industry could be AI and, specifically GPT-3. This new system has already proven to be able to write books… it’s gonna be relatively simple to use it to write book summaries at scale and with good consistency.

The Best Book Summary App in 2024

Guess it’s time to declare a winner.

Let’s go by exclusion!

getAbstract … sorry not my cup of tea. I loved the fact that you were the only ones not forcing me to insert the credit card to join the trial… but your catalog is just not a good fit for my interests.

Mentorist … The idea behind it it’s nice, helping you put into practice what you learn. But the catalog and the summary length are not where they should be right now.

Headway… It’s a missed opportunity. They have the unique concept of focusing more on a personal-growth path rather than just book reviews. It remains an idea poorly executed.

Instaread … well played with original contents and article summaries, but you didn’t excel in the catalog or the summary quality so I don’t see a reason to sign up; I’m canceling my trial, but you could be a good fit for many.

Blinkist …size does matter. And when it comes to the books that I care about, they have the largest database. However, quality matters the most for me, that’s why in the 2022 update, I’ve moved Blinkist to the second spot. Their summaries are just too short for me. They don’t have the best mobile App. Overall, the quality is consistent, and it’s reasonably priced.

ShortForm … It’s my winner for the 2024 edition of this post. The catalog is not yet where I’d love it to be, but it keeps growing, the app is great. They let me download PDF versions of the summaries, and the quality of the summaries is just great. By far the only ones that can really replace reading the full book and passing enough information to make it actionable. It’s more expensive, but it’s a price I’m more than happy to pay for the value I’m getting.

Taking everything into account, ShortForm is the winner of my roundup of the best book summary websites in 2024.

Conclusions

That’s it for this year. It was a tight Blinkist vs Short Form battle, but in the end, to call a winner, I just went with the one I keep using way more often. If you want to pick just one app go for ShortForm , you won’t regret it. If you can afford to spend a bit more, add Blinkist to the mix to get a quick overview on a broader number of books.

I hope I have helped you save some time and money by picking the best tool among all the book summary sites.

Now, it’s up to you to decide if reading book summaries is good enough for you. I still have mixed feelings about it and wish I had more time to read the full-length books. Unluckily, I don’t, and I found these summaries to be useful when there’s something I know I would not love to read, but would still be valuable for my personal growth.

Did I forget some Apps in this roundup? If there’s any service worth testing that I didn’t mention, just let me know in the comments below and I’ll be happy to add it.

Bonus Tip: Book Summary Apps coupon code

Nah, I’m just kidding. I don’t have any coupon code. BUT…

I have a couple of tips to save some money when subscribing to most of these apps.

First of all, wait for the full length of your trial. Some of them might send you a 10% discount if you upgrade to a paid plan earlier.

Second, signup through their websites, not the mobile app. This is for a couple of reasons:

• Some websites have popups that offer a 10% discount if you sign up for a trial
• Some Apps actually have different pricing if you subscribe on the browser or on mobile. Mobile is usually expensive (because of % they have to pay Apple and Google)

Finally, even if you should not do it, if you live in Europe with the current crazy EUR/USD exchange rate, you might want to use a VPN and sign up in $ masking your connection as a US resident. I use TunnelBear for this usually.

Massimo Chieruzzi

I'm Massimo and I run this blog. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none, juggling between startups, marketing, and product. You might know me as the co-founder of AdEspresso and Breadcrumbs. This blog is my playground where I build stupid tools to solve everyday marketing problems and experiment with the latest marketing tactics!

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23 comments.

July 26, 2022

Hey Massimo! First of all, congrats on the excellent post! Strict to the point, you reviewed what really matters. I want to ask you if you have ever heard/tried Accel5, from EBSCO? Their content seems niched for me, but I've found some engaging titles there and also liked the quality of the first summary I got. Have a nice week Best, Thiago

July 27, 2022

Thanks for pointing that out Thiago, I had never heard of them but the catalog looks interesting enough, I'll try to check them out in the near future!

August 13, 2022

I really love your breakdown here. For me Shortform is also the clear winner. One thing to keep in mind which is a bit unfortunate is that in recent months shortform decided to stick to publishing new summaries exclusively as 1-page summaries. In the past the 1-page summary was the brief introduction and you could read the whole deep dive afterwards. Now there is no deep dive anymore which unfortunately brings it down to the level of blinkist because I feel like I'm missing out on the detailed analysis...

September 5, 2022

Hey Timon, Yeah, that's an unfortunate choice even tho' I get the rationale behind it from an economic standpoint :( I'll reach out to them to get more insights and update the post. I'm also afraid the decision was based on monitoring users' behavior and realizing that most users were stopping at the 1 pager. Still, I find their one-pager way more in depth and well done than Blinkist. Ciao! Max

August 16, 2022

Why isn’t summary.com listed in this comparison?

Hey Ryan, Good catch, I had never heard of it, I'll check it out and update the post! Max

October 29, 2022

Nice! I'd like to publish a translation of this article in my site. I think my readers will enjoy what you have to say. Is it possible? :)

Yes as long as you give credit and link the original article on top of your translated one :)

I really really loves reading this blog post. Very insightful abd thank you for the time you took to put this together. I never wrote s feedback on a blog before but here you go, this one is just wow. Loved it. I'll sign up to one of these apps.

November 7, 2022

November 17, 2022

Would love to hear your thoughts on Headway - I'm about to end my trial and enjoyed the summary I read but obviously I want the best app possible.

December 5, 2022

I'll try to add Headway in my next review of this post for 2023 :)

January 24, 2023

Thanks for a very thorough write up. Is there anyway to find out if a specific book is covered PRIOR to signing up for Blink or Shortform.? Do they have a public index?

January 25, 2023

Hey Neil, It's a bit tricky but you can. For Shortform, here you'll find a list of books by genre. Those with the button "Read full summary" are in their library. For Blinkist just use their top navigation under Explore :)

April 15, 2023

I'm so excited to read this one. It's wonderful!!

Book summaries

May 17, 2023

May 18, 2023

No sorry, I'm planning to go multi-language at some point, also your blog seems to be in english :)

September 28, 2023

Thank you so much for this excellent source of info on summary apps. I am now 70 yo and just do not want to waste my time and funds at this point. You have helped me!

November 30, 2023

Glad to hear that Paula!!

February 4, 2024

where is the summary of this page? kidding..thanks for great review. usually such comparison reviews have a comparison table at the bottom with a full view across all apps and ratings. helps to see a bigger picture?

ahahhaha that's a great point thanks! I'll try to add it asap, over time this review has become huge :)

March 5, 2024

This post was AMAZING!!! I wish you had a review on literally everything! Thank you for taking the time to update this annually. This space is growing and being able to come to a trusted source for the best option saved me much appreciated time and money! Your thorough, helpful, and reliable all key qualities that seem difficult to find these days🤍

March 8, 2024

Wow, this was incredibly thorough and helpful. I also subscribe to shortform but was wondering if there was anything out there with comparable summary quality and a lower price. Now, I'm happy to stay with them :)

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Book Review & Recommendation App Development – Cost and Key Features

Here, we are discussing book review app development, its market stats, required features, and the cost involved in the book recommendation app.

“Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.” – E.B. White

Which reader on Earth doesn’t have this habit of recommending their latest read to their friends?  Well, everyone does. If you read a lot or anyone from your circle is into this, then you know that urge to always share the latest read.  

In a world where everyone is too occupied with their lives, friends who recommend some good reads and amazing quotes are saviors. They do not just save your time but help you grow so much. 

Sadly, not all are so blessed! (**SAD**)

How amazing would it be if you have an application that can be your friend when in need? A book reading and recommendation application can make things easier for you. 

See, technology can even get you a friend without requiring you to talk to real people. All you need here is to build a solution that can understand user interest and suggest the most read books similar to the interests. 

That sounds like an idea, isn’t it? Simply, develop book review app that can help you mark a strong presence in the market. 

If you are looking forward to entering the market with a solution that can help readers find the right books and track their latest read then, there are just a few things you need to consider. 

You may also like: How to Develop an Attractive Best-Selling Reading App?

The market , most popular book review and recommendation apps , interesting aspects of a book review and recommendation application , cost of book review and recommendation app development , wrapping it all.

Yes, before you develop the application a quick idea of who would be using it. Well, as discussed. It is everyone who wants to read but can’t make enough time for the same. We are not only working on an app idea, we are talking about a solution here that would help so many people reform their lives and spend some time doing what they love no matter how occupied they are. 

It is not that we are building something out of the world, but yes with some interesting and engaging elements, we are bringing on the stage a solution that would stand out. 

Before we further talk about the book recommendation app development , here are a few samples that we can consider. 

When talking about the solutions that are interesting and engaging, we make sure that the features and functions are picked from the best in the market. Some of the applications that are developers rely on are: 

You can get tailored recommendations based on your preferred genres and previously read books with the Goodreads app. When seeing a recommendation, you can rate it or add it to your “Want to Read” list if you haven’t previously read it.

If you’re in a physical bookstore, the app also has a cover scanner, which is useful. If you see a book you like, skim the cover to see if there are any reviews on Goodreads for it.

On the Discover tab of Goodreads, you’ll find several lists to help you locate books. The app also includes reading challenges and giveaways, as well as the ability to invite friends or join groups to engage with other readers.

The application sends the user a selection of books to read each day, which can either be marked as read or save to read later. Under the Save section, one can see their stored books and, if there are already a few books on the to-read list, one can create new lists.

Not just this there is a Community option where you may browse or participate in discussions, ask for recommendations, and join groups in your favorite genres. 

Then there’s the Discover page, where you can spend hours browsing popular books and lists. Choose what you want to read and how interesting it is. You can even check the reviews to make sure that you are picking the book you love. 

The recommendations aren’t limited to books and this is one feature that our book suggestion app development team loves. You can also find some interesting movies, web series that people with similar tastes may suggest. 

Inkitt is an excellent tool for aspiring authors who have recently published a book or are presently working on one and are looking for feedback. On this app, you’ll find nearly every genre imaginable, so there’s something for everyone.

When you tell the app your preferred genres, it will automatically suggest one or two novels that it believes you’ll enjoy. After you’ve finished reading a tale, you can leave a comment, like, or a full review.

You can also read and access books offline while you’re away from home by downloading them for free.

Overall, this app is fantastic for discovering niche options from smaller authors you might not have heard of before. The book review app development team does take care of the application when they are building their database. 

BookSloth 

BookSloth allows you to browse through curated lists and receive customized suggestions based on your preferences. Then you can keep track of all the books you’ve read or wish to read in the future, write reviews for them when you’re finished, and even work toward exciting in-app achievements.

You may also build a profile on the app and connect with people who appreciate similar genres and authors to you. If you don’t want to friend anyone, you can still engage with the community by participating in book discussions or joining book clubs.

Bookshelf won’t provide you with tailored recommendations, but its Explore page has a lot to look through. You can search for books by category to find a wide range of selections, such as Crime & Thriller, Food & Drink, Romance, Sport, and more. Then, once you’ve decided on a category, you may narrow down your possibilities even more by choosing a subsection.

Each category would feature around 60 of the best-selling books in that genre at any given time. Although you won’t be able to read reviews for each book, you will be able to see the overall rating.

While you won’t be able to read reviews for each book, you will be able to see the number of reviews and star ratings for each of the 60 books in a category.

Your virtual bookshelf is one of the coolest features of this mobile application. You may add all of the books you’ve read and keep track of how much you enjoyed them using a five-star rating system, tags, and notes.

When you are looking forward to entering the market with a solution that can make things easier for you, all you need to do is think of a few points that would create a difference.

Related Post: How to Develop an Online Book Shopping Mobile App?  

Well, there are a lot of things that we plan on adding to your application. These interesting aspects are determined only to make the customer journey interesting and engaging. We understand making time to read a book is tough, but engaging with an application that can help you read is even tougher. 

(Reading Hard Copies Is Always a Preference)

Let’s talk about a few elements that would make your application stand out from the ones we have talked about. We would integrate all of them or some of them as per your need with our solutions. 

Want to Read Button 

This would be the basic feature of your application that would have to appear along with the screen as a sticky note when the user is browsing the list. We aren’t working here on creating a wishlist for your user to read in the future, instead we are here to help them read. Thus our mobile app developers integrate push notification alternatives that would remind the users of the books in the wishlist. 

Already Read

The application would not only be all suggestions and recommendations. It could be your personal space to keep a track of the books you’ve read so you can recall them quickly. Not just this, how amazing would it be if you could virtually invite your friends into your living room to debate the books on your shelves–all without leaving the comfort of your own warm fireplace.

Add Status to Your Book

When talking about reading, there are only three choices, you have either read the book, you are reading the book or you want to read the book in the near future. Well, this is only for the general public. A real bibliophile knows there are so many integral mid-stages like  “Abandoned,” “Did Not Finish,” or “Currently Listening” (for audiobooks).

Thus, there are a lot of alternatives that you can make a shelf for. The best part is you can add just one book at once, thus, till the status of book 1 on a particular shelf doesn’t change, there is no space to add another. 

Thus, you can not be listening to two books at once. At least on the application. This is only to encourage your readers to finish their read before they take something new. 

Set Goals and Track Progress

If you are a person who is very focused on your goals, then what better way to motivate yourself than to set up a reading goal and track progress? 

This would be an amazing way to keep the readers engaged and inspire them to read daily. Reading is a habit that is to be developed slowly and steadily. 

Enjoy Reading Challenges

A reading challenge with your friend would be fun. We make sure that the book reading and recommendation application brings to the screen a solution that can help you enjoy yourself with your friends. You can set up annual challenges and a number of books that you would read. 

Challenge your friends and let reading be contagious!

Link Amazon Account to Track Kindle 

How great would it be if your application can easily track what you are reading on Kindle? Well, Goodreads does that and we affirm integrating a similar feature with your application. This would make it easier for the Kindle readers to connect with your application. Also, do not forget to help the tribe know more about the book with honest and genuine reviews on Amazon and the application. 

See, tracking your Kindle reads becomes so easy! 

Make Tags to Keep Track of the Books 

The one who loves to read how dearly they treat their possessions. If you are looking forward to building an application where your audience can easily define the books they love, let them make cute tags. Also, it would be amazing if you can simply mark the books you can read to your kids, the ones they can act on, the ones you wish to re-read. There is a lot that you can do and these tags can make things really easy for you. Let one create tags for the books they are reading and the ones they are listening to. Shelves are exclusive by definition–books cannot be on more than one shelf at the same time. Shelves are labeled. Tags can have multiple books and mostly not labeled anything big. 

This would make it really easy for your readers to connect with the application and help them be in their best game always!

Share Your Highlights and Comments

Every person who reads has this habit of reading and has this quirky habit of noting down everything they like. They read a sentence they love that has to be noted down. Sometimes it could be a paragraph and at times the whole page. If you are looking forward to making the journey easier and more convenient for your readers, why not simply let them have a space where they can write and note down everything they love. Simple highlights and notes can make things really easy for the readers in a click. 

Make a Book Recommendation to a Buddy

Let your book reading and recommendation application be much more than a method to browse your friends’ bookshelves electronically. Our book reading and review app developers let you save and share your friends’ recommendations, so you’ll never be stuck for something to read next (think of the Want to Read shelf as your virtual TBR pile). Every book in the app and on the website has easy-to-find share symbols and buttons. If you want to ensure that a friend reads a book, simply recommend it to them through the app. They’re not going to lose the recommendation easily. And ideally, they’ll return the favor by reading one of your favorite books. 

Personalized Suggestions as per Your Genre 

Wouldn’t it be amazing if your reader gets a suggestion based on the previous reads? Well, our review and recommendation app development team would use readers’ ratings and shelves to provide book suggestions that are nearly as accurate as text messages from their best reading buddy advising you what book they should read next. 

Scan Book Covers and Barcodes 

By scanning book covers or barcodes, the book review and recommendation app allows you to add the books to your shelves in seconds. It would let you keep track of your reading progress, see what your friends are reading, and much more. You can reach the next solution that would make things easier to take them to the next level.

Have a Shelf Comparison with a Friend

When a book lover enters another friend’s home, they are immediately drawn to the bookshelves. Let the sleeves roll up and allow your readers to see what their friends are reading. We affirm that the solutions that are deployed help the reading community grow and have a solution to the smallest issues they have. 

(You can even compare your ratings in a compatibility test to see how closely your tastes match!)

Use Browser Extensions to Quickly Add Titles

It’s easy to become overwhelmed while reading a blog article or browsing a new booklist full of titles you want to research. To the rescue, browser extensions! To find a book on your application, right-click any highlighted text. If you’re buying on Amazon and want to keep the social side of the application, you can check ratings for each book as you explore. Additionally, while exploring Amazon, you can add any title to Goodreads instantly.

Related Post: Book Lending App Development – Cost and Key Features

Keep track of your reading statistics.

Tracking the reading log is a clear cheat for the readers if they’ve previously kept a paper booklog because it’s so simple. Even if you still keep a reading notebook or record your books in a bullet journal, you’ll be won over when you see the page count information it can show you off your reading habits. 

You can surely enjoy the pictorial reflection of the books and the tasks that you have accomplished. 

Social Media Integration

With a Social Media button integrated with your application, it becomes easier for you to share the book quoted in the paragraph the challenge with your friends. You can build a strong profile by even adding people to the platform and interacting with them as and when you want. 

These are some of the features that we think must be integrated with your book review and recommendation application that can help you stand out from the crowd. 

Another important aspect to talk about here is the cost of the development of such an application. 

When talking about the cost of book review and recommendation app development, there are a lot of things that you need to focus on. If you are looking forward to developing a solution that has simple features and can be accessed on limited devices, then the cost of development would be around $15k to $35k. 

If you are looking forward to building a solution that is ladened with advanced features and can help you be at the top of your business, then the cost of development would be around $55k to $65k. 

We understand the cost of development is a big talk, but affirm that Octal IT Solution offers you the best in the market price with some interesting perks and discounts. 

So, if you have decided to build a solution that is interesting and engaging and can help you stand the test of time then all you need is a team that can help you with a book review and recommendation app development.

We help you build solutions with advanced technology and interesting features. We understand that this isn’t the first of its kind but with our out-of-box ideas, we make sure that the solution that would be offered to you would stand out from the crowd. 

So, just put up your thinking hats and catch up with our team over some coffee to discuss your app idea today!

Kamal Kishor is a digital marketing enthusiast and a seasoned writer with a passion for exploring the dynamic world of technology. With a background in computer engineering, Kamal brings a unique blend of technical expertise and creative storytelling to his tech blog.

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book-review

Here are 15 public repositories matching this topic..., fkdl0048 / bookreview.

It's a repo that reads and organizes books

• Updated Apr 10, 2024

robinmetral / jekyll-book-review

📚 Book reviews for your Jekyll site, built for Minima

• Updated Sep 1, 2018

hydrospanner / cs50-book-reviews

book review website for CS-50 project 1

• Updated Jun 2, 2021

costinEEST / node-cookbook

• Updated Sep 6, 2022

momo02 / book-review-clean-code

Clean Code 개발 서적 리뷰 스터디

• Updated Mar 9, 2022

manjurulhoque / laravel-5.4-book-review-app

Laravel based book review app

• Updated Jul 4, 2017

subhodeeps / jekyll-bookworm

📚 A bookshelf and book review system for your Jekyll site, built for Minima (based on jekyll-book-review)

• Updated Oct 5, 2022

changjinhan / ChangjinHan.github.io

📝 논문,책 리뷰와 생각을 적는 블로그

• Updated Dec 30, 2023

ridwanzal / read-book-summary

List of books read and summary. Let's read more.

• Updated Mar 11, 2022

shz-code / bookify

Book Review App Using React Native, Redux and Firebase

• Updated Feb 28, 2024

technical-learn-room / clean-architecture-learn

Clean Architecture를 읽고 정리!

• Updated Jun 24, 2021

kizoey / book-personal-recommendation

[책] 개인화를 위한 추천 시스템

• Updated Nov 30, 2021

kizoey / book-nlp-bible

[책] 자연어처리바이블

• Updated Nov 29, 2021
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lisallreiber / dq_book-reviews

This repository contains a guided project from dataquest.

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costinEEST / rwd

Notes from "Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS, 4th Edition"

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Is tome. Your Secret to Finally Finishing Your Novel?

Emily Martin

Emily has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi, MS, and she has an MFA in Creative Writing from GCSU in Milledgeville, GA, home of Flannery O’Connor. She spends her free time reading, watching horror movies and musicals, cuddling cats, Instagramming pictures of cats, and blogging/podcasting about books with the ladies over at #BookSquadGoals (www.booksquadgoals.com). She can be reached at [email protected].

View All posts by Emily Martin

With NaNoWriMo starting at the beginning of November, now could be the perfect time to invest in a new app that promises to help you finally finish your novel. tome. was established in 2022 and promises to make writing more accessible to everyone. The program teaches you how to plan and write your novel and gives you the tools to motivate yourself to get it done.

But if you’re interested in trying out tome., you kinda have to go all-in. The app, unlike a lot of other apps in the market, does not offer a free trial. If you buy the app, you get access to it for life, but you do have to throw down around $100 right off the bat. So before you take that leap, you might want to know: Is tome. the kind of app that’s going to suit my needs? Will I really be able to finish writing my novel if I get this product? Will it help me come up with ideas? Spark my creativity?

Let’s take a closer look at the app and what it can and can’t do. Then you can decide if it’ll work out for you and your writing goals!

What is tome.?

tome. is an app you can use on your phone and/or on your computer. It was created by a small team of writers, writing instructors, and former writing professionals in the hopes of giving aspiring writers the tools to create and move forward with their novel projects.

Whether you already have a draft or you’re just starting out with your writing project, tome. promises to create a custom program designed to help you take your writing to the next level. After you purchase tome., the app guides you through a series of questions to get an idea of where you’re at in your project and what you need the most help doing. Do you need more ideas? Creative prompts? More motivation to just sit down and write? tome. has got you covered.

After you answer all of the questions, tome. will send you to your customized writing path. Because I can only see what my path looks like, I can’t say how customized each path will look or how different your path will look from mine. But mine includes seven steps towards a finished novel: getting started (getting acquainted with the toolkit and breaking down the basics of writing a novel); growing an idea (focusing on the fundamentals of story); turning an idea into a story; finding your story’s arc; from story to plot (crafting a story from the first to the last page); writing a (good) draft; and taking your novel to the next level (revision).

As you work through the program, you earn quills that let you move on to the next level of the program. You can skip around in some areas of the program. In others, the level is locked until you earn a certain amount of quills.

The app also includes a toolkit that you can visit with different writing prompts and tools to get you writing and motivated. If you purchase the extra packs that can come along with the main app, you’ll also get the Character Booster Pack (to help you work on developing characters, of course), The Plot Booster Pack, and the Publishing Booster Pack (which will help you navigate the world of publishing after you finish your book).

What tome. Can Do for You

I came into tome. with an idea for a novel but a serious case of writer’s block. I was hoping tome. would help break down the writing process into smaller bites to make it all feel less daunting. I was also hoping it would help keep me motivated and excited about the writing process. tome. does have the tools to help with both of these things.

What’s interesting about tome. is that it’s both a writing course and an app to get you writing. So, as you’re working on your project, you’re also learning about what makes a good novel and how to get your project there. Sometimes, you’ll be given writing assignments that are directly related to your book project. Sometimes, you’ll be doing brainstorming activities just to get your brain thinking about writing and how writing works.

For instance, toward the beginning of my writing course, tome. had me list some of my favorite novels and then asked me to think about the characters’ primary goal, the main conflict/obstacle of the story, and what’s at stake if the protagonist doesn’t get what he or she wants. This isn’t directly working towards writing my own novel, but it’s supposed to get me thinking about how novels work and how to craft a story that will pull readers through.

What Tome. Can’t Do For You

Sorry, but tome. can’t force you to sit down and write if you continue to let life get in the way. My main struggle with writing my novel has been shutting out the outside world and just sitting down to write already. tome. does send me daily emails to remind me to log into the app, but I’m pretty good at ignoring emails. If tome. could start sending someone to my house to force me to sit down in a chair, that might be the literal push I need. But since I don’t see that happening any time soon, I think tome. could offer a few pushes/reminders that are a bit more in-your-face to get people writing. I’m thinking about Duolingo and how the little widget on my phone just looks more and more annoyed the longer I go without practicing Japanese. A text reminder would also be harder to ignore than an email.

If you’re looking for a writing course that’s more audio/visual and less text-based, tome. is not that. All of the lessons revolve around reading and writing. There’s not really anything you have to watch or listen to. Depending on how you learn, this can be good or bad. For me, I prefer to read and write, so I enjoyed this style, of course.

tome. is an app that syncs across multiple devices, but depending on what kind of devices you’re using, it might not be compatible with all of yours. I currently have the tome. app on my iPhone, and I can also run the web app on my computer. However, the downloadable desktop app is not compatible with my MacBook, unfortunately. It’s nice to have the iPhone option for reading lessons, but doing some of the longer writing prompts would be annoying (to me) on a phone, so I’m glad I at least have access to the web app.

Should You Try tome.?

Should you try tome.? It kind of depends. Do you find writing prompts helpful? Or are you the kind of person who likes to fly solo? If you’ve written a few novels before, you might find the first few steps a little basic. Then again, your customized version of the app might look different than mine. If you’ve been wanting to try a writing app, then I say go for tome.! The interface is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use, and the app empowers you to get work on your novel done every day, whether it’s writing many pages or just doing a few brainstorming exercises.

Just remember: no app is going to write your novel for you. You still have to make the time to do it yourself.

Looking for more app reviews and recommendations? We’ve got so many for you to check out !

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