BookBuds: Read with friends

BookBuds: Read with friends

Social book reading & friends

142 ratings
36 reviews
Free
In-App Purchases

Details

  • Released
  • Updated
  • December 22, 2025
  • June 18, 2026

Features

BookBuds: Read with friends screenshot #1 for iPhone
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BookBuds: Read with friends screenshot #5 for iPhone
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About

This app transforms solo reading into a shared, motivating experience. Connect with friends virtually, track reading time automatically, and compete on leaderboards. It's designed to help you build reading habits and achieve your reading goals together.

Virtual bonfire reading sessions
Automatic reading time tracking
Social reading leaderboards
Friend group challenges
Reading habit building
Progress comparison
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What's New in BookBuds

1.0.38

June 18, 2026

We've been hard at work improving BookBuds. Here's what's new: NEW FEATURES • Custom Shelves — Organize your library your way. Create your own shelves, add and remove books, and arrange them in any order. • Dark Mode, now free for everyone — No paywall, no sign-in. Turn it on in Settings and it applies across the entire app and remembers your choice. • Profile & Avatars — Your finished books now appear in the order you finished them, and members without a profile photo get a clean, colorful initial avatar. READING TIMER & LIVE ACTIVITY • The session timer and the lock screen / Dynamic Island Live Activity are far more reliable when you switch apps, lose connection, or close the app. • The lock-screen timer now stays perfectly in sync with the in-app timer after you pause and resume. • New gap detection — if your phone dies or the app closes mid-session, you can choose how much of the missed time to count. FRIENDS & PRESENCE • Friends who are online or actively reading now stay visible around the Campfire without flickering or disappearing when your connection drops. ACCOUNTS & NOTIFICATIONS • A smoother, more reliable sign-up with Apple and phone/SMS, plus better international phone number support. • Fixed an issue where a brief network hiccup could log you out and bounce you back to onboarding. • More reliable push notifications that open the right screen when tapped. Plus lots of behind-the-scenes work to make BookBuds faster and more stable. Happy reading!

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Subscription plans

Weekly Subscription

Unlimited access to reading stats and dark mode

$7.997 Days
How to cancel BookBuds subscription ⁉️

Events

Read more about BookBuds Readathon

BookBuds Readathon

gather around a bonfire & read with friends

Jan 25, 2026 Feb 4, 2026

User reviews

App problems

Honestly I love this app it’s so fun and makes me read so much more however, it keeps logging me out of my account and like a month or two ago made me create a new one. So I restarted re added all my friends did everything now today it logged me out and is again forcing me to create a new account. I have no idea how to fix this and when I reached out to try and get it fixed at first I was getting emails back but then they just ghosted me. This is very disappointing to me because of how much I love this app. I’ll Probubly make a new account so I really hope i don’t get logged out again.
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Great Idea, Poor Execution / AI & Moneygrabbing

Fairly certain this app is coded with AI or the assets are AI generated.

The idea is good. It could use more features, but genuinely this could have replaced Goodreads for me. However they introduced 3 popups for the paid version every time you open the app, even in the middle of reading sessions; I joined the Dev’s discord to point out this bug. Multiple people did. Lo and behold, the Dev turned it back on due to a “dramatic drop in revenue” and then told me to stop asking about it (despite the fact it had been a while since I even asked and that I wasn’t the only one having issues).

I deleted the app after that because what’s the point if the dev won’t listen to community feedback? Now after a bit I downloaded it again to see if maybe it’s been updated, and now it’s completely unusable. Big screen roping me into a free trial with no way to cancel, and a weird gif with a buggy popup. Can’t even program an app right but begging for money. What absolute money-grabbing garbage.
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Great read

A great way to read with friends and keep track with each other and hold each other accountable!

Just getting worse and worse

I really liked this app in the beginning and still use it almost daily. But the Pop-Ups at the start when you open the app get more and more obnoxious. They’re even more annoying than at the beginning. You have to klick though them every single time before you can deny their offers. It takes time and is just damn unnecessary. Makes me not even want to track my time anymore.

Other than that, if you have „too many“ books in your TBR list, they’ll just randomly erase some of your books so when you want to switch, it’s not entirely impossible the next book you want to read isn’t in your list anymore.

Just these dann adds in the beginning man, so incredibly annoying and just ruining the whole app.
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Pop up ads

The ads that pop up when I open the app are really annoying. It happens every time and takes at least a minute each time to get through them all. Otherwise I love the app and being able to grow my reading streak as I record my reading time. It’s fun to do with friends.

FAQ

What does BookBuds do?

BookBuds is a social reading app that allows you to read with friends virtually. It features a virtual bonfire for shared reading sessions, automatic tracking of reading time, and leaderboards to compete with friends. The app aims to make reading more fun and motivating by turning it into a shared experience.

What are the key features of BookBuds?

Key features include virtual bonfire reading sessions, automatic reading time tracking via a built-in timer, social leaderboards to see who's reading the most, and the ability to invite friends to form reading circles. You can also build reading streaks and compare progress with your group.

Is BookBuds free to use?

Yes, all core social reading features, including reading with friends, bonfire sessions, leaderboards, profiles, and chats, are free to use. The app also offers optional auto-renewing subscriptions for premium features like advanced analytics and enhanced customization.

Who is BookBuds for?

This app is perfect for anyone who wants to read more books, build a consistent reading habit, or simply make reading a more social and accountable activity. It's ideal for friends who want to motivate each other and achieve their reading goals together.

How does BookBuds help with reading goals?

BookBuds helps you achieve your reading goals by making the process more engaging and less solitary. The social aspect, competition on leaderboards, and streak building provide motivation, while automatic tracking ensures you can easily monitor your progress towards finishing your TBR list or developing a daily reading habit.