Discover your reading tribe and get recommendations from readers who actually share your taste.
Most recommendation systems blend everyone together. A romance reader gets sci-fi recommendations. A literary fiction fan sees thrillers. Why? Because these systems prioritize popularity over taste.
Result: Wasted time reading books that don't match your taste, and hidden gems you'll never discover.
BookTribes finds the ~100 readers who rate books most like you do, then shows you what they loved. No blending with millions of strangers. Just your tribe.
Result: Recommendations that actually match your taste, plus heads-up on books that didn't resonate with your tribe.
Start by rating just 3 books to see starter recommendations. For best results, rate 10+ books you've read. We'll show you a confidence meter so you know when your tribe is well-matched.
Already on Goodreads?
Import your Goodreads library to instantly rate hundreds of books and get recommendations right away. Sign up and import →
We compare your ratings against every other reader and find the people who rate books most like you do. Your tribe is the top ~100 readers with the closest taste to yours.
We use cosine similarity (the same math Netflix uses) to compare your ratings to other readers. Books you both rated highly increase your similarity score. Your tribe is the 100 readers with the highest scores.
We show you books your tribe rated 4-5 stars that you haven't read yet. Books rated by more-similar tribe members rank higher. We also show you books your tribe flagged as taste mismatches — not bad books, just ones that didn't resonate with people who read like you.
Explainable recommendations: We show you exactly why each book was recommended (how many tribe members loved it, their similarity scores).
Always improving: Rate more books → better tribe match → better recommendations.
Book Data Source: All book metadata (titles, covers, descriptions, ISBNs) comes from the Google Books API.
Your Ratings: Stored securely in our database and used only for matching you with your tribe. We never sell your data or share it with publishers.
Privacy: Your individual ratings are private by default. Other users can see your aggregate stats (e.g., "rated 50 books") but not which specific books you rated.
We don't take money from publishers or authors to boost recommendations. Every recommendation is based purely on what your tribe loved.
You might see Amazon affiliate links on book pages (that's how we pay the bills), but those links have zero influence on the recommendation algorithm. Your tribe's taste is sacred.
Every recommendation shows you why: which tribe members rated it, their similarity scores, and how many loved it.
Your ratings are yours. We use them for matching but don't share them publicly without your permission.
No publisher money. No sponsored books. Just real readers recommending books they actually loved.
Rate 3 books. See your first recommendations fast.
Rate 3 books →You'll see starter recommendations after just 3 ratings. For best results, rate 10+ books. The more you rate, the better your tribe match becomes.
Yes! All core features are free forever. We make money through affiliate links (Amazon) when you buy books, but those don't influence recommendations.
Yes! You can import your Goodreads CSV to instantly rate hundreds of books. This gives you better recommendations faster.
That's totally normal! Tribes are based on general taste similarity, not perfect alignment. As you rate more books, your tribe match improves. You can also mark books as "Not Interested" to hide them.
Your tribe recalculates automatically when you add 10+ new ratings. Recommendations refresh every 6 hours based on new ratings from your tribe members.
Still have questions? Read our privacy policy in plain English or contact us at hello@booktribes.app