ReadingRate · What's new · 2026-01-12
Four questions when you finish a book
When you mark a book finished, ReadingRate asks you four questions written for that book and for you. They are built from the passages you highlighted, the notes you logged while reading, your answers to earlier debriefs, and up to sixty books you have already finished — so one question will usually quote your own earlier phrasing back at you, and another will reach for something you read years ago. Your answers are saved as a journal entry.
Available on web and iOS.
A star rating records that you finished. It does not make you think about what you finished, and the gap between those two things is most of the reason people cannot remember books they have read.
The questions are deliberately not literary criticism. The rule behind them is that the book is the occasion and your thinking is the subject, with a standing ban on the four questions everyone asks: what surprised you, which character stood out, what will you remember, how does this connect to your life.
One question is always about something the book did not do that you wanted it to. That tends to be the one people write most in.
What it can't do
- It works from what you saved. Finish a book having highlighted nothing and the questions have little to anchor on.
- Four open questions, not a summary and not a rating. Nothing is written on your behalf.
- If the model call fails you get four generic questions instead, and you are not charged for them.
- Answers reach Obsidian as journal entries rather than inside the book's own completion note.
- It cannot tell whether you understood the book. It can only ask.
Questions people ask
- What should I do after finishing a book?
- ReadingRate asks four questions written from what you highlighted, what you wrote after earlier books, and the titles you have already finished. The answers are kept as a journal entry you can find again.
- Does ReadingRate write a summary when I finish a book?
- No. It asks you four questions instead. The writing is yours.