Review Insights · Google Play
JoyRead-Enjoy Novels & Shorts
JoyRead · 374,438 ratings · ★ 4.0
4.0
★★★★★
374,438 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 84 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"
29 negative reviews mention this · 35% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The only reason I'm giving this app 2 stars is because the stories I've read so far have all been pretty good, though a couple of the event stories they've promoted weren't that great quality. The main downside is how expensive it is to rea…" - Senyah
2
"chapters"
28 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "it says all chapters are free but it's not its expensive!" - Wolfgirl Kimmy
3
"book"
21 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They give ads about books that seem very interesting and then when you download the app and try to find the book, it is not even on the actual app. This has happened twice and is highly disappointing" - R T
4
"free"
19 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "it says all chapters are free but it's not its expensive!" - Wolfgirl Kimmy
5
"expensive"
18 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "way to expensive- only able to subscribe for week/month constantly . unsubscibed fast. ridiculous!!!!" - Bev Witt
6
"money"
17 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "This app is totally scam! I have cancelled all subscriptions and deleted the app but this app developer, CHANGDU HK TECHNOLOGY LIMITED still charging me money until today!! Folks don't download this app and subscribe any of the plans." - Aishah Ali Sibramulisi
7
"reading"
17 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I get hooked on a book! then they require money to go on reading the story 😞 I have no money! you could offer to have the readed watch ads like in other apps!" - Kim Matthiesen
8
"books"
13 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They give ads about books that seem very interesting and then when you download the app and try to find the book, it is not even on the actual app. This has happened twice and is highly disappointing" - R T
9
"month"
13 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "way to expensive- only able to subscribe for week/month constantly . unsubscibed fast. ridiculous!!!!" - Bev Witt
10
"story"
13 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I get hooked on a book! then they require money to go on reading the story 😞 I have no money! you could offer to have the readed watch ads like in other apps!" - Kim Matthiesen
11
"subscription"
13 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "This app is totally scam! I have cancelled all subscriptions and deleted the app but this app developer, CHANGDU HK TECHNOLOGY LIMITED still charging me money until today!! Folks don't download this app and subscribe any of the plans." - Aishah Ali Sibramulisi
12
"unlock"
12 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Just like so many others. Get a few chapters for free and then you have to pay to unlock the rest and its really expensive. You can get books on Amazon that are better and cheaper" - Danielle
📋 All 84 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").
They give ads about books that seem very interesting and then when you download the app and try to find the book, it is not even on the actual app. This has happened twice and is highly disappointing
way to expensive- only able to subscribe for week/month constantly . unsubscibed fast. ridiculous!!!!
This app is totally scam! I have cancelled all subscriptions and deleted the app but this app developer, CHANGDU HK TECHNOLOGY LIMITED still charging me money until today!! Folks don't download this app and subscribe any of the plans.
expensive
it says all chapters are free but it's not its expensive!
Scam App!!! Don't spend your money!! The app is set up to open random books when you click to receive your currency and defaults to auto purchase locked chapters so it will open a book you did not click and auto spend your currency on it. Do not waste your time or money on this app. The customer service is horrible and just repeatedly says you used the currency and they need you to acknowledge that you spent the currency (when you did not) so they can close the case. Complete scam.
Just like so many others. Get a few chapters for free and then you have to pay to unlock the rest and its really expensive. You can get books on Amazon that are better and cheaper
Hi the problem I have is that your statement says that the short story's are free yet you ask money to open the rest of the story and it's a weekly pass for R215+ per week. Rather have it on the points or rewards sistem like your other book. It's a waste to go and try reading and think as statement says it's free.
spent a ridiculous amount of money on this app over the years! just today i spent lots to get coins for 193 chapters.. and now tried watching 3 ads to get a chapter free but still can't read it? ridiculous!
forces you to log in, and buy coins
It depends what device you're using if you can get an unlimited novels pass subscription. In March, I had one for $34.99. In April, it went up to $49.99. NOW, it's $89.99. RIDICULOUS RIPOFF. I just switched phones, went from Samsung A16 to a Samsung S22 Ultra and I have no access to unlimited monthly subscription options at all. I'm not dying to pay $89.99 a month but the inconsistencies with this app at this point is DOWNRIGHT SHADY.
Bait and switch.
Great Story, Insane Prices I loved the story from the ad, so I downloaded the app, but when I got to the end of the free reading, there were no options to watch an ad to unlock the next chapter, and they wanted $40 for a single month pass, with various other options that would have resulted in literally paying over $100 to read a single book. Completely insane. Unfortunate that the app turned out to be a scam after all.
the app was advertised with a specific story in yet another app. I only installed this because the story sounded intriguing. Once the app was installed, it's as if that story never existed. so I'm disappointed and I'm uninstalling it after posting my review.
very expensive novel , I love reading novel but this novel make spend $50 and havent finish or be able to complete the whole novel . its make the reader drop read . what the use of subscription when you going to end up spend more for for chapter . it move expensive than Amazon where you can read entire whole book . .
way to expensive. about 15 dollars a week, $27 a month and $170 a year. And the stories are very AI written and loop back like they forgot what they said previously.
"all chapters are free" the ads say. it's a lie. You need ridiculous amounts of money to keep reading this AI garbage. far more than a well written book.
what a ripoff.
great story, but paying around a day to read a couple of chapters is outrageous! I'm okay not know the title or end of this story at that price!
Pay over £200 to read a full story. Or read 1-2 chapters a day for free. Bearing in mind the chapters are tiny (will take a minute to read) and there are often over 500 of them so this process will take months. The app has a lot of 5* reviews and yet the reviews aren't very positive making me think they got an incentive to leave a "good review." Honestly don't blame them given I need to pay more than a month's mortgage to read ONE story. No thanks. Going to go back to reading actual books.
Scam. The book I started reading as an ad, was pretty good. I downloaded the app to keep reading it. Not too many chapters in, I hit the paywall. I saw the monthly unlimited reading, for $40. I figured there would be other books I would enjoy so I stupidly went for. Get to the payscreen and it is on sale for $30. Deal, right? Nope. Not what they advertised. Ended up being a monthly coin subscription. Which opened like 80 of 500 chapters. So $30 for 1/6 of a very short book.
Advertisement said "Every Chapter Free." I reach chapter 8 in the story I'm reading, and I get told that I need to buy the next chapter. False advertising at it's best. When is an app actually going to provide bibliophiles like myself with endless free chapters? I would even consider purchasing the app (after a free trial) if it gave me unlimited chapters.
You charge more money than it would take to buy real novels from real authors who have knowledge of language and punctuation.You are scraping the bottom of the barrel with these so-called authors yet you charge like they're the reincarnation of Mark Twain...oh wait...you probably don't have any idea of who that is.
want to love it but I lost over 250 coins to chapters I had already read that weren't showing as unlocked when they already were. so frustrating
That is the worst novel app I have ever seen. There are only a few book available for free (even with watching ads). For you to be able to read, they want you to pay a stupid amount to be able to 'read shorts' in a subscription and the price isn't worth the the quality of the book present on this. Furthermore they make you think that you will be able to read if you watch those ads and then when you have enough "pearl", using them is not an option anymore.
GET RID OF THE AD TASK LIST IT'S THE WORST it should be videos only, why the task list? it makes me do like 10 things before it rewards me, ridiculous
No way to wait to unlock chapters or watch ads to unlock. It literally costs like $100 of in game currency to read ONE book. Uninstalling now that I've left this review, there are tons of other apps that have at least some free options
The app was great at the beginning, now it's just to expensive. You have to watch "ads" (not really ads, just long articles) not just 2 like it says, total are around 8 or so. I had bought the monthly pass on sale for $40 a couples months ago NOW its $80 and that's supposedly with a 11% discount regular price is $90. Do you know how many books I can buy with that amount of money?, a few and they won't have grammar, redundancy, repetition nor nonsense. Do better joyread.
I HATE SUBSCRIPTIONS!!!! Um what happened to your single purchase options? I just looked at my purchase history. If this is how this app is going to go for the future. It is worthless to me. I am perfectly happy spending 5 or 10 dollars to be able to read. I hate subscriptions that cannot be found easily and take forever to be canceled. A different app took almost 3 weeks to decide to find me to cancel. I used to love this app. I had just found a new story on Facebook too.
Trying to cancel this subscription has been a headache. Eternal wait time from support with no response. The app gives invalid instructions and directs you to links that don't exist. Beware of this app.
Storys are great. the prices, however, are ridiculous. I thought the others were too expensive But Wow! Price gouging much? back to the fanfiction sites for me.
Terrible app way to expensive $80.00 for one month of vip service is ridiculous and if you dont do that you have to unlock each chapter for coins that you either buy or watch a bunch of ads for a tiny amount of coins
The stories are good, but the system operators take away your pearls if you've been inactive for more than a couple of days. I had over 100 3 days ago and when I logged back in this morning I saw I only had 50. And their customer service is completely useless.
I downloaded this app to continue reading the story in the ad that got me here, only to have it disappear completely. Certainly the other reviews I've read leave everything to be desired from this app, uninstalling immediately.
Trash Not only is it slow getting pearls,you also can't see your balance until you in a chap.Also even if you turn off auto unlock it still does it,it don't have ad option for free chaps, the subscription price is ridiculous Trash
im not a millionaire. at least with kindel I can pay to read as many books as I want for a very low price in my opinion and yeah I dont get to keep any on either app but I read with no interruptions (and I would read these by watching adds. I do it on several other apps. oh well. greed wins when people pay a fortune for a book they cant keep.
it is a shame how your app gave false info. regarding it is FREE to read unlimted stories-just to ask money to do so. if i could really rate you it would be a BIG BOLD ZERO
GREEDY! $40 a month,(on sale) A MONTH for unlimited reading is just ridiculous. Otherwise, to use coins to unlock chapters (which is 2-3 minutes worth of reading) which equals $31 per 2½ hours of reading.. that's also on sale! I love the app itself and there are alot of great stories, but it isn't worth the money! I'll wait and buy it on Amazon/Kindle for $2.99.
the subscription isn't showing up in Google play and I can't cancel my subscription. I contact customer service and get this response about being transfered to a professional customer service everytime. then nothing. please cancel my subscription to this joke of a app.
although story was advertised elsewhere all chapters free payment required. I could buy 4 new or 10+ used books for the price to read all chapters of 1 book and I don't have the book if I discontinue the app.
Huh? expensive much. £43.00 a month. how do you get away with charging this.
trickery to say the least. it cost more to unlock chapters than it does to pay for a complete book anywhere else. you can't make enough coins to read more than 1 chapter.
Money Grab. They charge more pearls per chapter than you can earn per task - Each gives 4 pearls, but each Chapter requires at least 37 pearls. So scammy. You get limited ads & complete enomous # of tasks which glitch & don't pay out. It isn't worth it for only a couple chapters per day; Especially when each chapter is a glorified ½ page. Honestly don't waste your time or data. They don't care about customers *Update: Most tasks aren't marked as complete so you have to repeat them several times.
it's not FREE
this app was decent until I learned the event rewards are a scam. you spend actual money for chances to earn more but only get the lowest reward possible from a system that is supposed to be randomly generated. 15 times in a row I got the same result...and customer support says it's random and that it happens. not that many times IN A ROW when there are 6 different outcomes. that's just basic math. so rigged. not worth the money or the time to continue. will uninstall.
I wanted to read the book from the ad. It doesn't seem to exist. Misleading and very disappointing.
If you want to read 300+ chapters of slop and misery, this is the app for you. Otherwise you need separate in app currency for "Exclusive Stories" and a completely separate subscription for what they call "Shorts". It's $27 per month, $90 every 3 months or $170 for the year. No thanks
I thought it was free with ads, but you don't have that option so I'm definitely not continuing with this app. There are plenty of others the have ads and can continue reading without buying any coins.
deceptive/can't cancel a subscription I never signed up for.
Very expensive. Don't fall for it. You have to buy coins to keep reading anything past several chapters. They aren't cheap, either.
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Sentiment summary
74%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
23%
Negative (1-2★)