As a big fan of reading, I saw an opportunity to make a difference with Bookish. It's my take on a book-tracking app that's just a little bit more refined and user-friendly than Goodreads. I used React Native to build it - this meant users would get a consistent experience, whether they're on an iPhone or an Android.

With this app, users can easily search for books, create personalized bookshelves to keep track of what they're currently reading, want to read, and have read. Plus, they can rate and review books, get recommendations based on their favorite genres, and get an overview of their reading activity.

I dove into TypeScript on the frontend for this project, which was an interesting exercise! It added structure to my code but synchronizing it with the Google Books API and my MongoDB database proved a challenge. I had to ensure the data from Google's extensive book library lined up neatly with the custom info I was storing in my database.

I also explored unit testing, though not as extensively as I originally planned. It turned out identifying the right pieces to test wasn't so straightforward - I created and tested my own validation for the search input, which is something I usually rely on libraries for (like Formik and Yup). This gave me a greater appreciation for such libraries, as they save so much time.

Bookish isn't just a pet project of mine, it's something I want to share with other developers. If you're interested, feel free to check out the frontend and backend on GitHub, complete with detailed READMEs to help you get set up. Bookish was another fun and challenging step in my journey as a developer - I love reading and coding, so it was a real pleasure to combine the two!

Tech stack: React Native, React Query, Expo, TypeScript, Node, Express, MongoDB, Mongoose, Vitest