Review Insights · Google Play
JoyRead-Enjoy Novels & Shorts
JoyRead · 376,465 ratings · ★ 3.9
3.9
★★★★★
376,465 ratings
🎯 Build a better version
Top complaints - extracted from 63 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"read"
25 negative reviews mention this · 40% of all complaints
★★★★★ "the only thing wrong is that you have to pay an astronomical amount of money just to read what you want to." - Justin Bolek
2
"coins"
18 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I do not recommend using this app. Some great books/stories but they are expensive. Earning pearls/coins is painstakingly slow. It takes a lot of pearls/coins to unlock any of the chapters & buying them is rather expensive. Many times compl…" - Jessica S
3
"free"
17 negative reviews mention this · 27% of all complaints
★★★★★ "said the app was free for 24 hours, once downloading it, that proved to be false, very disappointing" - veronica robertson
4
"pearls"
15 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I do not recommend using this app. Some great books/stories but they are expensive. Earning pearls/coins is painstakingly slow. It takes a lot of pearls/coins to unlock any of the chapters & buying them is rather expensive. Many times compl…" - Jessica S
5
"subscription"
14 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "they tell you to go to Google play store to manage your subscription, I checked just and there was no subscription active to justify the card deduction but after that they charge you for your purchase in-app. and it's not a small amount!!" - Daphne Cai
6
"book"
14 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I downloaded this app because the ad said all chapters were free. That is not true, as soon as I opened it to the book I read in the ad it brought up a subscription. I immediately deleted, I can buy a book cheaper than what they are asking …" - Kecia McCurrie
7
"chapters"
13 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Many good read, too bad the paywall is high as mount everest aka very very pricey. subcription price not recomended , but it also very hard to get free coin...so u can read 2- 3 chapters daily - got bored because of the wait/ ads, then move…" - Izatora
8
"expensive"
13 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I do not recommend using this app. Some great books/stories but they are expensive. Earning pearls/coins is painstakingly slow. It takes a lot of pearls/coins to unlock any of the chapters & buying them is rather expensive. Many times compl…" - Jessica S
9
"money"
12 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "the only thing wrong is that you have to pay an astronomical amount of money just to read what you want to." - Justin Bolek
10
"stories"
11 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I read one good story, and paid for a year's access. Now I am expected to pay more to read the short stories. Absolutely ridiculous, a membership should include all stories. The longer ones just drag on to force people to spend more to read…" - Cory S
11
"books"
11 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I do not recommend using this app. Some great books/stories but they are expensive. Earning pearls/coins is painstakingly slow. It takes a lot of pearls/coins to unlock any of the chapters & buying them is rather expensive. Many times compl…" - Jessica S
12
"chapter"
10 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Many good read, too bad the paywall is high as mount everest aka very very pricey. subcription price not recomended , but it also very hard to get free coin...so u can read 2- 3 chapters daily - got bored because of the wait/ ads, then move…" - Izatora
📋 All 63 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
SCAM. Do not subscribe to this app. I emailed them within the app within a couple of days stating I wanted to cancel - no response. They charged me again, I had to escalate through my card company because I also received no response through email. They didn't send any proof that I didn't cancel (if a human looked at it you could tell I was sending them messages that are miraculously deleted from my side of the app), but they did send evidence they are tracking locations. Creepy.
they tell you to go to Google play store to manage your subscription, I checked just and there was no subscription active to justify the card deduction but after that they charge you for your purchase in-app. and it's not a small amount!!
I read one good story, and paid for a year's access. Now I am expected to pay more to read the short stories. Absolutely ridiculous, a membership should include all stories. The longer ones just drag on to force people to spend more to read and age that first one hand been bad.
I DID NOT SUSCRIBE THIS PAGE AND MY MONEY WAS BEING DEDUCTED !! PLEASE REFUND BACK MY MONEY !!
BEWARE!! Do not buy from this app!!!! They will keep taking unauthorised payments even after you have canceled all subscriptions. Look up Union Read (thats the name that is on the payments they take from your bank) on Google and it will tell you that it is a common scam merchant.
downloaded the app multiple times but tells me failed to load tried to refresh and nothing happens. all my other novel apps are working fine seems there is something wrong with the app itself
I didn't like because it gave the impression that the reading was free until the end of the story, in any moment say that after some chapter when you are really interested it says that to continue reading you need to pay. It's a blackmail, hostages way to force you to pay to each chapter after some number you are committed.
I do not recommend using this app. Some great books/stories but they are expensive. Earning pearls/coins is painstakingly slow. It takes a lot of pearls/coins to unlock any of the chapters & buying them is rather expensive. Many times completing the activities to earn the coins/pearls are very time consuming & tend to have glitches which result in nothing earned & you having just wasted your time. Far too many ads & most are rather time consuming.
I got several chapters of a story shown in an add that said I could read the rest for free of this app. The rest of the book on the app actually costs close to if not more than $100 and it won't let me get free coins for adds. I know adds are untrustworthy but this is taking it to a whole new level.
expensive, chapters are extremely short, it's extremely difficult to get free pearls/coins and the books have not been proof read by an editor.
used to be great but now they've become greedy! imagine i already paid a monthly fee and checking in daily only to find out the coins have expired! i need time to read! it's not just the only thing I'll do right? also they have ANOTHER FEE for shorts! can't use my paid existing coins & pearls at all! VERY GREEDY!
same as all the other one star reviews here. There are much more reasonably priced apps that do the same thing better.
Don't use or buy any coins from them. You get stuck in a subscription and can't get out of it. The way they tell you to cancel is not how you can. They end up taking money and you can't get it back.
They are actively stealing from me. I unsubcribed after deciding that it wasn't my cup of tea, deleted my account and uninstalled the app, and then the next week, Unionread charged me 30 dollars, and the week after that and the week after that. They haven't responded to my emails, Google Play won't do anything and the bank says I need to give them at least 15 days to respond. They aren't just greedy, they are criminals. Or at minimum incompetent.
I watched 6 ads to unlock a chapter and then it refused to unlock. You must fiend money to read.
Expensive and worthless app! I spent way too much on coins and pearls only for them to 'expire' while I wait for more chapters. Save your time and money. Choose a different option
Unsatisfied,
absolutely lie nothing is free you have to pay to even read past the 5th chapter and I would rather buy 10 books then pay their ridiculous high prices get out of here and then they dont even let you cancel and when you do they continue to charge your card. I had to cancel my card because they tried to take over a 100 out of my account. DO NOT DOWNLOAD ITS A RIP OFF
You have to pay a ridiculous amount for virtual coins to actually read a book. It's also a monthly sub not just a one time payment, which makes it look even more like a scam. Check the other 1 star reviews, it's not a great app.
Hooked with a story from an ad that started out good, but as soon as you get passed the free-to-read-immediately portion, the rest of the story is clearly bad AI slop. I have to assume this was a deliberate bait and switch
Insanely overpriced and the ads, already extremely annoying, aren't enough to get through any of the books.
Too expensive not worth the money
paid for the 19.99 monthly coins pack but never received it even though was charge for it twice. this is a scam and unacceptable I will be contacting my lawyer. wont let me add pictures to review
won't load.
Very few authors update their books, and they don't care. Also many of the books have multiple versions with a different title and different author, same story different names. When you jave to purchase per chapter it get expensive trying to figure out if you've read a book or not. I read alot of books and its frustrating when the author does not update.
absolutely ridiculous trying to stop your subscription keep taking money after I've asked them to cancel it twice. waste of time and they are a bunch of useless fools
Uses coins (bought) & pearls. Can earn about 362 pearls/day + 2 "free" chapters by ad/article/test about 120-131 times for 2p & often don't load properly, give award or register. Actual amount of pearls randomly decreases w/o reason & cost of chapters increases each time you look. Most chapters cost 40p and are worth 2-3 paragraphs. Customer service worst I've seen, doesn't resolve the issues/Glitches, says they can then repeats random FAQ portion and closes ticket. Most stories poorly edited/AI
I paid for a weekly subscription that didn't show up in my Google subscription. I've tried to cancel it, but it won't let me. I've reached out to customer service, and they were no help.
they charge me for a year subscription but only gave me a week and will not fix the problem.
way to expensive to read one story and no way to cancel subscription
I have logged in a few days in a row. I claim my login rewards and then start reading. I'll claim a 5 or 10 minute reward and the next thing I know all my pearls my rewards are gone. I'll be down to one or two even though I'm not spent them. this has happened every time I've gotten on this app. very unimpressed
lies. it literally said you can read for free and it actually cost. waste of my time
SCAM If I could give zero stars, I would. You have to purchase different subscriptions to read all of the books. So even if you have coins or pearls and the book you want to read is deemed as a short story... you have to buy the shorts or short story subscription to read it. There is no way to apply your already purchased coins or pearls to the short story book you were reading. So why even do it in the first place? It's ridiculous.
The app makes it impossible for you to unsubscribe.
You can watch ads, and it'll say 'watch 2 ads', but suddenly theres an Ad Tasklist making you do 9 different things. I feel bad for the authors, because this app isn't worth it.
I'm giving it a one star because every time you hit the prompt to unlock your next chapter by watching ADS, it gives you an ad task list and it wants 3 of each step completed instead of giving me the video then when I try and watch the extra videos in the rewards option. It pops up that same task list each and every time the stories are good. I like them, but the app needs to be fixed.
priced way to high.
I would give this no stars if I could. This ap is just one giant money grab. Horribly expensive with over 50USD for 1 book with 140 pages. 1 page= 1 chapter. It's a complete scam. Then it directs you to open pages for free coins with only a few coins reward. You would need to watch or read 10 ads to unlock 1 page. This is one of the worst reading apps I have come across yet. Don't download this.
False advertising no chapters for free have to pay to read .
So expensive! I can't believe how expensive it is to finish some of these stories, they are interesting but for the one I was reading I'd have to buy the $99.99 pack of coins four times to have enough to buy the whole thing with the 20% off bulk download. That's insane! There is no book on this planet enjoyable enough to pay over $400 to read.
They make your pearls (needed to unlock chapters and earned by reading) disappear so that you pay to get pearls. I had just accumulated over 40 pearls by reading and doing tasks, I unlocked no chapters and suddenly I have only 1 pearl.
this app takes control of my phone's brightness and won't let me adjust it for myself!!!! actually the worst
I dont mind paying subscription. For reasonable price. This one is beyond unreasonable. Its robbery. You dont get free access for a week or month or year. But coins, under a monthly subscription for example, that you can use in few days. No book is worth 100 dollars.
You'll go broke trying 2 read 1 book... Most books have a ridiculous amount of chapters... Nearly a thousand... What kinda never ending stories are these??? Dragged out for nothing... Free Pearls and coins disappear... Ur basically forced to pay some kind of subscription for a limited amount of coins or pearls that might get u about 3 or 4 chapters before they want money again... I rather go buy a normal book...that know how to make the amount of chapters realistic and not never ending... Kmt
the logic that without the subscription 1 300 chapter novel is running $100.00+ dollars is simply sad as the stories are decent but they are not AAA author lvl to equate a limited edition hardback book price the cost per chapter needs to really come down alot
I can't even use my exclusive pearls on the one book I actually like. what kind of scam is that?
cant cancel subscription. AI "support" is useless.
Waaaay too expensive. "Chapters" are barely a page long. I've spent $20 and haven't even made it through 25% of one book. Ad options are few, often glitch without providing the reward, and usually require you to watch multiple ads or complete numerous actions before being rewarded only a couple of pearls. Not worth your time.
Terrible. I hit some button by mistake now it's charging me $19.99 a week but I cannot cancel the subscription.
the only thing wrong is that you have to pay an astronomical amount of money just to read what you want to.
+ 13 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
71%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
26%
Negative (1-2★)