Shelfy: Book Tracker & TBR

I rarely write reviews, but I have to. This app is incredible. It combines my favorite things, reading and trackers. Currently ive been recovering from surgery and without a job, that means a Ton of free time, to do anything. Honestly, I say get the app, You get a cute bookshelf, you can track your owned, want to own, borrowed, to reads, have finished, did not finishs, all of it, you get to know how long you spend reading, your page per hour average, the amount of pages youve read in total. And thats just some of what exists now! The creators are constantly taking time to update it based on what people suggest, in the app theres a way to leave a suggestion, you can also email them directly, and they actually listen! If theres a bug, they listen! Ive used so many apps and played so many games where creators will just abandon the project seemingly, or at least dont bother to listen to their community, this app is not one of those. They LISTEN. If youre on the fence, GET IT, besides you can cancel any time, id say its worth to at least test it out for a month, but i think youll find you want it forever.

So I’m going to write a review now so I don’t forget to, and I’ll update my review as I use the app more as it’s only been a few days. So far I really like it. I love having the bookshelf and being able to customize it. I’ve had some issues with the sorting where I sort by authors last name and some books won’t group together but it’s really no biggie. I think my main complaint is the discover section, which I was most excited for. I love that it tells me what book I’ve already read that the suggested book is similar to, but the description of the book doesn’t help much. Also, it just likes to show me the same books over and over which was disappointing. Other than that, I find it’s been motivating me to read a lot more :) it’s very user friendly and aesthetically pleasing as well.

I downloaded the app because I have been wishing for something like this as an alternative to Goodreads. I love the premise. I was annoyed that the entire app locks down after setup unless you agree to a 3 day free trial. The App Store said I would have to cancel 1 day before my subscription renewed, so that’s really only two days free. I can’t even explore the app without agreeing to these terms. The nail in the coffin is that when I searched a pretty popular book, it was not even in the system. I could not add the most recent book I read. What is the point of the app if I can’t even add the books I just read? Note to the developers: I see the arguments you are making about a subscription being the only way for you to keep it ad-free. I get it. You need to make money for your hard work. Please hear from your target audience: we would like an option with ads so that we can try before committing to a subscription. If you can fix that and also make it so the books your users are reading will show up in your system, I would be willing to try again. I probably would end up subscribing, but under the current circumstances, I will be deleting the app. Best wishes on your brilliant app! Please let me know if it becomes more user friendly!