Mood Reader: Books

A book recommender that reads the shape of a reading life, not a five-star average. Tell it what you're in the mood for, in plain language. It answers.

Mood Reader is a book recommendation app that starts from a different question. Not what other people rated a book. Not what an algorithm decided is popular right now. It asks what a reader is in the mood for — in plain language — and returns books that match the shape of that answer.

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Three things it does

1. Semantic prompts Describe what to read in plain language. "Something quiet and observant." "A romance that isn't formulaic." "Whatever will pull me out of a slump." Mood Reader returns books that match the description, ranked by fit to taste rather than by crowd rating.

2. Self Portrait A written reading of the reader — generated from the shape of a library and the reflections left along the way. Not a personality quiz. Not a genre list. Not a score. A close reading of what books, together, reveal about a reader.

3. Ambient recommendations As a library grows and one-sentence reflections accumulate, Mood Reader learns and surfaces books that fit what comes next. Every recommendation arrives with a short rationale for why it fits.

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An independent app, built to be worth using

No investors. No acquisition target. No ad SDKs, no analytics tools, no advertising identifiers. Mood Reader stores what a reader tells it, and nothing else. Reading history stays with the person who created it.

Built by one person in Washington State.

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Import from what already exists

Full library imports work from Goodreads exports and Kindle libraries. Shelf photos work as a fast on-ramp. Ten favorite books is enough to start recommending. Deeper imports sharpen the results but aren't required.

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Reflections instead of star ratings

Star ratings summarize a book but don't say much about a reader. A one-sentence reflection ("surprised me by how much I cared about the sister") gives Mood Reader far more signal than five stars alone. Reflections stay in the reader's Master Library and shape both Self Portrait and future recommendations.

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Free at launch. iOS 18 or later. iPhone only.

Support: hello@moodreaderapp.com