AI transparency

Book people come first.

Indie authors and independent bookstores aren’t a footnote to this app. They’re part of why it exists. The goal is to help you find a book you’ll love, then support the people who brought it into the world.

You’ll find buying options including Bookshop.org and Libro.fm, which support independent bookstores. Some retailer links are affiliate links: a purchase through them may earn Beguiled By Books a commission. Other retailers, including Amazon and Audible, are also available. You choose where to buy—or borrow from your library.

This isn’t a promise that every recommendation is an indie title. It is a commitment to value human storytelling and make independent buying options visible.

About energy, water, and resources

Your concern is fair. AI runs in data centers, and those use electricity and can use water for cooling. So does the wider internet. I won’t tell you this app has no footprint, or that a book match costs a certain number of drops of water. I don’t have measurements that would make those claims honest.

The app uses existing AI services rather than training its own large model. Some generated book insights are saved and reused instead of being recreated for every reader. Ordinary shelves and reading totals don’t need a new AI answer to work.

Those are specific design choices, not proof of a tiny footprint. I don’t currently have verified per-request energy or water figures, or a full environmental audit of the providers.

And yes, there’s a tension here.

The app accesses models through Lovable’s AI service, with Google models used for book matching and OpenAI used for some email suggestions. That means large technology companies are part of the supply chain. I can’t honestly promise that none of the money reaches them. My priority is the reading community—not promoting those companies—and I’d rather be open about that trade-off than pretend it doesn’t exist.

You don’t have to love AI to love books.

You can use your library, log your reading, and explore your reading totals without asking for generated recommendations. That isn’t a site-wide AI opt-out: some optional discovery tools and recommendation emails use AI.

Your Content Preferences let you skip books flagged for possibly generated text, synthetic narration, or generated cover art. Those flags are best-effort, not certification—and filtering AI-made books is different from turning off this app’s recommendation tools.

Preferences require a signed-in account. To create a match, relevant quiz answers, library history, ratings, and mood journal excerpts may be sent to a model provider. This page is not a promise that no data leaves the app.