The StoryGraph

By FPL_Amy

The StoryGraph

The StoryGraph, opens a new window is a newish book website and app that combines some of my favorite book features into one place. Not only does it track your reading and incorporates a social component where you can discuss books with other bibliophiles, but it also features robust reading stats, reading challenges, and personalized reading suggestions. If this sounds like your jam, keep reading for a more in-depth look at these unique features.

Reading Stats

I love Love LOVE tracking my reading throughout the year. I want to know everything about my reading habits and The StoryGraph allows me to do this. Not only can I track the number of books and pages read, but I can track genre, pacing, moods, formats, average ratings, and more. You can also narrow down your stats by month, year, or all-time. It’s a book nerd’s dream!

Reviews

The StoryGraph also approaches reviews in a thoughtful way. When reviewing a book, you can rate from 1-5 stars and you’re able to give half and quarter stars (something I personally love). In addition to rating the book and writing a review they also ask you insightful questions that are used to power their personalized reading recommendations and stats. The review includes questions about mood and pacing, and they ask you to describe the book’s themes, topics, and tropes with 1-5 key words. It also gives you the opportunity to add a content warning about the book to help people make more informed decisions.

Reading Challenges

My newest obsession is the ability to create and join reading challenges. I love participating in reading challenges and this year, in addition to joining different challenges, I also created my own. (Looking for fun reading challenges to participate in this year? Check out my previous blog for inspiration., opens a new window) In The StoryGraph I was able to create a list with each of my reading prompts for my challenge and I can decide to make it public or private. As I read a book that fits one of the prompts, I’m able to mark it as completed in my reading challenge. I can also join other challenges and other people can join my challenge. The StoryGraph tracks my progress in each of my challenges and I can also see what books other participants read to complete each reading prompt.

Buddy Read

They also have a cool feature called “buddy read.” This is where you can choose a book and a buddy to read it with. There’s nothing worse than reading a book and having no one to discuss it with. With this feature, you’ll never have this problem again. You choose your reading buddies and an end date to get started.

Recommendations

The StoryGraph also offers personalized recommendations based off what you are reading. Not only does it suggest similar titles based on the usual criteria of genre and themes, but it also looks at pacing and mood. It also has a search feature for reading recommendations where you can filter your search by mood, pace, genre, and the number of pages. I especially love the page number and pace options, because sometimes I’m looking for a short read or a book that has fast pacing, so it feels shorter than it is. This feature is especially helpful in narrowing this down.

Importing Bookshelves

If you’re using Goodreads and don’t want to lose all your shelf information, one helpful feature of The StoryGraph is that you can import your Goodreads shelves and reviews to The StoryGraph. This was super helpful when getting started and helped me maintain consistency across both platforms.