Review Insights · App Store
GoodNovel - Booktok, Stories
SINGAPORE NEW READING TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD. · 199,710 ratings · ★ 4.5
4.5
★★★★★
199,710 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 41 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"
14 negative reviews mention this · 34% of all complaints
★★★★★ "False advertising - Lied about a free book. The ad said “for a limited time read the whole book for free” but when I downloaded the app and tried to keep reading it said I owe money to keep reading. False advertising!" - dawk7
2
"book"
12 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "False advertising - Lied about a free book. The ad said “for a limited time read the whole book for free” but when I downloaded the app and tried to keep reading it said I owe money to keep reading. False advertising!" - dawk7
3
"chapters"
12 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Rip off. Coins are expensive and chapters are short. I’d rather buy a book than read on this app." - sch4810
4
"money"
11 negative reviews mention this · 27% of all complaints
★★★★★ "False advertising - Lied about a free book. The ad said “for a limited time read the whole book for free” but when I downloaded the app and tried to keep reading it said I owe money to keep reading. False advertising!" - dawk7
5
"coins"
11 negative reviews mention this · 27% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Rip off. Coins are expensive and chapters are short. I’d rather buy a book than read on this app." - sch4810
6
"story"
10 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Ignore The 5-Star Reviews. It’s safe to say that the 5-star reviews you’ve seen are fake. Accounts paid to upsell this disappointing app. Listen to all of the 3-star and under reviews, absolutely. Nothing is free about this app, really. You’re allowed to read a coupl…" - BriZBrat22
7
"chapter"
10 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Rip off. Coins are expensive and chapters are short. I’d rather buy a book than read on this app." - sch4810
8
"reading"
9 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "False advertising - Lied about a free book. The ad said “for a limited time read the whole book for free” but when I downloaded the app and tried to keep reading it said I owe money to keep reading. False advertising!" - dawk7
9
"stories"
9 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Ignore The 5-Star Reviews. It’s safe to say that the 5-star reviews you’ve seen are fake. Accounts paid to upsell this disappointing app. Listen to all of the 3-star and under reviews, absolutely. Nothing is free about this app, really. You’re allowed to read a coupl…" - BriZBrat22
10
"free"
7 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "False advertising - Lied about a free book. The ad said “for a limited time read the whole book for free” but when I downloaded the app and tried to keep reading it said I owe money to keep reading. False advertising!" - dawk7
11
"waste"
6 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Pay to read. If you like to read a lot then this app sucks. To read one novel you have to pay way more than an actual book cost. Don’t waste your time." - Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhc
12
"books"
6 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Good Books too many ads. They have some good books, before it was just watching ads to get a New chapter (which was okay), now it’s a random ad in the middle of you reading a chapter THEN an ad or two to get a get a new chapter, ads are getting ridiculous, some are…" - Prpl3Daze
📋 All 41 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
Charged me 19.99 a week which I did not authorize or buy. Be careful with this app
False advertising - Lied about a free book
The ad said “for a limited time read the whole book for free” but when I downloaded the app and tried to keep reading it said I owe money to keep reading. False advertising!
Pay to read
If you like to read a lot then this app sucks. To read one novel you have to pay way more than an actual book cost. Don’t waste your time.
Rip off
Coins are expensive and chapters are short. I’d rather buy a book than read on this app.
Ignore The 5-Star Reviews
It’s safe to say that the 5-star reviews you’ve seen are fake. Accounts paid to upsell this disappointing app. Listen to all of the 3-star and under reviews, absolutely.
Nothing is free about this app, really. You’re allowed to read a couple of chapters - poorly written by the way, calling these stories “novels” is actually an insult to real novels - and then they make you pay to read the rest. Just because I wanted to try and read the rest of the poorly written story I’d been following, I purchased the $20 option for their micro-transaction garbage, which gave me 1500… coins? Token? Whatever; the point is, I was able to make it to chapter 62 of the story I was reading, then I was out of coins. I was obviously not going to finish it, haha.
The app is not easy to navigate. There are no helpful buttons while you’re reading your stories to find out how many chapters you have left, and I honestly didn’t explore most of it because I was afraid I’d lose my place in the story.
The story itself was written like a poorly acted Chinese drama; you know, the ones where the main female lead realizes she’s been married to an awful person the whole time, and tries to move on with her life, but it takes ages and way too many more interactions with said awful person before anything finally starts looking like an end? Yeah, one of those, lol. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine to watch that kind of thing, and I suppose reading them is no different, too; however, I’m not about to waste money I can’t really afford to lose on an such a disappointing app. As mentioned, the story itself was poorly written, clearly not written by someone who knew fluent English, or bothered to pick up a dictionary. Could have been written by AI, honestly. Kind of feels that way! The female lead was being constantly bothered by some “mistress” who didn’t even matter in the long run, because the female lead’s ex wanted nothing to do with her once she realize early on what she was doing. The ex husband was a constant bother despite the female lead repeatedly wanting nothing to do with him. Seriously, written just like a Chinese drama, just a different format.
I actually wrote notes on the story ‘cause I was going to criticize it into the dirt for my review, but honestly? This whole app just deserves to be avoided. The chapters you get to read through ads on the apps is usually the same amount you’re allowed to read free of charge because they spring a micro-transaction screen on your phone; plus, we all more or less know how it ends, how it plays out in-between, so save your wallet and don’t buy anything; save your time, and only read what is free. I hope this helps.
Nothing is free about this app, really. You’re allowed to read a couple of chapters - poorly written by the way, calling these stories “novels” is actually an insult to real novels - and then they make you pay to read the rest. Just because I wanted to try and read the rest of the poorly written story I’d been following, I purchased the $20 option for their micro-transaction garbage, which gave me 1500… coins? Token? Whatever; the point is, I was able to make it to chapter 62 of the story I was reading, then I was out of coins. I was obviously not going to finish it, haha.
The app is not easy to navigate. There are no helpful buttons while you’re reading your stories to find out how many chapters you have left, and I honestly didn’t explore most of it because I was afraid I’d lose my place in the story.
The story itself was written like a poorly acted Chinese drama; you know, the ones where the main female lead realizes she’s been married to an awful person the whole time, and tries to move on with her life, but it takes ages and way too many more interactions with said awful person before anything finally starts looking like an end? Yeah, one of those, lol. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine to watch that kind of thing, and I suppose reading them is no different, too; however, I’m not about to waste money I can’t really afford to lose on an such a disappointing app. As mentioned, the story itself was poorly written, clearly not written by someone who knew fluent English, or bothered to pick up a dictionary. Could have been written by AI, honestly. Kind of feels that way! The female lead was being constantly bothered by some “mistress” who didn’t even matter in the long run, because the female lead’s ex wanted nothing to do with her once she realize early on what she was doing. The ex husband was a constant bother despite the female lead repeatedly wanting nothing to do with him. Seriously, written just like a Chinese drama, just a different format.
I actually wrote notes on the story ‘cause I was going to criticize it into the dirt for my review, but honestly? This whole app just deserves to be avoided. The chapters you get to read through ads on the apps is usually the same amount you’re allowed to read free of charge because they spring a micro-transaction screen on your phone; plus, we all more or less know how it ends, how it plays out in-between, so save your wallet and don’t buy anything; save your time, and only read what is free. I hope this helps.
This is such a trap
Please don’t get sucked into this. Go buy books that are published properly, instead of wasting more than a hundred dollars per story. The chapters are usually painfully short too. They’re all pretty smutty as well. I don’t want ads from this app anymore.
Bonuses are a scam
They will not allow you to use your bonuses to read chapters. Don’t waste your time. Also, can’t read book with purchased coins either so there’s that.
NOT FREE
It cost a lot to read these books because it’s a lot of chapters. They suck you in but if you try to read them you will spend a lot of money. You can buy a book cheaper than this.
False advertising a/k/a LIES
« Continue to read this book for free » NOT. NO OPTION TO « PAY » BY WATCHING ADS. REMOVE THIS FROM APP STORE!!!
Too expensive
Way too much money
Can’t use coins
I have purchased coins many times with no issues and now instead of being able to use them they are trying to force me to subscribe to use my purchased coins. I tried to use their message service to receive a refund but it is just automated with the same 10 preset links. This is a huge disappointment. Don’t bother wasting money to read the stories, after a certain amount of purchases it stops your chapter purchases and requires a subscription. So incredibly disappointing.
Changed the chapter I was on
I was on chapter 41 and tge took me all the way back to chapter 7 of my stepbrother’s the alpha’s dirty secret has how! This is ridiculous with all the money I spent on the app
Didn’t receive what I paid for
Paid for coins and didn’t receive them. Tried to go to the developer for help but it just keeps looping to the app.
Scam
This app scammed me and stole my money and won’t give a refund
The advertised story not found.
Ii installed this app and it opened to ch. 1 of a completely different story. There was no navigation to other stories. So, I read a few pages and this was the most ridiculous few pages I e ever read. Deleted!
Have to pay for everything
Why can’t I just save in app currency to buy stories
The advertised story not found.
Ii installed this app and it opened to ch. 1 of a completely different story. There was no navigation to other stories. So, I read a few pages and this was the most ridiculous few pages I e ever read. Deleted!
Have to pay for everything
Why can’t I just save in app currency to buy stories
Beware of fraud if purchasing coins/subscriptions
If you purchase the subscription or even just coins in general pay attention to the amount you have before, after you purchase and after you unlock a chapter. It will double charge you for the first chapter you unlock then go to the standard cost. I have proof and talked to support. It happened 4 times. The first I thought was an accident then it happened the second time. I thought it was a glitch so i did it again but used another story and double charged. I screenshotted everything . I refunded the most recent purchase but won’t resolve the missing coins it double charged since I used up the rest of the coins I purchased. Great for stories but they’re not free and will double charge you . No resolution .
What are the coins for?
I just got this to read one story. Got a bunch of coins stocked up so I could read this story. Only to find out the coins do nothing. Passing 9.99 just to read less than 10 chapters. Disappointed. Deleted the app after I read what I wanted to read.
M
Mmmm
Buyer beware
Definitely a scam, there’s no way to finish reading without spending over $30. The subscription gets you nothing.
Misleading
This app makes you think that the subscription unlocks books but you still have to pay for every chapter! You’re spending way more than you would for just buying a regular book. Don’t download this app!!!!
I HATE THIS APP IM NOT PAYING 9$ GREEDY PEOPLE I GOT THIS FOR 1 STORY RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
THIS APP SUCKS
Don’t do it!
I love to read and was caught on an IG post so I downloaded and made my first purchase of $14.99 not really understanding the app. I used up all my coins and still purchased another $5 worth. Come to realize that each chapter is anywhere from 26-32 coins. The book I chose has 1,343 chapters. I’ll stick to buying my books in the Apple library. Cheaper and I can actually finish a book. Oh and the chapters I paid for has so many grammatical and plot errors!
Insane prices
first few chapters are free, after that it starts low, around 15-25 coins per chapter (chapters are 6-11 pages long each, never longer than 11 pages) and then around chapter 20, you're looking at 30-40 coins a chapter. You get 20 free coins a day granted you check in daily. You'll quickly get to a point where your free 20 coins a day wont even unlock 1 short chapter for you, because the chapter is 30+ coins, sometimes almost 40 and up. The book Ive been reading had over 400 chapters. If you spend $10, you get 1000 coins. At 35ish coins per chapter, $10 will unlock 28 chapters for you. At over 400 chapters in a book, thats over $140 dollars. Ive just passed chapter 127, and Ive spent almost $40 only to learn that I'm barely a quarter through the book. You would have MUCH better luck saving your money & going to Barnes & Noble, finding the fantasy section, and getting a fantasy smut book for $25. Save your money and stop gooning.
Won’t let me unlock chapters with coins
For some reason it won’t even give me the option to unlock chapters with coins :// I’m not paying $40 a month for half baked stories so ig I’m not using this app
Edited to add: it’s been a year and this is still an issue. I gain coins but can’t use them ever. Not worth it, don’t waste your time.
Edited to add on May 1st, 2026: Still an issue
Edited to add: it’s been a year and this is still an issue. I gain coins but can’t use them ever. Not worth it, don’t waste your time.
Edited to add on May 1st, 2026: Still an issue
Payment
It’s telling me to pay to watch after chapter 5. It’s not fair because my friends say they only have to watch an add for the story so why do I have to pay?
Warning: Be Careful It Auto Subscribes
Just so happen to notice a charge at 4am for 19.99 from this app. Went to check my apple settings to verify but it showed that I was not subscribed. I had to dig around in the app to find that the auto subscription (WHICH I DIDNT TURN ON) for a book that I gave up reading because it was costing too much money was on and had already charged me for arounf $60. Charges varied from 9.99 to 19.99
Terrible app
I opened the app and the book I was reading is gone. No library or search function. What a waste of time!
Don’t get a subscription
I like reading books and had a few other reading apps. Thought I would try this one out for the month. Wanted to continue the novel but needed to pay. So I got the monthly subscription. Yeah it’s a monthly subscription only for the shorts and not for the novels. I tried to figure out how to make them coins instead but there is no help desk or anything. What a waste of money.
Keeps charging even when you cancel
And they give no way to contact them. I did not subscribe. I was billed and cancelled. Then billed again. I’m going to have to block them through my bank now!
TOO MANY ADS
I feel like I’m spending more time watching ads than being able to read the actual novel. Easy delete
Billionaires match
They said I could read the whole story now but they lied
Lost money
Even worse lost chapters and had to reread and repurchase. No help was found. Love the writing. App sucks!!
Outrageous prices
10,000 credits = $99 approximately for half a book they want 17,000+ credits so you actually think I’m going to pay over $100 for a book that sells for maybe $10 in paperback out of your mind!!! And I’m mad cause I’m invested in the damn story… but not that vested!! Damn!
Not free
Why say it’s free? It’s not.
Too many ads
I love reading and figured I’d try this but having to watch 2ads between each chapter and the chapters are only 5-6 pages and ads last so long some 90 second. Ridiculous
Good Books too many ads
They have some good books, before it was just watching ads to get a New chapter (which was okay), now it’s a random ad in the middle of you reading a chapter THEN an ad or two to get a get a new chapter, ads are getting ridiculous, some are super long ones too, which I get why we have the ads, but forcing us to watch one in the middle of the reading with a quick 1 second noticed of “ad coming” it’s just ridiculous, it’s this continues I’ll just delete this app, there are others out there that don’t make you watch ads in the middle of a chapter.
GoodNovel
Please fix this platform, I’ve complained and complained.
When watching the commercial the x out is high in the right corner where the battery icon is, you can’t x out. Over and over again please fix, I’m now going to start complaining on every platform I can find. I’ve contacted you for over a month. It’s enough.
Again today5/1/26
Again today 5/2/26 and again
And again
When watching the commercial the x out is high in the right corner where the battery icon is, you can’t x out. Over and over again please fix, I’m now going to start complaining on every platform I can find. I’ve contacted you for over a month. It’s enough.
Again today5/1/26
Again today 5/2/26 and again
And again
TOO MANY ADS
The stories are great! However, ads begin before the chapters end and another ad comes at the end. It’s truly annoying.
Sentiment summary
88%
Positive (4-5★)
5%
Neutral (3★)
7%
Negative (1-2★)