📚 AI-Powered Book Recommendation System

A full-stack web application that intelligently recommends books using collaborative filtering, NLP-based sentiment analysis, and user preferences. Built with Django REST Framework (backend) and ReactJS + Tailwind CSS (frontend), this project showcases production-ready features like JWT authentication, user reviews, trending genres, and a dynamic personalized home page.

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💡 Why This Project?

With thousands of books available online, readers often struggle to find titles that match their taste.

This system solves that by combining:

• 📊 Data-driven recommendations
• 💬 Sentiment understanding of user reviews
• 🎯 Personalized suggestions based on genre and behavior

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🚀 Features

• 🔐 JWT Authentication (Login & Signup)
• 👤 User Preferences: Select your favorite genres
• 💬 Review System with real-time Sentiment Analysis
• ⭐ Book Ratings with automatic average calculation
• 📖 Personalized Recommendations using:
  • ✅ NLP Sentiment Scores (TextBlob / VADER)
  • ✅ Collaborative Filtering (User-to-User)
• 📊 Trending Genres, Featured & Recommended Books
• 🧠 Smart Home Page with dynamic sections
• 📌 Bookmarked Books, Likes (coming soon)
• 🎨 Responsive UI (Tailwind CSS)

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Frontend

• React + Axios + Tailwind CSS
• Framer Motion (UI Animations)
• React Router, Context API

Backend

• Django + Django REST Framework (DRF)
• SimpleJWT for authentication
• TextBlob / NLTK for NLP sentiment analysis
• SQLite (dev) / PostgreSQL (prod)

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📂 Project Structure

book_recommend/                     # Root directory
│
├── book_recommendation/           # Django backend project folder
│   ├── books/                     # App handling books, reviews, genres
│   ├── users/                     # App for user auth and preferences
│   ├── settings.py                # Django settings
│   └── urls.py                    # URL routing for the backend
│
├── book-recommendation-ui/       # React frontend folder
│   ├── public/                   # Static files
│   └── src/                      # React components and pages
│       ├── components/           # Reusable components like BookCard, Navbar, etc.
│       ├── pages/                # Pages like Home, BookList, Login, etc.
│       └── App.js                # Root component
│
├── db.sqlite3                    # Local development database
├── manage.py                     # Django CLI entry point
└── README.md                     # Project documentation

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⚙️ Getting Started

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/Soham-G96/book-recommendation-system.git
cd book_recommendation-system

2. Backend Setup

python -m venv myenv
myenv\Scripts\activate  # or source myenv/bin/activate (Mac/Linux)

pip install -r requirements.txt

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver

3. Frontend Setup

cd ../book-recommendation-ui
npm install
npm start

🔐 React .env Setup Create a .env file in book-recommendation-ui/ and add the following:

REACT_APP_API_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/

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🔍 How It Works

• On login, user sets genre preferences
• Recommender combines collaborative filtering + NLP sentiment scores
• Books, reviews, and genres fetched via secured DRF endpoints
• Review save triggers sentiment scoring & rating update
• Trending genres and dynamic home page update in real-time

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🧠 Future Improvements Bookmarks & Likes

Genre-based Sorting & Filtering

User Profile Dashboard

Dark Mode

Docker Support

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🤝 Contributing Pull requests are welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss your idea.

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🙋‍♂️ Author

Made with ❤️ by Soham Gaikwad

I'm a passionate Python developer with a strong foundation in Django, React, and Machine Learning.
Looking for full-time opportunities where I can build meaningful and scalable products.

📫 Feel free to reach out or connect with me on LinkedIn.

📄 License MIT License © Soham-G96