Recently I’ve been reading a lot to get ahead of my assigned books for my literature classes this year, and I wanted to share about the app I use to track my progress.

Storygraph is similar to Goodreads, without all the unnecessary drama. It allows you to track reading progress and gives you fun little statistics sections so you can get an overview of your books.

I’ve been using it for a few years now, but I think it is especially important after the recent controversy on Goodreads with the review bombing scandal. It’s a shame to have occurred, and it’s even more unfortunate that so little was done about the entire thing, especially as POC writers were targeted most.

Storygraph is focused less on hype and promoting books based on other popular trends, and more about tracking what you want to read! It’s super customisable, and fun to look back on at the end of the year.

This is not a sponsored post, I just love the platform and wish more people would use it!

For example, here are my stats from 2023:

I originally had it at 30 books for the year, but while working on my literature degree I had to read so many that I smashed the target in no time. So I added another ten books for a challenge, and managed to hit that too!

Don’t feel pressured to make this too high though, and don’t feel bad if you don’t hit your targets. Life happens, the important thing is that you’re reading!

You can also assign page number targets too if you’re interested in that.

Here is a cute pie chart of the main moods I assigned to the books I read.You can see that I have a preference for unique, emotional, dark and reflective stores that make me think more about the story itself or the world around me.

The app also records ‘Pace’ and ‘Page Number’ so you can again see what you gravitate towards. The Fiction/Non-Fiction section is cool too, and I definitely would like to read more non-fiction in the coming year.

Onto genre! I’ll be honest, this was a little surprising and yet fun to see. I didn’t realise I was so interested in Thrillers and Sci-Fi, but it was cool to see. I also liked being introduced to new genres such as Magical Realism, so I’ll look for more books like that in future as well.

Another great feature is the year-long spread of your reading habits. You can see that I was exhausted with reading by June!

I like seeing how my habits changed, and it surprised me to see how many books I was able to read in August and December – though I was definitely using these months to catch up or get ahead of my assigned readings haha!

Lastly, you can of course rate every book you read, and I really appreciate the .25 star difference that you can give to each book. This year I’ll be thinking about my rankings a lot more, because I think I gave a lot of books 3 and 4 stars simply because it was easier.

Nonetheless, it’s good to see that for the most part I am enjoying the books I’m reading.

So, do you use any kind of app to track your reading and habits? If not, why don’t you give this a go – it’s free to sign up, and super fun to use.

Oh and I forgot the best part! Like any good internet-savvy app, it gives you a spread of all the books you read in the year to wrap up. Take a look at my 2023 list, and let me know what your favourite reads of the year were!