# BookTok - Books & Podcasts — user reviews > 31 indexed App Store user reviews of BookTok by BookTok, rated 4.50/5 from 567 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/booktok-books-and-podcasts/id6673919522/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/booktok-books-and-podcasts/id6673919522.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 428 · 4★ 72 · 3★ 34 · 2★ 13 · 1★ 20 ## What do users think of BookTok? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 🚀 Fast and efficient - 👍 Great for dark romance - 👍 Impressive app with great features **Cons** - 🐛 Offline functionality issues - 🤖 Poor AI narration quality - 💰 Expensive subscription - 🤬 Misleading advertising - 🔒 Difficult to cancel subscription - 🔒 Lack of customer support - 🤯 Copyright infringement issues **Commonly reported bugs** - Garbled text during fast reading - Login and password reset issues - Subscription billing problems **Most requested features** - Add sleep timer function - Improve search and discovery - Provide better accessibility options ## Newest reviews (12 of 31) ### 1/5 — Expensive AI *2025-02-21, version 3.0.1* I downloaded this after seeing an advert on Instagram for $1 lifetime access. I don’t even know where to begin with how awful this is. I just want to listen to audiobooks and I’m asked to set my goals for personal growth or whatever. After finally signing up I see it is $99 per year - not the $1 payment. There seems to be no modern audiobooks that I can find. I finally choose one to listen to and it’s all horrific AI voices, not the original narrators. This means you don’t get the original production, any music or sound effects. It’s a no from me. Misleading! ### 1/5 — Steals Fan work *2024-12-23* Not only does this app actively steal work from AO3 without author permission, it also makes it hard to remove your work once it’s up. Not only that but there isn’t even a good search function on the app or site. You can search by author or book title. No one reads based on that. Do not download this or give these people money. ### 1/5 — Stole my free story and listed it behind a subscription paywall *2024-12-23* Exactly as the title says--this app stole my *free* story and then hid it behind a subscription-based paywall--but it somehow gets worse: not only is the story free, but their AI-generated cover art has nothing to do with the story, the counts for the reviews, comments, and stars are all AI-generated as well, and there is absolutely no way to contact anyone to get the story taken down. To be clear: not only is this app a cookie-cutter AI-generated scam, there is also clear copyright infringement happening here, which is super illegal ### 1/5 — it's a scam *2024-12-23* This company has scraped fanfiction and webnovels from sites like AO3 and Royal Road without the authors' permission. They claim tens of thousands of views and thousands of reviews on each title, despite only having been up for a couple of months. Don't give them your contact info and definitely don't give them your money! ### 1/5 — Stolen Work, AI Slop *2024-12-23* the app’s creator stole thousands of works from different hosting sites including the amazon kindle store and is protifitng off of them without the copyright holders’ consent. now he is insisting that copyright holders need to file dmca takedowns or contact them to have their stolen works released. the theft was not opt-in, but making it right is? the stolen works have ugly uncanny machine-generated covers, and this whole scheme is an insult to both writers and the voiceover artists that some of us have partnered with to make real audiobooks. this whole thing is vile. ### 1/5 — An AI-Generated Scam *2024-12-23* This app stole one of my *free* stories without my consent or permission, and is now hosting it behind a subscription paywall. There is also no way to request the story be taken down or removed. To summarize: this app scrapes already-free stories off the internet, slaps some bad AI-generated cover on it, and then charges you money for the privilege of reading 🙄 a complete scam ### 1/5 — Pay a subscription for stolen free content?? *2024-12-23* I love audio books and listening to stories whether they’re voiced by a human actor or the robot voices on my phone. I do it every day for free but thought I would check out this app. Not only was I extremely disappointed, but I was shocked to see the app offering stories I’ve already listened to for free being hosted here without permission, and without the authors being paid. It seems that thousands of stories have been stolen from Archive of Our Own, a free fanfiction website, without permission. There are already free and easy ways to listen to these stories on your phone without paying for an app, and there are also very cheap one-time-payment apps that will read any website or pdf document out loud for free. I’m so disappointed because I genuinely would have loved a convenient audiobook app where’s I could listen to all kinds of published works in one place and support those authors. Instead, this app has stolen the work of unpaid writers who share their work for free, and is profiting off of their hard work without their permission and without compensating them. It’s also illegal for this app to profit off of fanfiction, so I don’t know they are even getting away this this. ### 1/5 — Thieves *2024-12-23* This app contains stolen works of fiction narrated by AI. They have not even asked for permission from the copywrite owners and charge subscription fee to access them. ### 1/5 — Ai scrapped works with out permission *2024-12-23* This app has uploaded free works with out author permission and against copyright with no way to request removal. It has used ai without author permission and against explicit request of some authors. ### 1/5 — Unethical Use of AI *2024-12-23* Uploading fanfiction to this site without the authors permission is arrogance at its finest. There is no process through which writers can appeal to have their works taken down, and it is a violation to every author who is against AI being used in this manner. As much as they tote accessibility, this company has a lot of work to do before this is even remotely ethical. ### 1/5 — Full of stolen work *2024-12-23* This app is full of content scraped from AO3. They’re charging for access to fanfiction you can get for free. It’s not only shady, it’s illegal - definitely copyright violation in regard to the fic authors’ works and I can’t wait to see what Disney, DC, and other major IP holders make of it. It’s also solidly against AO3’s TOS. ### 1/5 — This site stole my stories *2024-12-23* I’m a fanfiction author and it was recently brought to my attention that two of my stories were up on this strange AI website without my knowledge or permission. They have no internal reporting option nor a way to contact any kind of customer service. Not only that, but they’re charging money for stories that are actually free. I am all for accessibility with stories and audiobooks, but to just sweep through websites with AI and steal people’s hard work without even asking is not okay. To any fellow fanfiction authors out there, please be careful. And to any audiobook enjoyers, I would recommend looking for legitimate websites or apps that haven’t violated several creators’ copyright rights. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Disappointing *2025-11-02* This seemed like a great place to listen to audiobooks, but it was just disappointing. Not accurate at all. I am worried that a young person won’t notice the difference. Why are we dumbing down books? This is tragic! ### 1/5 — Book tok app no access *2025-09-16* I cannot access my subscription in the app ### 1/5 — Charged without permission *2025-08-13* This app charged my account after 3 day trial. No support able to contact to cancel, not even a “forgot password “ link to log in to app to try and correct. Emails provided in “fine print” don’t work. No way to cancel a $99 charge. ### 1/5 — I was fooled *2025-08-09, version 4.0.1* Sadly I was taken in by the Instagram advert - misleading is an understatement. The book featured in the advert were no where to be seen. I cancelled my free trial straight away. Hopefully I don’t get scammed. ### 1/5 — Insulting *2025-08-05* I don’t admire any of those suggested. Why limit to those 9!? The questions are all pretty insulting. ### 1/5 — If you want a person to subscribe *2025-06-21* Then stop giving 15 different steps to a person before asking for money. You might get all the details about the customer beforehand, but you will lose customer respect. ### 1/5 — No good *2025-06-14* Junk- save yourself the time and energy. ### 1/5 — Copyright infringement scandal using terrible TTS AI product *2025-04-02* This app has changed its name but retains the same app and page information; this app and its host service illegally scraped the archive of our own website in order to host versions of author-contributed works without the author's permission, which they CHARGED MONEY FOR, destroyed their ability to be contacted on all versions of their platforms as soon as they realized the massive level of copyright infringement they had committed and the backlash they earned, changed their name, and tried to hide their past. This app has yet to delete the stolen works within their database. They will not let themselves be subject to copyright claims despite stealing random authors' works in order to sell their subscription model, violating statute 17 U.S.C. § 512 (c)(3)(A). This app is a scam and makes its money off of scummy business practices. There are infinitely better TTS apps available. Use one that doesn't try to lock you into a subscription with no available way to cancel. ### 1/5 — This is a scam worth zero stars! *2025-03-18* I signed on for a subscription. They charged my card and the screen stated “your password is being sent to your email.” The email never arrived, so I requested the password to be reset. That email never arrived. Neither the website nor the app have a support link, so there is no way to communicate with the company. I have no other recourse than to cancel. If this is a legitimate business it is very poorly planned and executed. Save your money and look elsewhere. ### 1/5 — Theft *2025-03-05* This is the same company as Word-Stream. The platform that steals content from fan creators and seeks to put it behind a paywall. This company also claims royalty-free intellectual rights to anything uploaded for listening. Do not download this app ## Most praised reviews (9 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Wow this is amazing *2025-11-07* I am really impressed with what I have see so far! ### 5/5 — The Chinese Crystal ball *2025-08-21* Pelham mead ### 5/5 — If you love free audiobooks then *2025-03-11, version 3.0.6* You need to try this. Has all the classics ### 5/5 — So happy I found this app *2024-11-05* I’m so glad I found this app!!! I honestly can’t believe something like this didn’t exist already. I love audiobooks but the narrators voices often annoy me.. now I can choose from so many different ones it’s so great. Also the follow along highlighting is a major game changer. ### 4/5 — Bolton *2025-11-13* Im the type of person who love dark romance and this is great ### 3/5 — Run over *2025-07-14* Reading So fast words are garbled ### 3/5 — A few small tweaks would make this the best app ever!! *2025-07-11* I really like using this app, it’s a great app! However your player could use some help. The first thing that needs fixing. The player needs a sleep function. Lots of consumers like to throw in some ear buds or on some headphones and listen to something at bedtime time. This reason is why the sleep function is not only imperative but an absolute must!! ### 2/5 — HEalP ME *2026-02-26* Can you use it offline for example? ### 2/5 — Didn’t have lot of books I wanted to read *2025-02-21* I was so excited to use this app but then it didn’t have any books I was looking for or any good type of books I wanted to read :( --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-30.*