For years, I’ve just used the Kindle app to read on my Android or iPhone. It was easy, and send to Kindle is awesome. The UI, while cluttered with Amazon nonsense, was pleasing enough to get along with. But I now host all of my own eBooks, and I am trying to divorce myself from Amazon as much as I can. The issue I’ve had is that there are no great eBook readers for Android.

They’re all flawed in some form or fashion. And while I’d love to hear your recommendations, I’m positive I’ve tried all of them. Moon Reader came the closest, but it was quite buggy and the UI seems to have been developed by the KDE guys. Their philosophy is “more features = better”. I don’t mind features, but too many can make the tree fall down. ReadEra would probably be the one I’d use, it seems to be the best. But it uses Solarized as the theme, and I’d rather jump off the Mackinac Bridge than use something that only uses Solarized as a theme. I’ve tried Lithium, and eBoox, and so many more.

The one I’ve found that is okay is Aquile Reader. It’s just okay. It doesn’t have a ton of features, and is missing a few I’d like (like being able to change the how the page number is displayed), but it’s good enough for now.

I think I’m just being too picky, but I really am struggling to find an app that I enjoy. I’m probably just going to have to make my own. Problem is my Kotlin is horrible. I’ve only looked at it a little, and I’ve never really done much with Android Studio either. So it will be a learning experience. (On a side note, I’ve been learning React, Typescript, rust, and a few others. I’ve broadened my horizons a lot in the last few months). I wish more that there was one that was just really good. The few that have come close were just flawed in some way (mostly around file import) and I just couldn’t use them.

I’ll keep looking while I think about if I really want to make my own app. I’m not a developer, so my developing usually looks like: Google, Google, Google, Claude, Google. While I learn a lot, it still feels like I rely on others way more than I use my own code. But, I really don’t want to go back to the Kindle app, so maybe I’ll just have to work on it.