What are Kindle Recaps and Story So Far, and do they help ADHD readers?

What did Amazon launch, and when?

Amazon announced Recaps on 2 April 2025, describing them as refreshers for books you have already read, "much like the 'Previously on...' segment before a show." The same announcement added Story So Far: spoiler-free refreshers up to where you have read, for thousands of popular fiction titles. Amazon updated the article on 2 July 2026 to say Recaps had expanded to the web browser. (Amazon)

Why does this help an ADHD reader?

The most common way ADHD readers lose a book is not boredom. It is a gap: a busy week, a new obsession, a bad month. When you come back, the plot has gone, and starting again from page one feels like punishment. A recap that stops at your page turns "start over" into "three minutes and carry on." Our method for coming back, with or without a recap tool, is Coming back to a book you abandoned.

Series are the other weak spot. A year between books is normal; remembering who betrayed whom is not. Recaps for earlier books solve the "before I start book four" problem without a wiki, and wikis are where spoilers for book five live. The long series method covers the rest.

What do they leave out?

• Kindle ebooks only. Amazon describes these features for Kindle ebooks you have bought or borrowed. A paperback, a library hardcover, or an audiobook you are listening to on its own is not covered.
• US only, English only, and only supported titles: thousands of best-sellers and popular fiction, not every book.
• Story So Far is listed for Kindle devices and the Kindle iOS app. The announcement does not list the Android app for it.
• You have to remember the feature exists. For an ADHD reader, a tool hidden in a three-dot menu is a tool you forget. Put a note in the book's first page or your phone's reading Focus: "Lost? Press and hold for Read recap."

What if your book is not a Kindle ebook?

Then you have three options. Your own notes: two lines at the end of each session, which costs nothing and works for every book (externalize the plot). A general chatbot, which does not know your page and can mix up later events or invent details, so you have to tell it exactly where you are and trust it not to spoil. Or a recap app built to stop at your page in your own copy, such as Magic Bookmark, which works with print, ebook and audio copies of its supported titles on iPhone and charges per book after the first. Our recap tools table puts them side by side.

Is Story So Far free?

Amazon presents Recaps and Story So Far as features of supported Kindle ebooks, with no separate charge described. You pay for the book (or borrow it), not for the recap.