A Chat with Nadia from The StoryGraph!

Summary

Podcast Summary: A Chat with Nadia from The StoryGraph Book Talk, etc. – Episode Released January 14, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of Book Talk, etc., hosts Tina (@tbretc) and Hannah (@hanpickedbooks) welcome Nadia Oduayo, the founder and CEO of The StoryGraph. The conversation delves deep into Nadia’s journey, the evolution of The StoryGraph, its unique features, and the role of AI in enhancing the reading experience.

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Nadia’s Background and the Genesis of The StoryGraph

Nadia shares her entrepreneurial journey, starting with her initial side project during university—a creative writing publication also named StoryGraph. After winning grants and briefly maintaining the project, it lay dormant until 2019 when Nadia revived it, inspired by her passion for books and dissatisfaction with existing reading trackers like Goodreads.

Notable Quote:

“I had always felt an affinity to entrepreneurship and that kind of stuff. So I ended up applying for an entrepreneurship scheme...” – Nadia [02:11]

Her mother's advice not to abandon the StoryGraph name proved pivotal, leading to its rebirth as a personalized reading tracker.

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StoryGraph Features and What Sets It Apart

Nadia emphasizes that personalization is at the core of The StoryGraph. Unlike other platforms, it allows users to filter books based on moods, themes, genres, and even specific tropes, offering highly tailored recommendations.

Key Features Discussed:

• Moods and Themes: Users can select specific moods (e.g., funny, tense) to find books that match their current emotional state.
• Advanced Recommendations: By inputting themes, topics, and tropes, users receive suggestions that align closely with their preferences.
• Buddy Reads and Read Alongs: Facilitates group reading experiences with synchronized progress markers and live reactions, enhancing community engagement.

Notable Quote:

“Personalization has been at the forefront since the beginning. And I think we're only going to get more and more personalized and more and more customizable as the years go on.” – Nadia [04:25]

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User Interaction and Community Engagement

Nadia discusses her hands-on approach to interacting with users through platforms like Threads and Instagram. Managing all communications herself allows her to stay closely connected with the community but also presents challenges in handling feedback, both positive and negative.

Notable Quote:

“It's real powerful for me to be so close to our customers. Also for people to just know they're talking to me.” – Nadia [25:08]

She highlights the importance of user feedback in driving improvements and the fulfillment she gains from positive interactions.

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AI Integration in The StoryGraph

The conversation delves into the integration of AI and machine learning within The StoryGraph. Nadia clarifies misconceptions, emphasizing that their AI tools are designed to enhance user experience without compromising privacy or content integrity.

Key Points:

• Personalized Previews: AI provides spoiler-free insights into books, helping users decide if a book aligns with their tastes without revealing plot details.
• AI Independence: The StoryGraph’s AI model operates independently of platforms like ChatGPT, ensuring data remains secure and private.
• Environmental and Ethical Considerations: Nadia addresses concerns about AI’s environmental impact and ethical use, assuring listeners that The StoryGraph employs AI responsibly.

Notable Quote:

“AI is technology. Just like evolutions in technology that we've had, this is another evolution and it can be used for good and it can be used to help.” – Nadia [42:05]

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Upcoming Features and Roadmap

Nadia provides insights into future developments for The StoryGraph, including:

• Enhanced Publisher Data: Organizing publishers and imprints to help users discover preferred authors and stay updated on new releases.
• Audiobook Features: Tracking favorite narrators and recommending audiobooks based on narration quality.
• Improved Social Features: Introducing ways to find friends, comment on activities, and interact within the app while ensuring effective moderation.

Notable Quote:

“Buddy reads and read alongs are two very powerful group reading features.” – Nadia [34:34]

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Book Recommendations Segment

The latter half of the episode transitions into a book recommendation segment where Tina, Hannah, and Nadia share their recent reads, utilizing The StoryGraph’s recommendation features.

Highlights:

1. Tina’s Recommendations:

   • Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan
   • Children of Red Peak by Craig De Louis
   • Lo Fi by Liz Riggs

2. Hannah’s Recommendations:

   • We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kluwer
   • Children of Red Peak by Craig De Louis
   • Only in Your Dreams by Ellie K. Wild

3. Nadia’s Recommendations:

   • Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
   • What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futurism by Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson

The hosts discuss the personalized nature of these recommendations, highlighting how The StoryGraph effectively matches books to individual preferences and reading moods.

Notable Quote:

“If you're a romance lover, you can say, 'I like enemies to lovers,' whatever it is, and we will find those for you.” – Nadia [30:16]

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Nadia wraps up by encouraging listeners to revisit The StoryGraph, emphasizing continuous improvements and the importance of user engagement in shaping the platform. She invites listeners to become volunteer librarians and spread the word to enhance the community.

Notable Quote:

“If you've tried it before and you didn't like it, try us again in a few months, try us again in a year.” – Nadia [76:58]

Tina and Hannah express their gratitude, reiterating the value of supporting independent, user-focused platforms like The StoryGraph.

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Key Takeaways

• Personalization is Paramount: The StoryGraph offers a highly customized reading experience through detailed mood and theme filters.
• Community and Interaction: Direct engagement with users fosters a strong, loyal community despite the challenges of handling feedback single-handedly.
• Responsible AI Use: The StoryGraph leverages AI to enhance user experience ethically and responsibly, addressing common misconceptions.
• Continuous Improvement: Nadia’s commitment to evolving The StoryGraph ensures it remains aligned with readers’ needs and preferences.
• Effective Book Recommendations: Utilizing advanced features, The StoryGraph provides nuanced and accurate book suggestions tailored to individual tastes.

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For more insights and updates, listeners are encouraged to follow Book Talk, etc. on social media, subscribe to their podcast, and engage with The StoryGraph community.

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This summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, highlighting the main discussions, insights, and recommendations shared by Nadia, Tina, and Hannah.

Transcript

[Tina]

Oh my gosh, I have so many questions. I mean, not. Let's get started. We are recording. Yeah. Welcome to Book Talk Etc, a podcast bound to grow your tbr. I'm Tina from TBR Etc.

[Hannah]

And I'm Hannah from Hand Picked Books.

[Tina]

This is a conversational podcast about books and more from two Midwest Mood readers. We're easily distracted by new releases and today we are so delighted to be joined by Nadia from the storygraph.

[Hannah]

If you enjoy listening, we'd love for you to follow us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. And if you have a quick minute, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or sharing us on social media. It truly helps us connect with other book lovers.

[Tina]

Hey, y'all. How are you guys?

[Hannah]

Hello, everyone. Hello, Nadia. We are so excited to have you here today.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Thank you for inviting me. I'm very excited, excited to chat with you both.

[Hannah]

Yes. We reached out to Nadia a couple months ago and asked if she would want to join us for a January episode so that we could not only talk about all things storygraph, but also talk about maybe even some features that could help you track your reading in 2025.

[Tina]

So, yeah, and Hannah, thanks so much for setting this up. I know the two of you had been in conversation years ago pre Pandemic. And yeah, I'm so excited to chat. What a perfect time of year too. I know everybody is like setting their. And you know, there's a lot of buzz about the Story Graph, which we will get into. But Hannah, if you want, would you please introduce Nadia?

[Hannah]

Yeah, absolutely. So Nadia Oduayo started the Story Graph as a small side project and then after university, learned to code at Makers Academy in London, before then working as a software engineer at Pivotal. And now she is the CEO and the founder and the sole developer of the StoryGraph, which is my personal favorite reading tracking app. And I am just so thrilled to be talking to you. How did we do? Do you want to add anything to that introduction?

[Nadia Oduayo]

No, that's basically it. At university, I had a side project called the storygraph that was actually a creative ewriting publication. And I set it up as a company because I won a couple of grants for funding. And then when I left university or, you know, during my finals and then beyond, the company was dormant. And my mom always said don't shut it down because I feel like that name is such a good name and you can use it for something else later. And then like, you know, eight years later, because that was 2012. 2013.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Nadia Oduayo]

And I started Storygraph what would become Storygraph again in 2019. So seven, eight, six, six, seven years later, I was working on this other side project which maybe we'll get into, had a different name. And then at some point the name that I originally had for the product didn't work anymore. And that's when I thought, storygraph is perfect. So yeah, the storygraph name has had two different versions in my world.

[Hannah]

That's interesting.

[Tina]

And your mama knew, she knew, like, this is going to be something.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Don't, don't like, don't shut down that company. Keep that name.

[Hannah]

Oh, that's such a good advice. And now here we are.

[Tina]

I know I've been on storygraph for. So when did it officially, like, when users could sign up for it?

[Nadia Oduayo]

Users could sign up to the first ever beta in September of 2019.

[Tina]

Okay.

[Nadia Oduayo]

That was when it was beta.thestorygraph.com There was no app. There was no even progressive web app where you can save the bookmark to your home screen that. Oh my gosh, it was purely a website. That was September of 2019. And back then, did we have stats? You had the big filter menu. You, you must have had a two week pile. But I was manually onboarding people through their Goodreads and Hannah, did I board you manually? Were you one of those people?

[Hannah]

I think so. And I do think that there were some stats in the beginning. In fact, I want to say weren't. I mean, weren't the, like the moods and things that you could add? Wasn't that pretty early on? I think that was kind of one of the first things that you could do which really set the story graph apart from, you know, other tracking systems because it was a lot more personalized, which was really cool. And I feel like, I mean, it's been like that since the very beginning.

[Nadia Oduayo]

And we want to keep it that way. We want to keep. Personalization has been at the forefront since the beginning. And I think we're only going to get more and more personalized and more and more customizable as the years go on.

[Hannah]

Oh, that's so exciting. I did notice when I logged on this morning that it looked a little different. Is that it looks great. It looks amazing. There's. Yeah, it got a. I'm trying to think of a better word. I was gonna say it got a facelift, but then I thought maybe that doesn't makeover polish? Yeah, I got a makeover. Yeah. Yes, it got a makeover. It got a makeover and it looks, it looks fantastic. So, yeah, I'M it's exciting to even see some of those, you know, little developments as we go.

[Tina]

I'm just getting such nostalgia for when you had said that it used to be you could save the website to your phone. Cause I definitely had done that. And then I remember when the app came out, I was so excited for that. So whenever that is when I hopped in and have been, you know, using it very regularly ever since, and I. I'm so excited to hear about little things that might be coming aboard and what's going to be coming next. So, typically, we begin our show with sharing what's known as our loving lately. And so if it's okay with you both, I'll kick it off with something that I have been loving lately.

[Hannah]

Let's do it.

[Tina]

And my loving lately is one of the Christmas gifts that I got that I had asked for. Nice. It is a bass bag. Bass is the company.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Oh, I know.

[Tina]

Specifically is the Weekender and Maple. Do you know Bass?

[Nadia Oduayo]

I follow because I listen to a podcast with Shay Mitchell. And so then I started following bass, and I'm like, ooh, maybe someday I'll get into Bass Luggage.

[Tina]

Yes, I know. Luggage. Yes.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I've never seen her before, but she's a Gossip Girl or something.

[Tina]

She's in something. I know exactly who you're talking about peripherally, but I just liked the bag because what I like about it specifically is that two things. It opens all the way up. I carry a lot of stuff, and I also work from home, slash, sometimes go in office. And I needed something that can transition. And I'm carrying a lot of stuff. Sometimes a lunch, sometimes. Sometimes shoes. Sometimes it's just stuff around the house. IPads, baby monitors. Like, literally, I needed something to carry it all. So this thing opens fully up. Like, I feel like Mary Poppins's bag. You know what I mean? There's. It's like a carpet bag. I'm digging in there, and I have these, like, little compartments, and it also has handles. I'm, like, doing such gestures right now. You guys on the podcast can't see it, but you can carry it like this or wear it as, like, a shoulder bag. And so I love it. I've really, really been enjoying it. I like the material that it's made off, made out of. It's also not terribly expensive. It's about a hundred dollars, and I'm loving it so far. I am traveling soon, so I'm going to be taking it with me through the airport. It also can connect to your suitcase. I don't have a base suitcase, but, like, maybe someday. So I just wanted to share this bag. And I'm laughing at myself because I've been doing this podcast now, I think, what, three and a half years, and I've probably brought at least four bags to the show as a loving lately, but this is the one that I've really been loving lately. So this is my base bag in the Weekender.

[Hannah]

It's important to have, you know, a variety of different bags for multi purposes. So. And yeah, $100 for. For this bag is a very reasonable price. They have a lot. I'm looking at their site now. They have a lot of color options, too.

[Nadia Oduayo]

You do?

[Tina]

I got the maple for those that are interested. And what I do is I carry this damn thing all over the house because I'm working from home. I'm like, all right, well, I got to go downstairs now. I'm going upstairs now. It's got everything thing in it. Yeah, I've been more organized. It's. Yeah, it's been great.

[Hannah]

Wonderful.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Considering some base, like handbags. Well, now I'm off to look at the founder look.

[Tina]

Yes, for sure.

[Hannah]

Yeah. I love that founder tidbit. That's some fun, like, pop culture stuff to. To look into after we hop off here. My loving lately is it's a website that I look at often for books and reviews, and it's similar to, like the Lit Hub or something like that. It's called the Millions. And they do this Year in reading series at the end of the year that I really like because the editor includes a lot of indie authors and journalists and kind of lesser known but really talented writers, and they literally just share their year in reading. They talk about the books that inspired them to write. They talk about the books that they liked that they didn't like. And it's very casual, but also they're like really good writers. So they make casual writing look and sound wonderful. But it's been really fun to kind of look through all of those different articles and pieces of them sharing their reading and also, you know, simultaneously sharing their writing a little bit as well, because a lot of these books are the buzzy ones that we're all talking about, but also a lot of them are these very, you know, niche books that I never would have heard of had I not read about this writer reading about them. So that has been really fun. And it's been fun to just go through because it's a new year and I'm obviously looking for new reading material, reading processes, you know, trying to get inspired for my reading life in the coming year. And this has been a wonderful little resource to, to get me excited about the new year of reading and hearing how other people outside of the kind of insular bookish space that we are in are experiencing their reading lives as well. So that is the millions, but specifically their Year in reading series.

[Tina]

I'm looking at this now, it's so cool. And what's nice is like every author I'm scrolling through, I can see, okay, I liked colored television very much. But then I see these other books I've never heard of. So I'm like, but maybe I would like these, you know what I mean? If this person liked it. Like, I feel like there's like pairings, you know what I mean?

[Hannah]

Yeah, I think so too. I really enjoyed that as well. I've written a few of them down for sure, but yeah. Nadia, what have you been loving lately?

[Nadia Oduayo]

So I don't watch a lot of tv, but I do have a soft spot for a few reality TV franchises.

[Hannah]

Oh, you're in.

[Nadia Oduayo]

The company is Love is Blind. The other one is selling Sunset and the final one is the Traitors uk. And a new season has just started and people have told me because I love the Traitors uk, uk, you should watch the Traders us but I haven't, I'm not, not getting into that. And I've heard it's different but the thing about the Traders UK is I hear that on the US version, so, so the premise is, I don't know, 20 something people are sent to a castle. A few of them are designated as traitors and the, the rest are faithfuls. And the faithfuls, every day, every night, the traitors murder someone in the castle, a faithful. And at the end of each evening the faithfuls have a roundtable discussion, try and figure out who they think a traitor is and banish them from the castle. And there's a prize pot of money that increases as everybody takes part in these challenges. And the goal is that if at the end of the game any traitors are left in the finalists, they take all of the prize money home. Otherwise everyone splits it. And so what I love about the show, especially the UK one, is that these people aren't celebrities, they aren't known people, they're regular people. And I always love to host a game called Werewolves, which is like mafia and it's a kind of roundtable game. So you know when this first started a couple of years back in the uk because I know it's been going on in a European country. Like before even it came to the uk, people were messaging me saying, you would love this. And I do. I just find it so fascinating seeing the dynamics between the different people. Who's gonna come back to breakfast? Like who? And I love chatting about it with my friends. So this is, you know, the new. It starts every January in the UK and I've just been enjoying as like my lunchtime break while I'm still working hard on a lot of features from the new year rush. It's a lovely lunchtime break. I just watched an episode of my lunch just before this and I just, I'm just really loving the traitors UK lately and I'm really excited to see how this season goes.

[Hannah]

That is a really fun one. I was gonna ask how is this reality TV if we've got like, you know, murders happening and things like that? But I. When you made the comparison, that's literally where my mind was going. I was like, okay, okay. But then when you mentioned the game werewolves, I was like, got it. So this is like a game situation that's happening where they're trying to guess. Not squid game irl.

[Tina]

I have never heard of werewolves. I'm so delighted I'm bookmarking this right now and gonna make some people play with me. But also I'm such a trailers fan. I know the US has a new season coming out I think today as we're recording this. So I'm gonna go ahead and pick up uk, add it to my repertoire. And I do like that they're non famous people. They're just like regular everyday folks. That's an interesting angle. Cause they don't know who anybody is. Like the reality show where you know, like the reality stars, you're like, oh, this person's supposed to be this. Which is also interesting. But I think it's a different thing that you've got going on.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Start from season one if you do.

[Tina]

Okay, I will. Same for the US Though. I was, I mean I'm. I was gobsmacked, truly. It was so good. It was really, really fun.

[Hannah]

And I did look and I do believe it is available on Peacock. Yes, it is in the US So the UK version.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Oh, amazing.

[Hannah]

Yeah, so we can, we can hop on that. So that's good to know. Well, perfect. Well, we can hop into our book talk. We have a lot of questions and obviously fun things that we want to discuss about you and the storygraph. But to start, would love to hear more about just kind of from the beginning about the storygraph kind of about the genesis of this project, how you began and your inspiration and your goal with it to start.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Okay, so I am someone who always had side projects. So I. At university, my side project was my creative writing publication called the Storygraph. And I was. My degree was philosophy, politics and economics and I was heading into investment banking. I didn't know how to code or anything like that. And during my internship, I had an internship with Deutsche Bank. I became disillusioned with the career path. I just thought, is this all there is? It didn't feel exciting enough. And when I went back to university for my final year, I just met all these young people that were doing their own companies or doing their own social enterprises. And I'd always felt an affinity to entrepreneurship and that kind of stuff. So I ended up applying for an entrepreneurship scheme and I didn't make it. I got to the final round and I didn't make it. But they put me on a pilot program to teach women how to code.

[Hannah]

Hmm.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I joined that. And at the time I remember thinking, I don't really want to learn how to code, I just want to be an entrepreneur with such an empty statement. But I had a stereotype in my head of who coded. And also I also thought that you had to have been doing it since you were a kid and that to be able to do anything decent with it. And also I just thought, well, it's boring. You're just like in a dark room in a basement coding. Because I had this stereotype in my head of what a developer or a computer programmer was. And I was like, no, I'm someone that likes to talk to people and present and be forward facing. So anyway, once I started learning how to code, doing this program, I realized how powerful it would be. Because when I had started the creative writing E publication, the Storygraph, that was just an online website featuring short stories and poems. I had a friend helping me with the tech side. And while I had originally paid him a decent amount of money, but it was definitely a heavily discounted rate and he never asked for any money beyond that. It was so slow getting changes made because if we needed a change, I'd ask my friend and then he would get to it when he'd done dealt with all his other clients. And as I started learning, learning to code, I remember thinking, oh, wow, this is actually powerful because if I ever have a really good idea, I can just code on it at home and I don't need to pay anybody. I can test out my own idea. I can Move fast. And in the meantime, so this is back in 2013, it looks like this tech thing is becoming big and tech is applicable to like every industry. So I could probably easily find a job in the meantime because most startups fail anyway. So if I Fast forward to 2019, I'd done my. I'd done a software boot camp, which I want a, a place for a competition for. I had worked for a year and a half as a software consultant at a company called Pivotal Labs, which has since been acquired by VMware. And then I spent a couple years, a few years working with a couple of different friends. Those business ventures didn't work out, so I found myself at the beginning of 2019 with five years of Runway. So that was because the last business I was in, we instead of working on, we hadn't figured out a product idea. So we'd taken this well paying banking contract. I realized I was very unfulfilled, even though we were earning a lot of money. So I left that partnership and because I owned 50% of that company, I took half the money that we had in the bank that we were building up to later invest in our own product ventures. So I had five years of Runway. I spent a year working with another friend. That didn't work out. So I had four years of Runway. And I just thought it was January 2019 and I just thought, I don't know what I want to do, but I don't need to get a job. I do have these two main side projects that I've wanted to work on for years and never had time. One of them was a running app which auto generated running routes for you. So you would say I want to run 5k or I know you all do miles, so I want to run three miles or something. And you would generate and then it would just plot a route for you, starting and ending where you were standing. That was an idea I had. And then I had this other app called Read Lists that was meant to be a companion app to Goodreads because Goodreads was like one of my favorite apps. I'd been using it since 2012 and now so we're now in 2019. But it didn't do a bunch of some things that I wanted it to do. And one of those things was with Goodreads you can make a private shelf or you can make like a public collaborative list. But there wasn't a way to make this shelf or list that you shared with select few people and another one that you slared either kept yourself or shared with another group of people. And then having. I wanted like a really nice dashboard where you could track your progress through all these different lists, which is very similar to what our current reading challenges dashboard looks like now, by the way. So this original app, you signed in with your Goodreads account and then it pulled your shelves for you and portrayed them in a pretty dashboard. And then the point would be that you could do what I said the original idea I had. And so looking at the first Monday In January of 2019, I said to myself, I'm just going to give myself January to work on these two projects and we'll see where it goes. And when I sat down at my desk, I remember thinking, which one should I start with? The reading one or the running one? And I just said, let me do reading because I'm more excited about books than running. Like that was literally it. I was like running I do because like it's good for me and like I feel great after but you know, it's not my favorite thing. But reading, I love reading. That's like my number one hobby. So I started that day, it was 3rd of January 2019. I started working on this side project and essentially I have not stopped since then. So what happened was I had a really great time building this little prototype and then I was like, oh, I've got to show this to my reading friends. And they were kind of like, oh, this is cool. And I could tell they were kind of being nice. But I knew from that first week that I have to work in books. This is the most fulfilled I've ever felt. Coding, I'd worked in banks, I'd done other type of. I worked on software products, developer tools, working on a book thing and having readers as my customers felt the best. So I was like, okay, let me put this side project aside and just start talking to readers. And probably around this time I might have reached out to you, Hannah. I called DM'd, a bunch of bookstagrammers, I spoke to a bunch of friends who read. And this is when I started to build up what the pain points were and started to iterate on a product which eventually became what storygraph is today. And essentially when my side project started not just being this dashboard of reading lists and becoming its own reading tracker, that's when we outgrew the name read lists. And I thought, oh, storygraph would work so well for this. And this is even pre the stats portion. So that's like a high level story of how we. I ended up because I never set out to build a Goodreads alternative. Even in the initial interviews I did. I never said what are your pain points with Goodreads? Well, I'm. But that's, I explicitly didn't even want to think that way because I was like, why am, how am I just alone at home going to build a competitor to Amazon owned Goodreads? Like if I started doing something and it went really well, surely they would just do this, copy it. Like these are the things I was thinking. So I was like, I can't think about building alternatives. I just have to see if there's room for a new type of product. But of course what happened was one, because people mainly used Goodreads and had a lot of pain points with Goodreads, those were the pain points I was hearing. And two, because there was a lot of anti Amazon sentiment in general. It, it meant that Amazon, even if Goodreads just loads of people just didn't want to use an Amazon owned product anyway. And also as I've learned over the years, Goodreads is just not changing that much. They're not iterating that much.

[Hannah]

No.

[Nadia Oduayo]

So yeah, they're not doing stuff to improve the product for people. So we have room to do that.

[Hannah]

I think that there's so much like, I mean there's so much consumer power in knowing like, okay, we're seeing these changes and updates happening with this product that we really like, with this thing that we do all the time, which is reading and we're very passionate about tracking reading and knowing that, you know, we literally could say like, hey, this is something that we've really been wanting or this is something that would be really cool or we really love this feature and knowing that, I mean you can reach out to Goodreads or Amazon and it's like, well, don't like me as well. Not right. But it is really empowering as a consumer not only to know that you're supporting obviously, you know, an independently and woman owned business, which is also awesome, but then to also know that you actually have like some, I don't want to use the word power, but you know, like some consumer voice in knowing that you care about our experience and how to continually make that better as the landscape changes and as we think of different needs that we have, et cetera. And so I think that's a really good point in you saying like people just noticing kind of those gaps in Goodreads and knowing that not only like we're going to see these gaps, but also they're never going to change and we're never going to be able to say anything or do anything about it.

[Tina]

So I think it's shut up and take it. Enjoy.

[Hannah]

Shut up and take it. Right, Exactly.

[Nadia Oduayo]

What's wild to me is, so first of all, I use Goodreads from 2018 to 2020, and there was a period of my life where it was my favorite app. And even as I started getting into tech, I did have moments where I'd see other products change because I would be more aware of those changes because I was becoming a developer. And then I would have moments of wait. Goodreads looks the same as it did five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago. And I remember being confused and I remember thinking, but doesn't Amazon own it? Like, they have so many resources. I was just genuinely confused as to why they didn't improve it. And the other thing is everyone, not everyone, but the whole origin story of Amazon was Jeff Bezos being like, we're building the customer centric company. Like, the customer's always right. And so it's just fascinating to me how with Goodreads, it's just nothing's happening at all. And it's wild because they have the resource. So, yeah, I'm shocked by it because they could do just little things and it would make people so happy. Like half star ratings, DNFs.

[Hannah]

Sure, those are my two favorite features.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Exactly.

[Hannah]

Yeah. Those are my two favorite features too.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Goodreads could just add them, but they can't. And they literally have a forum post saying, we will basically not be ever adding half stars. And to me, the only thing I can think, which I still am like, but surely you can get out of it. The only thing I can think is that the tech debt, the term we have called tech debt, when you just have really prickly code that's really hard to unpick and change. The only thing I can think of is that the tech debt at Goodreads, which must be. It must be so large and immense. But to even think about implementing half stars would just break a lot of stuff that it's not worth them doing.

[Hannah]

They'd have to reason.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I think that's just like, it's just not worth us. We're not. We're not touching it. We're not touching it. That's the only thing I think.

[Tina]

Yeah. And to that end, I'm curious, do you look at your threads account? Are you the one responding? Or you have a team that responds to people?

[Nadia Oduayo]

It's just me. So I do the threads, Instagram and Twitter, 100% just me.

[Tina]

Oh, my God.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Tina]

And you have a kind, thoughtful. Because I, you know, I'm on threads and I'm more of a lurker these days, but I just see people like, you know, tagging you and just saying all sorts of stuff. And I bet it's really valuable information, but also kind of like, ooh, like.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yeah, some people are really rude.

[Tina]

Some people are rude. Right, Exactly.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yeah. And I generally have a thick skin because I do feel like at the end of the day, I'd rather people were rude and gave me something that I could use to improve the product, then were nice and were lying to me and I didn't know how to improve it. But it depends on the day. Like, sometimes I just laugh and sometimes, you know, you do feel it a little bit and you do think, hey, this is why people have teams of people to do this. But it's a trade off. So, for example, having someone else do it is a salary. But also it's real powerful for me to be so close to our customers. Also for people to just know they're talking to me. And so it's, you know, I choose that over. I'm gonna keep doing it. It's also character building for me. I say, yeah, I'm like, wow, I'm like a queen in diplomacy. I'm learning to not take things personally. I always say, if someone is so rude to me, if someone is so rude to me, I just think it can't be just storygraph and me. It can't be. It's this rude. You must be rude in general.

[Tina]

Right.

[Nadia Oduayo]

And you must have some other things going on. It can't just be me because what.

[Tina]

I don't think people know that they're talking to you. I think they think they're talking to the storygraph, this giant Amazon, like, corporation and don't get it. And like, I don't know. You're right, though. People that have. People are online, they. They tend to not just be rooted in one area. Right. It's kind of their. Probably their personality.

[Hannah]

Probably their personality. They're. They have a trolling personality for sure.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Earlier today I went through Instagram DMs and someone overnight had replied to a series of stories being like, this doesn't work and your app needs like loads more than this. And this is all broken. And I just looked at this and I just replied. I said, I don't know how to figure this out. It was like literally four stories in a row. And I Just looked at it and I just replied and I said hello. If you have any specific questions or any ways I can help you, please let me know.

[Tina]

Because I'm like, you can't just say this sucks.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I'm a human here. So if you've got questions, I'll answer them and I'll help you.

[Hannah]

But, well, and the truth is you, you really are happy to, to help and you do want to know like where the gaps are and you do want to make it better and, but if someone is just screaming at you, then it's like, well, yeah, I can't help you. I mean, I even tell, I compare to my seven year old child. I'm like, I even tell her all the time. I'm like, I am happy to help you, I want to help you. I want, I am here for you, I am your leader. But I cannot help you if you can't, you know, tell me exactly what your needs are. And so I think that too, I'm sure gets really lost in people fussing.

[Tina]

At you about stuff, but I also see a lot of praise and a lot of really, really kind things. And of course that's what I love. When I see people, it looks like I looked at your stories, they're noticing the changes. The storygraph looks beautiful.

[Nadia Oduayo]

So nice.

[Tina]

That has to be so fulfilling.

[Nadia Oduayo]

So fulfilling. And I get loads of lovely messages, I think, you know, from Instagram I do occasional pieces to camera, which people are always like, oh, hi, wow. And they're so lovely. So thank you. That makes it all worth it and it's very motivating and fulfilling.

[Tina]

Good. Well, we talked a little bit about some of the features, but can you tell us a little bit more about some of the features that the storygraph does or uses that sets it apart from some other trackers?

[Nadia Oduayo]

Okay, so we have, obviously we've got the, the moods component in general, which is made to just say, you know, I want something funny and fast paced. I want something tense and slow paced. And you can combine it with so many different options, whether it's book size, genres, your own personal tags. Do you physically own the book? Is it part of a series or. I don't want to want it to be part of a series because I want to just be able to read it and move on. So there are so many different filter combinations to really help you get a personalized search. But I think the other features, another feature which I think is very powerful, which we're still iterating on the easiest interface and user experience for users is our recommendations. Because with our recommendations, you can type in specific themes, topics and tropes that you want to read about, which I don't think many other, if any, other book apps offer. So you, if you're a romance lover, you can say, I like one bed, enemies to lovers, whatever it is, and we will find those for you. And the thing is, because you put in all your preferences in a survey and you can also select books that you're like, I want books similar to this book or similar to these three books, you can do all of these things. The other thing is you can add your preferences for things you don't want to read about, like triggers. And so when you combine all of these things, it just makes a very highly personalized recommendation system. And we've got so many more ways that we're going to improve it and work on it. But I think as a base, it's really, really powerful. And I think that's the main thing that sets us apart. Just because different data points.

[Hannah]

Yeah, no, I, I completely agree. I know Tina and I actually used that feature quite a bit this week when we were reading for this episode, specifically just using those recommendation features and. Because at first I thought that those recommendations, like when you just when you go to the recommendations portion of the website or the app, you know, because it pulls up like based on your previous reads and then it breaks it down by genre. But then you can also go into, you know, like an advanced search and then you can say exactly to what you were just talking about. You can really specify exactly what book you're looking for. And then does it also. So when you go in there and you specify those more specific things, does it also take into account the books you've already read or is that just going to give you those things that you have searched for?

[Nadia Oduayo]

So there is a checkbox at the bottom of the advanced search which says take as similar to me as possible or take into account my preferences. And so basically if you. It doesn't look at the books you, You've. Well, it's hard because there's a whole menu of things we look at, but essentially it's. If you uncheck that box, then it will be every. You'll be seeing what everyone would see if it was just a raw book similar to this. Books with this genre search.

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Nadia Oduayo]

And then when you check that box, it adds in aspects of your own preferences to help personalize it.

[Hannah]

That's right. I do remember seeing that checkbox.

[Tina]

Now.

[Hannah]

It's. That's really. It's really cool. I love it.

[Tina]

Yeah, I used it last year for one of our other episodes. I think we did a storygraph episode last year and I had said I wanted a reading experience like Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. And it pumped out one of the books that I gave five stars to last year, the Gunners. And I was like, I never had heard of this book. Not only did it introduce a new book to me, but also a new author, Rebecca Kaufman. And I'm like, this is just next level. And I, I wonder if everyone knows that they can just do that and use it. Like, definitely needs to be a feature that folks are utilizing. Yeah, I'll do a video.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yes, please. This is part of my goal for this year. We have so, so many awesome features because even when you're telling me what sets you apart, I'm having to filter down because one thing I do want to mention, which hopefully I can touch on very quickly, read alongs. But just to go back to the recommendations, I think it's just such an awesome, powerful feature and it's kind of, I need to figure out a better way to expose it to more people. And that's kind of all of the work I'm doing this month and beyond on the UX and the UI and the navigation and making these things more prominent. One thing I do want to talk about is that people often say storygraph is not good for social, not good for community. And I agree. And I disagree. I agree in the sense that we don't have a good way yet to find people that you already know online or that are in your address book. We're going to have that. We don't have commenting yet on friends activities and reviews. We're going to have that. But these are features that as a one woman dev team, I kind of delayed because I was like, every app can have commenting and, and that kind of stuff. And as a small, tiny team, we need to think about moderation and that kind of stuff. You need to be able to block users before we can start doing that. All these kind of things. I wanted to make sure that we prioritize features that were unique to us. Enter Buddy Reads and Read alongs, which I think are two very powerful group reading features. So you've got Buddy reads where. Which I only, you know, I used to do buddy reads with friends. Pre knowing about Bookstagram, which I only Learned about in 2019 when I joined Bookstagram and I started doing some buddy reads hosted by other people. I was like, there must be a way to have an app that kind of can facilitate this. And so, you know, we've got the buddy reads where you can leave a comment at the specific page or the specific percent through and it's locked until the other readers get there. And if you're reading a different edition or listening to an edition, we automatically calculate the marker of whereabouts that will be. And then you leave those live reactions and there's emoji reactions. And then we've also got read alongs where you can read with up to a thousand people and you basically the host sets up forums in advance and they could be at the end of each part, at the end of each chapter. If you're reading a short story collection, it could be at the end of each short story an essay collection, same deal. And now everyone, it's like everyone's traveling on this road together and they all stop at a certain checkpoint and everyone at that checkpoint is at the same spot. So you can have a quick chat and then you continue on, on your journey. So these are super, super powerful features. They're both kind of in V1 and they're already so good. And we've got some amazing updates coming to them this year.

[Hannah]

That's exciting. I've used the buddy reading feature before. I've not used the read along. I've not used the read along before, but I've used the buddy reading with a couple of my friends who live far away from me and we wanted to read the story like close together. But then we're like, well, how do I know if you've gotten to like this part yet? And that feature was really helpful. So. Yeah, and I, I appreciate you bringing that up too, because it is reading in community. It's not the same as other community focused apps and reading tracking resources, but it is still a different component to community. And also just a great point. And there are a lot of things that you have to consider when you're bringing in other things like commenting. And you know, I would have never thought of like, oh, you need to be able to block somebody before we bring in that kind of thing. And so I think it's also just a good reminder that to everybody that like, oftentimes there, well, almost always there are roadblocks to, not even necessarily roadblocks, but just things you have to consider before you bring other things to the table. So, yeah, that's, that's a. I'm glad that you mentioned that because I think it's an important reminder.

[Tina]

So, yeah, I have not yet used either of those features, admittedly, But I was just playing around in there, and I'm like, this is so, like, how smart, how clever.

[Hannah]

Yeah, very fun.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I'd love to do a buddy read with you two this year if you want to. I want to read.

[Tina]

You would be honored. We are really bad. We were just discussing. I'm the worst buddy reader, truly. But I think I'm bad specifically because I get stressed out thinking, okay, well, Hannah's waiting for me. I don't want to read this book right now. I'm doing this or that. You know what I mean? But if I have these checkpoints that are locked until I get there, I think that's really cool.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I've buddy read a couple of books with, like, Abby and Rob, you know, team members. And in times, Abby's completely finished the book before I've even started. Rob and I did one for Project Hail Mary. I started reading it three months after he did because he just. He forgot. He forgot. We said we were going to buddy read it, and I saw him start reading it on Storygraph. And I said, what about our buddy read?

[Tina]

You're like, excuse me, I can see that.

[Nadia Oduayo]

And then he went, what do you mean? And then sent me the invite straight away. So I was not ready to read it. And so I got to it three months later. And then it was so fun because he was like, this is fun for me. I get to relive the book. And then it was fun because I was reading it three months after him, but it was like he was there with me.

[Hannah]

Yeah, because you got to read, like, the comments along. Yeah, that's really cool that he left at the time.

[Nadia Oduayo]

And it was really. What was really cool is he added, knowing that I wasn't going to read it anytime soon. He added markers for. So, for example, in one of the comments, he said, by the way, we've just had that meeting where I showed you my new shorts. So I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I remember that day when I showed you my new blue shorts. So I was like, that was the time where he just read this part. Like, it was like that.

[Tina]

That is so cool. And that's the thing, is we. I don't remember what I was thinking when I was reading it, but now you can put those little notes down and it's. That's okay. All right, we're gonna do this. I wanna buddy read together. And to that end, I'm curious. What do you read? You love reading. Tell us more about the types of books you like to read.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yes, I will do but what I will say is for the books that I've done, buddy read, buddy reads for. It's always way easier writing the review, always, because I'm literally like, oh, okay, I was confused until like 20% in. And you know, so I am such a broad reader. So bored. Similar with my music, similar with my like film taste. I'm very bored. So I love literary fantasy, historical fiction. These are some of my top genres. I'm a big nonfiction reader too. I always say I love a campus novel. So the Secret History is one of my all time faves. But I read loads of genres. I got into romance through Bookstagram. I never used to read romance. And then I think I started with the flatshare in 2019. I was like, oh, romance is so great in terms of nonfiction. My favorite is the propulsive narrative nonfiction. Some faves are, you know, Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. Say Nothing Hatching. Twitter's a great one. Like I've read any nonfiction that reads like fiction, especially startup stories. Found them fascinating.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I swear I'm going to read say Nothing and like other Patrick Rodden Keefe books this year. You mentioning that just made me be like, I need to like pull, pull that off of my shelf and put it somewhere where I can see it and remember to read it. Because I am the same way. I love narrative nonfiction. But yeah, you just reminded me I really need to read that book.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I used to say that Michael Lewis was my favorite nonfiction writer. I loved the Big Short. But it's Patrick Madden Keefe now, hands down.

[Tina]

Yeah, I've read a couple of his. He's good.

[Hannah]

I have three of his books, but I haven't read them yet.

[Nadia Oduayo]

So say enough. Pain and Rogues.

[Hannah]

Wait, say Nothing. Rogues and Empire Paint. Yes, those are the three that I own.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Those are the three I've read. Crushed it to read.

[Tina]

Why don't you put them on your read next on your story graph and then like, maybe they'll get. Maybe they'll get in the queue.

[Hannah]

There we go. Plug, plug.

[Tina]

Okay, so I have a question, and I'm curious. I think the use of AI in certain reading trackers has been very, very buzzy lately. Can you tell us a little bit more about the AI portion of the story and sort of what it does?

[Nadia Oduayo]

Okay, so something I want to say, which Rob has actually said in some of our live shows before, is that we have been using machine learning AI since the beginning, since the end of 2019. And what has been so. And I can get into why we've done that. But what I will say is it's just so. It can be a bit frustrating when you see people coming onto storygraph and going oh, storygraph jumped on the bandwagon too. And it's like, no. Because we're such a tiny team. I was purely by myself for the first year and then I needed. I was actually thinking I'm going to have to get funding and hire people because as one person I cannot load all the books in the app and predict what the moods and pace are going to be. It's just not possible. So I need someone who knows how to do machine learning to come and help me guess at them and help me figure that out. So that was actually the first bit of machine learning we had in the app and that was in 2019 before all the stuff came out. ChatGPT, we've been using it for five years, the recommendations, all that stuff and it's just, it's because AI gen AI, there are bad uses of AI and right now that is tarnishing use of AI everywhere. Even though people, we use AI in like predictive text in like so many things that have been in products and things that we use. Whether it's TikTok, whether it's on your iPhone or your Android phone. There's been aspects of machine learning and.

[Hannah]

AI for years, I'm sure even in like algorithms. Algorithms with our feeds on social media.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Exactly. It's because of the problems of gen AI in the creative spaces. It's now become like a blanket. All AI is bad and it's not. It's technology. Just like evolutions in technology that we've had, this is another evolution and it can be used for good and it can be used to help. And so with our high level approach with AI is and machine learning and AI has always been to improve the lives of readers. That's like just the high level. And then when we come down to the AI preview which is the reason why people it's very front facing is because it's from the book pages.

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Nadia Oduayo]

And Rob has a great video on TikTok that he released recently and I reposted it on all our social media platforms and I'm definitely going to distill it at some point and have it like an in app FAQ and whatever about it. But his whole thing was I don't like reading blurbs. That's he said I'm also the same. I don't like reading blurbs because they give too much away. I feel the same about movie Trailers now, I used to love them. So I need a way to know if a book is going to be for me or not. And when I go into a bookstore, I love seeing those little cards where they have a little bit of a bookseller who's just read it. I love those too sometimes. And I felt this too. They still give too much away. Like I think sometimes they say, oh, be prepared for the big twist or that ending will leave you in tears. And I'm like, why though? Let me get, let me, let me have the shock of the twist that you had. Let me see how I feel about the ending and not be anticipating something really sad. You know what I mean? So this is the premise with which we went into how can we create this amazing personalized experience that you get when you go into a bookstore and you're talking to a bookseller for every and any book on the storygraph. When I started the storygraph, before even Rob came along, my dream was for my app to be like your best friend that knew everything about you and your preferences, but also knew about all the books in the world to make the best recommendations. Now no human can do that. It's not possible. There's no one whose job this is. This is like a new function. And so that is the motivation going into even the personalized preview AI. And so Rob essentially spent six months working away on how could I have this kind of thing that would enable people to have a spoiler free insight as to whether a book is good for them or not. And keep in mind, it's not a book summary. People say people storygraph do book summaries. It's not a book summary. There's nothing we don't. There's no use of any content of the book or any of the author's work at all. The other thing is we have nothing to do with ChatGPT OpenAI. The model that Rob has built is purely on storygraph servers. It doesn't go anywhere. We make the feature opt in and the environmental impact. This is something that comes up a lot. The way he's running it, he's running it on one server that's like the equivalent of a gaming piece. So we've been very careful about privacy security and we've been very intentional about he's approached it in such a way to try and minimize the harmful effects of AI. So for example, you mentioned with other book tracking apps there has been drama and things like that and we already had a lot of safeguards, but we've gone back and Reviewed everything again and Rob's done more and he just released a video, I think yesterday it was talking about the changes he's made in light of recent drama. So I recommend. Yes, that's the one. I recommend everybody go on our TikTok. I love his videos and look at the AI ones. He kind of has the thing. And please take time and watch them because you see comments from people that don't, haven't spent the time. And if you're going to come and talk about the AI, please spend the 5, 10 minutes to watch the content we've produced. So anyway, that's what I'll say. I think people can go watch those. Honestly, I feel like AI is a great tool to use when done right. And I really feel like we're doing it right and we're being so as careful as we can be and we are really trying to do it right and just focus on helping readers. And it's like I said, it's opt out. You can turn it off. Sorry, it's opt in. So it's default off. And if it's some people, I think they've turned it on, but they don't. They. They forgot the note that said you can turn this off at any time from the preferences page. Because we have people writing being like, I don't want this. And then we say, you can turn it off from the preferences page. And they say, oh, thanks, but it was off from the beginning. You have to choose yes or no when you first go on a book page or it stays there permanently.

[Hannah]

It shows you how quickly we click.

[Tina]

Yeah, we're just like, sure, yeah, yeah.

[Nadia Oduayo]

And then you see the AI and people are thinking, oh, no, I hate AI. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how the conversation develops over the years. And if people come to see that not all AI is bad in terms of environment, in terms of stealing people's work, some AI is literally doing a task that a human can't do. And so it's taking the advantage and it's only letting you know if you'd like a book or not, what type of reader this book is for. You know, like I said, we're not giving you a summary. It's not Gen AI, it's a model that's helping you tell you these are.

[Hannah]

The tropes and the feelings.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yeah, exactly. And hey, you've read a lot of this stuff and rated it highly. So we think you would like this.

[Hannah]

Or you like complicated family stories.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yeah, here you go. And then you don't need to read the blurb that says on Christmas Eve when so and so when this surprising thing happened and you're thinking, oh, okay.

[Hannah]

Well, you know, and that can take so much serendipity out of reading too. I. I love experiences where. And it happens on accident, I feel like more often than we like where, like, you pick up a book and you didn't know, but like, it's New Year's Eve and you're picking up this book and it takes place on New Year's Eve and you're like, but it takes away some of the, I don't know, serendipity of it. If had already read the back and you're like, oh, I picked, I don't know, like some people, you know, I know like to pick themed reads. But I love kind of that serendipity of it. And it's nice to have an option of being able to choose if you're going to enjoy a book, but then still allow for those maybe serendipitous reading moments to happen or for you to still be surprised by maybe a real emotional gut punch or a twist that you weren't expecting. So I know the feature has been really helpful. Tina and I use it or we'll say, like the storygraph says when we're talking about some of our books for social media. I know so many other people have, have used this feature as well. So I know it's helped a lot of people and I for one, use it all the time.

[Tina]

So I think it's a net positive overall. I know it's a net positive overall and it's very helpful to me as well.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yes, Hannah, I've seen you post about it. What do y'all think of the new update that Rob introduced? Because people were complaining that it was positive all the time.

[Hannah]

The new. I didn't know that there was an.

[Nadia Oduayo]

There was a new app you might not like. It breaks it down. It's a lot more detailed.

[Hannah]

I don't think I've seen that. I haven't tried it yet.

[Nadia Oduayo]

It's only like a few days ago.

[Hannah]

I don't have to let you know under personalized.

[Tina]

Ah, okay. It's being enabled for my account. It should be ready in 24 hours. I'm going to email Rob and tell him no, I'm just kidding. That's so exciting. What a fun video. That's so cool.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Check it out.

[Tina]

So we're going to go ahead and link to Rob's videos on TikTok in our show. Notes for the podcast so helpful. Also, his videos couldn't be crisper. I'm like, what are you using? I feel like I'm in the room with you to film these.

[Nadia Oduayo]

He'll love that. He got like an SLR camera that he holds on his hand.

[Hannah]

Oh, nice.

[Tina]

I'm like, oh, I'm going to need to get one of those at some point. But anyway, yes, thank you for, for giving us insight on that.

[Hannah]

Perfect. Well, you've already told us kind of some of the new things that you are working on or that might be coming like upcoming for the storygraph. There was one specific question that one of our patrons asked that I wanted to go ahead and make sure that we got to before we wrap things up, which was if you have ever considered a stat that breaks down a book by publisher or if that exists already.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yes. The way I want publishing publisher data to be is I want the high level publishers, I want the imprints. I really want it, but it's a mess right now. Yes, I love to have it organized, but it's just not focused right now. So I want to properly organize this duplicates right now. I want you to be able to even discover imprints that, hey, I've rated this particular imprint. The average is 4.48. I need to follow this imprint and know when they publish a new book because it's probably going to be a new favorite. So that's, that's my goal.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I could see that being really messy. Well, and can't readers also like submit their own books to the storygraph if they're not already on there? So I know that's probably a component too where it's like you're getting duplicate publishers or if you know it hasn't been. That's something that has to get filtered through and sift through you and take into consideration. So I could definitely see how that. That could get a little messy. But.

[Nadia Oduayo]

But there's a lot more that I can do that's automated. But I'm just not worrying about it for now. And we could also. This is another use where we could have a machine learning model that would go through and be like, these all seem like the same publisher. Merge those and you know what I mean? That's other uses of like machine learning. That's not again, generative AI. It's just helping improve an app faster than a human can do it.

[Hannah]

True.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Just internally, like, you know what I mean? Not going anywhere. Just internally. And on that note, also, you know, for audiobook listeners, we want to be able to tell you your favorite narrators and, like, how these might. Oh, this person's narrating a new book. I love their narration at what you read.

[Hannah]

Oh, I would. I would love that.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yeah.

[Tina]

Oh, yeah. We pay attention to that a lot. All right, so for the second half of the show. Thank you. First of all, thank you so much for that. I could seriously sit here and talk to you for another half day, like, get the ins and outs and, like, get all the. I'll come again, you know, bts. Perfect. We would love that. But we also like to give book recommendations ourselves. And this was Hannah's idea. This is such a fun idea. We used some of the storygraph features to help recommend books for us for this specific episode. And I'll share my first one. Yeah, it was such a smart idea. Cause it's a feature I've used. I just didn't think to connect it with this episode. But the first book that it recommended to me, I think I was in the mood for something contemplative. I was in the mood for whatever. I had picked my little moods, and it spit out Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, which has been on my TBR for a really long time. And I'm so glad. It was actually one of the 12 books I wanted to read this year when I saw it, by the way. It doesn't just spit out one book. There was several. Like a couple pages, like two pages maybe of books that I could choose from. But this one I had, so I grabbed it. And this one's basically about. It's really sad because it's about a mother and son and a mother and daughter, and the son and daughter are dating. They're a couple. They're in, I think, high school, like going into senior year, going into college, and they. Everything's going great. They're the greatest couple. You know, they are really sweet together. And then one day, and this is not a spoiler, it's in the synopsis. One of the moms receives a phone call from her son. He's like, mom, I think Lily is dead. And it sort of gets kicked off because her son starts getting questioned. And the story is told basically from the point of view of Olivia, who's the son's mom, and sort of unpacks what would happen if your child was accused of murder, but also that their partner died and they were the ones to find them. What would that mean? And I love that they chose to tell this story from the point of view, not of the people. Lily does get a point of view, but they chose to tell it from the point of view of his mom because it really gut punched me. I have a 4 year old and a 1 year old, so it's a while coming, but I'm like, it's making me so sad because I'm like, oh my gosh, they're going to get bigger and bigger and eventually leave me. And that's the best case scenario. Like they're going to make their own mistakes and all of that. So it was really like kind of a circle of life type book. And I think this book does a lot really well. Nadia might not like this, but there is a twist in this book that I knew about it coming in. A lot of people I think were taken aback by this. I'm not going to say what it is or even allude to it, but I appreciated it. I thought it opened up the pathway for a lot more discussion. I call this book Club Fiction, where it's going to give you some tidbits that you and your book club could unpack. I could talk about this book for an hour, like with my book club readers. It's that type of story. It also includes the trial, which I personally love. Like, I love to pretend like I'm on the jury, right? It's so good. I like to pretend like I'm on the jury. What do I think happened? What are the facts here? And I just thought this was such a. I thought it was fabulous. I really enjoyed it. It's also making me want to pair some nonfiction books with it that are sort of with similar themes. And I love when a book does that. It inspires me to want to read some nonfiction and, and learn even more about, you know, sort of the things that were brought up in this story. Overall, I really enjoy it. I'm glad that I read it. I recommend it. Jodi Picoult is an author I've been reading for many, many years. I love her online presence. So I was happy to pick up one recent books. So that one is Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan.

[Hannah]

I don't know why I thought that you had already read this is. Are you almost a Jodi Picoult completionist?

[Tina]

No, I would like to be. I would like to be some of the stuff. There's so many books now you're going to make me go on my second favorite website, Fantastic fiction. Number one website being the Storygraph. But fantastic fiction I love because I love to see how many Books my. My authors have written. But no, I'm not a completionist quite yet.

[Hannah]

Okay.

[Tina]

I can't even count. Wow. She's got a lot. She's got a lot. I probably read maybe half. Yeah. Anyway.

[Hannah]

Okay, well, you've got half more to go and nice to have a author that you can look forward to that you know, that you enjoy.

[Tina]

Exactly.

[Hannah]

So I used so again, for the recommendations portion, there are several different ways that you can do it. For my first book that I am bringing, I used the recommendations just based on your most recent reads. And I didn't like advanced search or niche it any more than that. But I totally understand, like, why this book was chosen. So I had recently read We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kluwer. And then one of the books that was recommended based on, you know, that recent read was Children of Red Peak by Craig Dillouay. I totally get why this book was recommended. It's a wintery book, just like, you know, we used to live here. Very similar culty vibes. Horror. Just kind of a really great, like, winter sink into horror story. And I'm really glad that I read this one because it had been on my shelf for a while and that was also kind of how I chose these books where, you know, it gave you a couple pages. But I wanted to pick something that I already had on my shelf that I'd been wanting to read. And this was a great excuse to do that. So for the children of Red Peak, this is a kind of twist on a cult horror. In a psychological suspense story, we have David Deacon and Beth, who share a really dark past. As children, they survived the harrowing final days of a religious cult at Red Peak. Now we're following them. Years later, we have a fellow survivor who has unalived herself. And it kind of forces them to reunite and unlock repressed memories and unanswered questions about what happened that night and how it led them to their lives now. So throughout the story, they're kind of uncovering the truth of exactly what happened and some of their repressed memories. So then they decide to all return to Red Peak. And then the story is kind of like, leading up to that moment of them returning. So again, I totally understand why this book was picked for me. I have typically really, really liked cult stories. I. I don't know, I just. I do love a cult. I think I am learning as I've read more, like, I don't know, like, as I've read more and more cult stories. I don't know if I'm going to continue to read specifically like really ultra religious cult stories. But again, like, that is something cool that as you learn your reading tastes more and how they change and like how books are recommended to you and it's just kind of fun to, to realize exactly like all the particularities of your reading. And I really did end up enjoying this book. I thought that it was a really atmospheric story. I love books that are dual timeline and dual perspective. And we got that here. So it kind of got. We got to hear back to where these children were children and in this cult and then, you know, we would get to the present timeline and hear about their lives now. And it was really interesting to hear their individual stories and how it kind of shaped their very unique, I don't want to say like healing experiences because these people were not healed, but you know, how it led them to their present timeline and kind of the way they're coping with this thing that happened to them. So I really enjoyed that. I am definitely now, after reading this one, curious kind of where more of my particularities are with cultish books. I really liked this one though, and this was my first buy. This author, Craig De Louis, is, I think, a fairly prolific horror writer. I know he's written several. So I'm definitely eager to try this author out again. And that is the Children of Red Peak by Craig De Louis.

[Tina]

This makes sense now because when I read the synopsis of this, I'm like, hannah, what are you reading? It sounds so bleak, but to pair it with now that I know we used to live here was the inspiration. That totally tracks. But I'm like, girl, what are you reading?

[Hannah]

But yeah, isolated. And their setting when they were in the cult was isolated.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Right?

[Hannah]

It's like isolated winter setting in this spooky. So, yeah, I also definitely see why that was chosen. And it was fun because it was also different. So that's also cool to have these similarities of things that you like but then also have a different reading experience too. So anyway, yeah, I loved it. Nadia, what is your first book that you're going to be telling us about?

[Nadia Oduayo]

So I just chose two recent reads that I liked and I think are a bit different to what I would normally read. So one of them is, what if we get it right? Visions of Climate Futurism by Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson. So this was. I listened to an audio at the recommendation of Tracy Thomas of the Snacks Pod. Essentially this is a book about. It's a hopeful look at the climate crisis and what happens if we get it right. Because a lot of the stuff out there is. This is doom and gloom, this is awful. And this says, why don't we focus on what does the world look like if we get it right? And what can you do to help? And it's particularly aimed at people like me who feel, like, quite removed from the crisis, thinks that they're not qualified to help at all or to get involved. And each section, it's like a collection of essays, essentially, and each section focuses on a different aspect of the climate crisis. And it covers everything. There's politics of it. There's Hollywood, there's a whole chapter on Hollywood. There's a whole section on young people in climate, a whole section on legal system, the ocean. And the great thing is, when the book starts, Johnson speaks about this Venn diagram, where it's kind of like all the different aspects of the climate crisis and then all the things that you are good at or enjoy doing. Like, there's like a. There's like a Venn diagram, and essentially it shows you how to identify something, anything that you can do to help. And the audio is fantastic because the book is essentially a series of interviews. And in the audiobook, which is 21, 21 hours or 22 hours, essentially, you hear the actual interviews. So it's essentially like. Listen to. Listening to a really long podcast. This was one of my top reads of last year. Very surprising because I would not have thought that a book on climate would be, like, so captivating, but it was just the fact that it was covered everything. It was very accessible while still being detailed and having a lot of, like, specific details, like, in some cases, academic details. And so, yeah, what if we get it right? Visions of Climate Futurism is my first rec.

[Hannah]

I think that Tracy is really good at these really kind of like, more like niche nonfiction topics and recommending books that really make it, like, propulsive and compelling. And I always love getting recommendations like that from Tracy where I'm like, this would not be one that I would normally pick up or think would be interesting, but she recommended it, so we're gonna try it. And I mean, she's obviously, that's what she does is recommend nonfiction books, but I am glad that you mentioned that one. She had put that on me and Tina's radar a couple of weeks ago when we recorded with her for our podcast. She briefly mentioned it, and so it was kind of on my radar a little bit that way. But then hearing you talk about it, Nadia, and also knowing that it's kind of long form, like, almost a podcast.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yes.

[Hannah]

I'm very intrigued and interested. I think that I might prioritize this one here really soon because I've really been in a nonfiction kick.

[Tina]

I pulled up my Libby app to put it on hold at the library, and I said, oh, I placed it on hold November 15th. So I did that too. When Tracy was.

[Hannah]

When we recorded with Tracy.

[Tina]

I will get it in five weeks from now and let y'all know. But I'm so glad to hear you know from you. Cause I, too, like nonfiction, and it's one of my goals to read one nonfiction a month. I could do that.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Tina]

And, yeah. Anyway, so I'm excited to give that one a shot. The next book that I read for this show specifically was White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson. And first of all, I'm going to be a Tiffany D. Jackson completionist. I think I've read almost all of hers now at this point. And I. I don't remember again what I. What rabbit hole I got into. But I also did the thing where I'm like, okay, recommend a book to me based on this and that. And I'm really glad it did. It was actually on my shelf sitting next to me when it popped up. I'm like, okay, this is a sign. And White Smoke is Tiffany D. Jackson's take on horror. She's typically an author that writes more in a sort of, I guess, psychological thriller space. She. She also had more recently written a horror novel in the Weight of Blood, which I loved. 5 stars. This one is different. It's much more ya and it's social horror. So this is about Marigold, who is a teenager, and she is being moved from California to somewhere in the Midwest because of reasons that you do find out later on in the book. She is a part of a blended family, and it's her brother and her stepsister and then her mom and then her new husband that are moving into this new house. And you find out that they get this new house on Maple street and it's for free. It's because of her mom's job. She's working for some sort of corporation that's giving housing to its residents. But turns out they're the first people to move into this town. And creepy things start happening once they get into the house. And that, for me, is such a buzzword. A creepy house. Like, I gotta know what's happening. Is it haunting? Is it mental illness? What's going on? Is it just creaky pipes? Like, I want to know. You definitely get all of that with this. This book too does a really solid job representing mental health, specifically obsession or obsessive compulsive disorder. She has a fixation on bedbugs, which is horrifying and not great to read about. But also, she did that. She did a. I mean, I still am itching because I'm like thinking about, like, what would happen. I saw a coffee ground the other day and I'm like, oh my God, it's over. Because like this, this book got under my skin, literally. But I enjoyed it very much. It is. Does feel ya. Some of her books feel more kind of new adult. This one felt more YA to me, but I enjoyed it. Marigold was a complex character, but you do get to see her character grow throughout it. And I think if you like sort of a. It's not too creepy. It's unsettling. Sometimes the horrors are real, like the real people because it's social horror. And I like that element about this a lot. And I'm gonna leave it there before I say too much. That is White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson.

[Hannah]

I'm so glad that you loved this one. Tiffany Jackson is an author. I still have never read not a single book. Can I even stay on the podcast?

[Tina]

No. The Weight of Blood. That's my. Or Allegedly or Grown. Any of those are all five star reads for me.

[Hannah]

They're okay. I need to start on my Tiffany D. Jackson journey, I guess.

[Tina]

What?

[Hannah]

What?

[Tina]

No, Nadia said she hasn't read any Tiffany D. Jackson either.

[Hannah]

Well, Nadia, maybe that'll be our first buddy read.

[Tina]

There you go. She's got one coming out in July 2025.

[Hannah]

Perfect. Okay. So my next read, I got a little bit more particular with it. I used kind of some more of those advanced features. I decided that I wanted to read something reflective and a little bit dark and sad. And I definitely got this. Although this was definitely. Or emotional. That's what I said, emotional. So this one was definitely emotional and reflective. That is Lo Fi by Liz Riggs. This was a book that came out in 2024, but it did not get a ton of buzz. So this book is. I think I mentioned this in my stories a while ago when I was reading it. This book for music is what Sweet Better by Stephanie Danler was for food. Like, it's very much coming of age in a big city and trying to find yourself through kind of this art culture and, you know, younger men who are still boys and dealing with all of that in the exact same way. Again, like Sweet Bitter was for food. This book is for music. It is set in Nashville and it is set very much so in sweaty music, nightclubs and house parties. And we're following an aspiring songwriter, Alison Hunter, as she is juggling late nights at work, fleeting romances, and the challenge of finding her voice. Both just her voice as a person who's coming of age in adulthood, and also as a writer and a songwriter. By day, she stamps hands at the venue, sneaking moments to dream of finishing a song after her disastrous public debut. And by night, she is stuck in a whirlwind of old flames and new flames and also an obsession with a missing indie star, which is kind of at the like plot highlight of this story. And yeah, we follow her from there, kind of juggling all of those things. And I think that if you are into music, if you like angsty coming of age in adulthood books, this could definitely be for you. I want to say I think that this is definitely niche and one of those books where I'm like, oh, the storygraph knows my taste because I know that this is one of those books that wouldn't be for everyone, but it was definitely for me. It hit that perfect mix of, yeah, just like angst and emotion and humanness, but also like messiness and kind of grungy ness. This threw a ton of name drops for like old punk bands like Paramore, Modest Mouse, Dashboard Confessional name drops of songs like Wake Me Up When September Ends. So if you're a millennial who enjoyed like punk rock bands in the early aughts, you'll really enjoy these kind of like band drops and things like that. I really liked it. Also, our main character was from Michigan, which is where I'm from, and there were oftentimes like long descriptions of cool summers and it described the vibe of those Michigan freshwater beaches really well. So it kind of had that personal nostalgic element for me as a reader that worked really well. So yeah, all in all, this one was definitely like slow moving character driven, a little bit messy and emotional. But I'm really glad that I read it and I'm so thankful for the storygraph for recommending this one to me because it was definitely an under the radar release for 2024. And that is Lo Fi by Liz Riggs.

[Tina]

It's so funny as you're saying this, I'm like, those are some of my biggest anti buzzwords. The music scene and the coming of age young art. Like, I'm like, oh, I'm out. But that's why it didn't get recommended to me exactly.

[Hannah]

We are all different readers and we love that. All right, Nadia, what is your, your next pick?

[Nadia Oduayo]

So during the end of last year, so November, December time, it's always my busiest crunch time on the product. I need fun, fast reads that I can, you know, can't be doing my normal, like emotional, dark. I mean, I still do it, but I need some fun.

[Tina]

Right. You need to break it up.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I picked up Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. Ooh, now I was going to say that. Oh, I'm not going to read the blurb. It'll probably give too much away. But actually the blurb does not give too much away. Oh, good. Not really. So it says, I'm going to read the storygraph preview and then I'm going to read maybe the blurb.

[Tina]

Perfect.

[Nadia Oduayo]

But maybe the storygraph preview is enough. It says, and this is not the personalized, this is just the general preview that everyone will see. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is a must read for mystery enthusiasts who crave a clever, meta and suspenseful whodunit that cleverly weaves together the lines between fiction and reality, making it a perfect fit for fans of classic detective stories and literary puzzle solving. And I think that's a perfect little summary without giving much away. And it's got several layers. It kept me guessing. As with, with a lot of murder mysteries, there are elements where you just kind of have to suspend belief a bit or say, this is a bit convenient. But despite that, I feel like it was very clever. It was a lot of fun. And so, yeah, if that preview sounded intriguing, definitely, definitely pick this one up.

[Hannah]

Would you say that this is like a more of like a classic, like mystery whodunit or was it like a cozier mystery? What would you. Not cozy.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Okay. Multi layered classic.

[Hannah]

Okay, Okay. I do love how you were like, I needed something fun and light and so I read a murder story.

[Tina]

That's exactly what I was gonna say, Hannah. I'm like, that is my fun and light too. I'm like a popcorn girl. I love it.

[Nadia Oduayo]

There's a light hearted aspect to it. And what I can say because it's very early on is it's basically a book within a book. Hence the fiction reality thing. So there is a fun, light hearted aspect aspect to it. But it is a classic murder mystery.

[Tina]

No, I had to laugh.

[Hannah]

You are in the right company because, you know, we're similar. Tina especially, she's like, I need something fun and easy. Let me pick up like a super dark thriller.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yeah, whatever.

[Tina]

You know, something murdery I know.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I just can't cover a literary fiction or something.

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Tina]

You know, that is true. I need to be. I love it, but I need to be in the right mood for it.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yeah.

[Tina]

That was my, like December. I was like in a literary mood. But I think I've come out of it a little more variety now. Yeah. Do you have a book, Nadia, that you have not yet read?

[Nadia Oduayo]

So the thing that I most recently added to my to read, I don't have an edition with me, I think I'm gonna get it digitally is Ministry of Time by Callie Ann Bradley. I think that's how you say it. And I decided to read it because it's the Stacks Pods book club pick for January. And when the pick sound interesting, I join in. I did like a quarter of the ones last year. That's not to say two, three quarters would. Didn't sound interesting. It's a combination if I have the time as well.

[Hannah]

Tracy, that's not timing.

[Tina]

That's not what you meant, Tracy.

[Nadia Oduayo]

But the reason I picked this up is because. So you had said that you typically share the synopsis of the books, but I don't like to read the synopsis of books, especially if I'm going to read them soon because I'll remember the little twist or the little setting that doesn't happen till 100 pages in. So what I do have, though, for you are the tags, but also the beginning of the. I. I did catch a few phrases from the beginning of the blurb, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna read those. So it's tagged as literary and science fiction, adventurous, emotional and mysterious. And in the beginning sentence of the blurb or the beginning two sentences, it says a time travel romance, speculative fiction, spy thriller, and workplace comedy. So it sounded so fun. However, what I will say is I recently saw on my storygraph Community newsfeed that Tracy Thomas, whose reviews I typically agree with, rated it two stars. And that is low.

[Tina]

Yeah, that's tough too. When it's your book club pick for the month, I know it could be good conversation.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yeah, exactly. A good book club. It doesn't mean you necessarily like it. It's something that can spark conversation.

[Hannah]

Discussion.

[Tina]

Yeah. Well, the book that I added to my shelf edition was actually live during this episode. It's Tiffany D. Jackson's book that's coming out in 2025. And I was wondering why it wasn't on my radar, but it's called Blood in the Water. And the reason why it wasn't super on my Radar is because it's her middle grade debut and it's a murder mystery set on Martha's Vineyard, which I think is kind of cool and bold for middle grade, you know what I mean? So, I don't know. It sounds like it's this girl who feels like a fish out of water. She's summering at this house and then a teenage boy dies and it rocks the community to its core. Was it drowning? Was it a shark attack? Or was it murder? I'm kind of hoping for a shark attack myself, but I might try this. Maybe this could be your first, Hannah. A. Middle grade.

[Hannah]

Yeah, middle grade. I do like middle grade. Yeah.

[Tina]

Yeah. So that one comes out in July and it's Blood in the Water by Tiffany D. Jackson.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Cool.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I. I always enjoy when a. An adult author, or even like YA author, kind of dips their toes into a different age group. I think it's always kind of fun to see.

[Tina]

She does a lot. She's not afraid to, like, go to different mediums.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Nadia Oduayo]

She's not only ya, I love that.

[Tina]

No, she's. Well, yeah. Is she?

[Hannah]

I think so.

[Tina]

Very young. New adult. Some of them, like, grown, specifically the Weight of Blood are kind of more advanced themes, but all good.

[Nadia Oduayo]

I like. I like the odd. I read everything, so.

[Hannah]

Right. Yeah. I'm the same way. I will try. Yeah, I'll try just about anything. Okay, good. Well, my shelf edition is Only in youn Dreams by Ellie K. Wild. And this is a book set in a series, but it can be read as a standalone. This is a book about Melody woods, who isn't thrilled when her twin ropes her into this disastrous camping trip. They are stranded in the woods and of course her only company is Zach Porter, her brother's best friend and the man that she has been avoiding for years. He is a college football coach and he is also quietly in love with Melody. I love a he falls first story. He is determined to win her over despite their messy history. This is pitched as a spicy, small town brother's best friend sports romance. So lots of tropes going on there. And it was. And it is the first book in the Oakwood Bay series. But again, it says right on the synopsis it can be read as a standalone, which I always love when a series is more of, like, companion style. So, yeah, that is Only in your Dreams by Ellie K. Wilde. I'm back on my romance kick.

[Tina]

I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad to hear that you're back on the romance, Nadia. Thank you so much for being here today. Is there anything else you want to plug or anything else you'd like for our listeners to know before we wrap it up?

[Nadia Oduayo]

I think the main thing that I always want people to know is that storygraph, we are committed to continually improving the product. We're always listening to all feedback. So if you've tried it before and you didn't like it, try us again in a few months, try us again in a year. Please don't be sitting on the time you tried a few years ago because we. I'm working on it every single day. We're working on every single day, so stick with us. People often ask how they can help. You can email [e-mail] to learn about being a volunteer librarian. You can do it from anywhere in the world. There's no minimum time commitment. It just means you have the ability to edit book data and to merge additions and help tidy it up. And, yeah, tell your friends. That's the best way you can help spread the word. Tell friends who maybe tried it ages ago that, hey, they're always changing. They come back, they listen, they're. They're always. Yeah, it will get better. The thing that you didn't like is probably gone now. It's probably on their roadmap. So that's the main thing. I always like people to know. The most painful thing I see online is when people say, I tried storygraph years ago and I didn't like it. You're like, it's a different product now.

[Hannah]

Yeah, try it again.

[Tina]

Try it again. And there's a plus. There's a plus subscription, too. So if you want even more goodies data. I want to support the company. I know, but I am. You do need to. Yeah, it's 4.99amonth, I think. Yeah.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Yes, it is.

[Tina]

Yes.

[Nadia Oduayo]

Very well worth it for the year.

[Tina]

Even better. All right, well, that's it for today. We thank you for spending a part of your day with us. Links to all the books mentioned can be found in the show notes. And if you enjoyed today's episode, you can help us by following wherever you listen and by leaving a review on Apple Podcast at. Helps us get our show out to new listeners and grows our audience. And don't forget, if you'd like access to exclusive bonus content and community, join us for $5 a month on patreon.com booktalk Etc.

[Hannah]

If you'd like to connect with us, you can email us@booktalk etcmail.com you can also connect with us at BookTok etc on Instagram, Tina TBR etc, Hannah at HandpickedBooks and Nadia the book dot storygraph. Talk to you next week. And in the meantime, remember, everything's better with books.

[Nadia Oduayo]

It was the day I was flying back and I was having a really stressful day because I went to the. What is that fancy building you have? Begins with W?

[Tina]

The Willis Tower.