The Buddy System
BookBuddy

A reading journal, an illustrated shelf, and your Year in Books

Reading trackers count books. BookBuddy is a reading journal that happens to count books: a chronological feed of notes, quotes and half-formed thoughts, with guided prompts for the nights you've got nothing.

$5 once on the App Store · from $10/year on the web · 7-day free trial

BookBuddy on iPhone

What you get

  • A chronological journal feed, grouped by day
  • Guided prompts and mood tags instead of a blank page
  • An illustrated shelf with a procedurally drawn spine per book
  • Open Library search and cover autofill
  • A Year in Books report you can share

Two ways to use it

iPhone & iPad
One-time purchase, no account
$5
Any browser
Cancel any time
$1/mo
or $10/yr
Start a free trial

All five apps together: $3/month, or $30/year

A look inside

BookBuddy: The journal feed
The journal feed
BookBuddy: The illustrated shelf
The illustrated shelf
BookBuddy: Year in Books
Year in Books
BookBuddy: Insights
Insights
BookBuddy: The TBR planner
The TBR planner
BookBuddy: Reading days
Reading days

The bits worth explaining

Chronology beats a bookshelf

The journal is a feed you flip through, newest last, the way a paper reading journal works. Finished-book browsing lives on the Shelf, so the journal stays a record of what you were thinking that week.

Prompts for the empty nights

A blank page is why reading journals die in March. Every entry can start from a rotating prompt, carry a mood emoji, and be a note, a quote or a full review. A one-line quote is a perfectly good entry.

A shelf that looks like a shelf

Every book gets a spine drawn from a stable seed (height, colour, banding) so your shelf is recognisably yours. Flip to real covers from Open Library whenever you want.

Your Year in Books

A story-style report: books, pages, hours, busiest month, top genres and authors, your reading personality, a Book of the Year, and monthly favourites, with a share card at the end.

Get BookBuddy

Buy it once on iPhone, or run the full web version in any browser.