Goodreads is perhaps the most well-known place for cataloging books, leaving reviews, searching for recommendations and connecting with other readers and authors. The website has over 150 million members and is known as the world’s “largest community of readers.” In many ways, this is true; it’s the leading site, and because it’s so well known, new readers gravitate toward the webpage because it’s seemingly the best option.
However, I’m here to tell you that Goodreads is not the only option. Sure, it’s got a great interface. If you want a comprehensive review of a book, a couple-sentence summary or even a star rating, you’ll find it. If you want to browse thousands of curated recommendations, Goodreads has your back. If you’re going to enter a giveaway to receive a free, unreleased novel, they have it. Goodreads isn’t bad, but there are other options out there that may have been overlooked by the mainstream book community.
StoryGraph was founded in 2019 by Nadia Odunayo as a companion app to the much more popular Goodreads. After building the app, she realized that there was greater potential to expand its features. When you first open Goodreads, you’re taken to the homepage with a stream of updates from your friends and the people you follow. When you first open StoryGraph, however, you see your “Current Reads,” a selection of your “To-Read Pile,” “Recommendations” and “Popular This Week.”
What truly sets StoryGraph apart for me is its extensive “Reading Stats” page. To start, you can classify what data you see by the books you’ve read, your “to be read,” books you did not finish and the books you own. On top of that, you can sort by month and year, so once you’ve used the app for a while, it’s super cool to see your reading history and how it’s changed by the numbers.
Also included on the statistics page are your reading goals for the year, pie charts of your book moods, paces, page count (or audiobook length), the fiction vs. nonfiction books you’ve read and format (print, audiobook or digital). There are also bar graphs showing the genres you’ve read, your most-read authors and your ratings for each book. My favorite line graph shows the number of books read, pages read and minutes listened by month. I love looking back on the year and seeing the dips and peaks of my reading habits – I read a lot more over the summer than in the winter, so the graph visualizes those practices. StoryGraph also has premium features if you’re looking for an even more in-depth analysis of your reading. I’ve never felt the need to purchase, but I can see the appeal.
If you click on an individual book, StoryGraph offers a lot of information that is not traditionally indicated on Goodreads. You can see multiple genres that a book fits into (for example, a fantasy book can also be a romance or a young adult book), the moods (emotional, sad, lighthearted, dark, mysterious…) and the book’s pace. In addition, content warnings submitted by users as a part of their reviews are available if you have particular triggers, which I think is super informative.
StoryGraph is also experimenting with AI, which I know everyone has their own opinions about. While ideally, as a user, I would prefer human-written previews of books, I know it would be impossible for such a small team to write millions upon millions of overviews; what’s cool about this specific use is the personalized preview, which actually takes into account your reading history when previewing the book for you.
As a user, I have accounts on both Goodreads and StoryGraph, but as a data girly, the latter is my preferred site. To be honest, I only use Goodreads because my friends also have accounts; I like seeing their updates, commenting when they finish books and exploring their TBR lists. If they also made the move, I think I would find myself using just the one website. That’s why I’m making the case here — start using StoryGraph!!