Here’s an unpopular opinion: Goodreads has never been my cup of tea.

Personally, I find the platform a little too noisy and cluttered for my liking. Star ratings hold so much weight because it’s generally the first thing you see when you search up a book. So even if I don’t know anything about the title, if I see a rating below 4 ✨, it unconsciously pushes me away from it. Which is unfortunate, because I can’t count the times I’ve gone into a bookstore, bought something I’ve never heard of before, end up really liking it, only to see it has a 3.5 rating on Goodreads. If I searched it up first and saw that rating, I might have never read some of my favorite books.

via GIPHY

Although that’s one of the main things people want from a book platform like that, personally I think it just takes away the experience of forming my own opinions of a book.

I’ve always tried to get on it (and I do actually have an account), but it’s not something I enjoy updating, or even opening as a platform. I felt like it was just the thing to do as a book blogger.

Which is why I’m so happy to have stumbled upon this little platform called Storygraph, which is still on the Beta stage while the developers and the team behind it iron everything out. But despite that, I’m already so much happier on it than on other bookish platforms!

(This is not an ad. I assure you I am in no way affiliated to Storygraph as of writing. I’m just a really big fan of the work they do, and I think a lot more people should know it!)

Alright, so let’s split this up and zoom in on Storygraph’s features and some of the most important aspects of a book tracker / recommendations platform:

Interface

Storygraph definitely takes on a more minimalist approach to, not just the design of the platform/app, but the system itself. It takes out the unnecessary clutter that you don’t really need in getting to know a book recommended to you. Visually, it just presents you with the essentials: a synopsis, key themes, and what the community thinks below, including the star rating.

This design and arrangement lets the books speak for themselves from the get-go with only the essential information at the top. And then if you want to know more, you can scroll down to see content warnings, reviews, relevant questions, and “moods” (which play a very big part in Storygraph’s whole system).

If you want to add your own review to books, it will also ask you basically the same things you see on the book’s page. The mood, the pace, etc. But the most exciting part is that its star rating actually has .5 and .25 options for more accurate reviews! 🤩

Community

The community aspect in Storygraph takes a bit of a step back compared to Goodreads, in a way that it’s a lot more “background” and un-intrusive. From the get-go, the home page is very personal to you and your reading habits, and review tabs under books will only be visible if you click on it. But, if you want to check in on the community, there’s also a tab for “Reading Challenges” (open to everyone), and a “Community” tab to see what others are reading.

The Storygraph page on Instagram is also very engaging, and the community there definitely feels alive and gets me excited to read more and talk about books!

….MOODS

Moods are definitely the main differentiating feature in Storygraph. As soon as you sign up for an account, the system asks you what you’re in the mood to read for (emotional, adventure, fast-paced, genre, etc…) and base your recommendations on that. So instead of getting books based on what everybody thinks, it will give you titles that fit your criteria, and you can judge it from there.

At the end of each month or each year, you can look at your statistics and find out what moods dominated your reading pile, among other things. I absolutely adore this feature as it allows me to really discover titles I might have never thought of picking up simply because I’ve never heard of them before. It also puts a fun and unique twist on building your TBR which you can arrange based on your mood, pace, content, and other things.

The Verdict: Get it

If you’re like me, and you just want to discover titles on your own but still have a guide, this is definitely a good one to check out. It’s clean, it’s functional, and it’s an alternative to a massive platform that as good as monopolized the book community. This might be good if you want to change it up!

As I mentioned, the current platform is still on the Beta stage but everything is functional from the website to the downloadable app. I just want to put that out there if you’re uncomfortable with downloading an app from the browser, instead of the App Store or Play Store. But hey, it works on my Huawei phone and it’s not giving me any problems! I hope that puts you at ease a bit. ☺️

🎉 And if you need one more thing to sell you on this platform, it imports your Goodreads Data so you don’t have to start over or leave your tracker behind! 🎉

I’m so excited to witness and experience Storygraph’s growth through time, and judging from their latest updates, we’re in for a pretty good ride!

I hope I see you on Storygraph soon! Follow me on @skimmingspines 👋🏼

If you want to know more about Storygraph, check them out at http://thestorygraph.com/index.html.

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Let me know what you think!

• Do you use platforms like Goodreads to track your reading and bulk up your TBR?