Parents' Guide to Litsy

This app is an interesting mashup of social media and books, but its glitches and emphasis on status hamper it. On the upside, it's simpler than Goodreads, and lets you search for books, share them with friends, and create collections with ease. Better still, it adds a lively social element by letting you post photos along with reviews. The latter is important when it comes to personalizing your feed and increasing your Litfluence.

Users with high Litfluence (some call themselves "Littens") are serious about their profiles and presentation. This makes them fun to follow. However, parents could be rightly concerned about the app's emphasis on achieving Litfluence, as opposed to reading. In terms of functionality, the most bothersome thing about Litsy is its tendency to crash (which it did frequently at the time of this writing). On top of that, its pages don't update automatically, and its searches often return obscure titles only mildly related to the authors you're looking for. Finally, there are few details about individual books and no author profile pages. As far as kid safety goes, it's best for teens because of the inappropriate results returned by searches containing references to sex, alcohol, and profanity like "s--t" or "f--k." Despite all this, though, the app's easy and convenient to use, and if you don't take it too seriously, it's fun watching your book shelves and Litfluence grow.