# JoyRead-Enjoy Novels & Shorts — user reviews > 2,008 indexed App Store user reviews of JoyRead by UREAD GLOBAL PTE. LTD., rated 4.60/5 from 23,148 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/joyread-enjoy-novels-and-shorts/id1551079603/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/joyread-enjoy-novels-and-shorts/id1551079603.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 19,236 · 4★ 1,646 · 3★ 681 · 2★ 321 · 1★ 1,264 ## What do users think of JoyRead? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 🚀 Interesting stories - 👍 Clean and user-friendly app - 🚀 Engaging reading experience **Cons** - 💰 Extremely expensive to read books - 🐛 Inconsistent chapter pricing - 🐛 Grammatical errors and poor writing - 💰 Chapters too short for the cost - 🔒 Lack of customer service and support - 🔒 Unclear subscription benefits **Commonly reported bugs** - Chapters disappearing after purchase - Inconsistent coin/pearl rewards - App crashes and login issues **Most requested features** - Option to purchase entire books at a set price - More ways to earn free coins/pearls - Improve translation quality and editing - Add audiobook support - Allow transferring coins between accounts ## Newest reviews (16 of 2,008) ### 2/5 — Forced to pay for short stories *2026-08-30, version 5.2.0* This app requires payment to read the stories labeled ‘short.’ That’s ridiculous! ### 2/5 — They LOVE to cheat you! *2026-08-28, version 5.2.0* The stories are great. The ‘pearls and coins’ not really expensive- you can get by with like $5 pack once a month if you don’t mind looking at ads. BUT, if they screw up, it is IMPOSSIBLE TO GET THE PEARLS AND COINS BACK THEY STOLE FROM YOU. They want you to SCREENSHOT (me it was 14 chapters). AND WE ALL KNOW THAT SCREENSHOTS AREN’T ALLOWED. Crooks- that’s what they ar really. Help Center is NO HELP. ### 2/5 — Books take forever to finish and the HD audio is a joke *2026-08-27, version 5.2.0* don’t start a book until it’s actually finished. Because it could take months if not longer for the author actually to finish it. I’ve also started listening to some of the books on the HD audio however partway through the book. The HD audio disappears. on top of that the majority of the books on the HD audio tab do not have HD audio. ### 3/5 — Rewards Are Awful *2026-08-21, version 5.2.0* I am enjoying the story I am reading. However it is extremely frustrating the hoops I have to go through to open one chapter. I always have to read 2 articles that is actually opening 20 tabs of ‘articles’. And even then you don’t always get the coin or pearl to open a chapter. I spend more time trying to open a chapter than I do reading a chapter. I am close to just deleting the app. I am only on chapter 54 of 934. It will be 1 year by the time I finish this novel if I have to open 20+ tabs for each chapter. ### 4/5 — Good catalog, but VIP audio is inconsistent *2026-08-21, version 5.2.0* Solid selection of completed and ongoing werewolf/romance serials, and the annual/monthly pass model beats paying coin-by-coin on other apps. My main complaint: VIP-tier audio narration doesn’t consistently cover full books, even completed ones — it can cut out partway through and force you back to the lower-quality basic AI voice, with no way to manually switch back. The fallback audio itself has functional issues beyond just sounding worse: there’s no pause between the chapter title and the actual text, and sentences often run together with no breaks, like it’s reading one long unbroken sentence instead of separate ones. It makes chapters genuinely hard to follow and often means re-listening to catch what was actually said. If VIP is the premium tier, it should reliably deliver premium narration for the content you’re paying to access — and the free fallback shouldn’t be this hard to understand in the first place. Three stars until both issues are addressed. ### 1/5 — Not good *2026-08-19, version 5.2.0* I don’t like that you need to earn something to be able to read every chapter ### 1/5 — Terrible *2026-08-19, version 5.2.0* Glitchy and to expensive , avoid ### 1/5 — Cancelled a short reads subscription and still got charged again *2026-08-18, version 5.2.0* I wanted to finish a story I started so I thought I’d try out the short reads 1 week subscription. It was okay but not worth $14.99, so I cancelled before I my renewal date and today they charged my account. I usually take screen shots for this reason but had a lot on my mind and forgot. Tried talking to their customer service. Spent at least three hours waiting for some response and still nothing almost 5.5hours later. Absolutely horrible service and would not recommend doing any subscriptions, not worth the money. ### 2/5 — Improvement needed *2026-08-18, version 5.2.0* The stories are decent. However, the paywall is a little insane. Pearls and coins are a bit expensive. I think a lot of apps like this would benefit from a WEBTOON/wattpad approach. Were the majority of the story is free just unlocked per day and with ads. With the option to get early access in the form of coins. As with the current system, I’m very tempted to Uninstall the app and simply go to a cheaper version. As many other apps have a more extensive catalogue for a cheaper price. Another issue that I have with the pearls and rewards section is some pearls can only be used on certain stories. Which sucks. I’m not going to read those stories that I have exclusive pearls for, they don’t interest me. So now I wasted my reward. Quite frankly the whole situation is just frustrating and does temp me to uninstall the app. However, I am really addicted to the story that I’m currently reading so I’ll put up with it for now. But I definitely will not read another story on this app. ### 3/5 — Pearls *2026-08-18, version 5.2.0* Daily pearls amount does not match between the pop up above the rewards tab when you first log in and the amount you can actually earn doing ad tasks, and the difference is in the hundreds. Other than this problem either daily pearls needs to be raised or coin prices needs to be dropped because it’s too high even for a well written story ### 3/5 — Good story, but watch out for scam ads for free credits *2026-08-17, version 5.2.0* I have enjoyed the novel that I’m currently reading, romance with no smut, but some of the ads that are linked for free credits are linked to scam websites. The problem is that you can’t bypass these ads and move on to legitimate ones. The other problem I have is that I don’t want anything to do with spiritism or tarot readings and those can’t be bypassed either. ### 1/5 — Too expensive *2026-08-15, version 5.2.0* I spent $10, assuming that would buy me at least one book. Not even close. I’m deleting it. ### 1/5 — Terrible *2026-08-12, version 5.2.0* Wants you to pay $15 a week to read short stories that are stolen. No thanks. ### 3/5 — Stories are good but the ads are buggy *2026-08-10, version 5.2.0* First of all, I just wish this app would do the standard of watch an ad or two to unlock every chapter. The coins stuff just makes it all so messy, especially when some of the ads simply do not work! All the ads that are directly from the App Store always work, but in the list of tasks to acquire coins, almost all of them open in an actual browser and there’s never a guarantee at that point. Especially not for the coupon code tasks! Those work probably 20% of the time. The article ones usually work, and the personality test ones. But the coupon code ones are awful and the vibe slider ones are nearly as bad. Why have an app based entirely on watching ads and then include ads that do not work!? ### 3/5 — Love the app but why no more coupons? *2026-08-09, version 5.2.0* I love reading on JoyRead, at times it can be hard to find a book that I want to read, but I’ve always been able to find something that was interesting. Recently JoyRead seemed to get rid of their coupons that they had on the home page of the app. It isn’t a big deal but it makes it way less affordable to purchase their chapters, since it’s pay to read. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was a monthly subscription or if there were never coupons in the first place. It’s really disappointing that the content is becoming less accessible because of much the coins/pearls cost without the coupons that used to be available. ### 2/5 — So many glitches *2026-08-06, version 5.2.0* Honestly the stories are pretty enjoyable I feel like all of the authors do a pretty good job hence why I gave this app 2 stars but the app itself has way too many glitches, I will have pearls to purchase a chapter and it’ll say I don’t have enough I will go back and make sure I have enough and sure enough I always do. Also the packages seem way overpriced to me. Also if you end up deciding to watch an ad to get a chapter it sometimes will make me watch the whole ad and then it won’t even work, then it’ll make you read all of these articles and things too on top of the ads as well after. Just not my favorite design unless you are willing to pay a butt load of money per chapter for a story that can be 100+ chapters and still have it not work sometimes!! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Mauvaise qualité de français *2026-08-31, version 5.2.0* Les livres sont mal traduits, manquent de sérieux, la mise en page est tellement mal faite que ça nuit à la compréhension des dialogues et l’application coûte bien trop cher. De plus, lorsqu’on souhaite lire sans payer il faut ouvrir/lire une bonne quinzaine de pubs par chapitre. ### 1/5 — Not worth it *2026-08-30, version 5.2.0* Better off with a good old fashioned book or kindle. At least they’re only a few quid and not fortunes for a book…,,,honestly like robbery unless you want to go to 3 websites giving away your data and stuff ### 1/5 — Charged me weekly without my consent *2026-08-28, version 5.2.0* I made a one-time purchase in the amount of $9.99 for access to a story, quickly realized this app is a scam, and deleted it. Since then I’ve been fraudulently charged $29.99 on a weekly basis, without having ever signed up for a subscription. The app gives you no option to cancel a recurring charge or delete your account, and even contacting the designated support email requesting a cancellation yielded no response and I’ve continued to be charged. ### 1/5 — Steals in app currency *2026-08-28, version 5.2.0* After unlocking chapters I have gone back into stories to find the chapters locked again. And to make things worse it has a bad habit of auto spending your app currency to unlock what it wants when you go into your story. So I have already wasted currency unlocking chapters that should have already been unlocked. ### 1/5 — Disappointing *2026-08-28, version 5.2.0* Added app after reading part of an interesting story in an ad. App forces you to read articles, take silly personality tests and have tarot readings just to open a single chapter. Even after you jump through those hoops, it tells you “so close” & forces you into another round of articles that I would otherwise avoid. I’ve given up hope of finishing the story & am deleting the app. ### 1/5 — Refund *2026-08-27, version 5.2.0* I WANT MY GOT DANG REFUND HOW DARE YOU RESET AFTER I SPENT ALMOST 40$ on my chapters you took my book my account everything I still have receipts I know where my money went got dang it you owe me ### 1/5 — Customer service sucks. *2026-08-27, version 5.2.0* I was charged for a subscription package and then never received it or any other information for why it didn’t show up in the app. I reached out to customer service and kept getting asked to “wait to be transferred.” ### 1/5 — No stars if I could *2026-08-25, version 5.2.0* Don't expect to read on this app if you don't intend to pay to read. After the first initial free chapters everything is add based. Their add offers are a hell scape of unclear instructions, adds disguised as links, pop up add videos within the offer, incomplete links and offers that will not complete even when you do EVERYTHING right. Their customer service DOES NOT CARE and WILL blow you off with constant cheerful requests to end the session as they have solved your problem by insisting that you must simply follow the links to complete the offer and not be distracted by the pop ups. As if this is user error and your fault. Said Custer service claimed their agents were unavailable for the weekend and made me wait only to behave more like an AI chat bot. Apparently AI needs the weekend off now. Either that or their chat support agents are HORRIBLE at their job. Even if the story quality was impeccable (which it is far from. Likely AI or poor translations from foreign language.) it would NOT be worth this!!! ### 1/5 — Too much B.S. *2026-08-23, version 5.2.0* It’s garbage. There are a couple stories I’m trying to follow, but every chapter turns out to be about 2 paragraphs of a real book. I’ve just run into almost 15 “chapters” of rambling on garbage rehashing the exact same points, just in several different ways. You can’t trust purchasing pearls, the last time I did I had a few hundred left after getting to the completed post of the book I’m reading, and they expired about 3 days before releasing 200 more 3 sentence chapters. Now chapters have gotten up to 50 pearls per, and the ads are still only 5 per. Checking in every day I only get to read 2 chapters every 3 days. Every ad takes about 3-5 minutes, and every chapter takes about 30 seconds to read. So you spend an hour watching all the ads, to read for 30 seconds to a minute. Twice I’ve ran into back to back chapters that were IDENTICAL! As in they accidentally put up the same chapter as the previous. Just go to the library and get a real book, at least you know THAT book is finished. ### 1/5 — Major flaws in app design *2026-08-21, version 5.2.0* The stories are great don’t get me wrong but the app itself has major flaws. 1. Half the time ads/rewards aren’t measured equally (in one place it’s worth one thing and worth another amount somewhere else) 2. Adds don’t play 90% of the time (even with 3 bars of both cellular and Wi-Fi). so in order for the app to even have half its functionality you need really good connection to both. 3. The app requires at the very least 3 bars of 5g cellular in order to watch adds(even then it gives me a hard time) 4. The frustration from inability based on lack of cellular is enough to literally drive someone to the brink: insanity, depression, you name it. 5. Unless you are rich and pay your way through,(I’m not) you are lucky to read 4 chapters of the same book per day and half of that would be gained through (you guessed it) : ads!!! The same thing that doesn’t work 90% of the time. Stories = addicting App = insanity/depression Did I mention that by not using your ad paid for chapters they are reset the next day (2 a day, no rollover) 12:00am everything resets. Definitely needs help. To those as frustrated as me, I would recommend WEBTOON it’s 100%free (occasional ads) ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Too many bugs and glitches *2026-09-01, version 5.2.0* I love the stories, but there are to many glitches with rewards not working on various tasks across the day. If it wasn’t for the fact that I am already into the story, I would have deleted the app. Also too many tasks to complete. ### 5/5 — I have tried all the apps and this is the best *2026-08-17, version 5.2.0* So over the last 12 months, I think I have purchased coins and chapters and tried multiple subscriptions on so many different apps This app has a monthly subscription that is more expensive than some of the others that are out there However, because they provide businesses to their authors for updating regularly and a finish bonus or a completion bonus This means that there’s so much value there that you can get out of your monthly subscription I currently have about 20 to 30 books in my library on this app There is a couple of books that I would consider all-time favourites and I would buy them in a hardback, a paperback, a trade back an an e-book and any other format. They are my favourites Some authors choose to add only one or two chapters a day Sam will upload 50 or 100 every month or so. Because I have well over 20 in my library, I’m pretty much guaranteed to find a new update on something every single day. The editing is pretty good. I would say 8 out of 10 books is really well edited and then there’s the odd ones that just have some really funny mistakes with detail details changing etc. When I checked the rankings for the top 100 book apps I was honestly gobsmacked that this app is so far down the ranking because I tried all the others and this one’s the best ### 5/5 — Cativante *2026-08-13, version 5.2.0* Estou amando esse app,tenho a oportunidade de ler as histórias e ficar ansiosa por cada capítulo.Eu indico. ### 5/5 — Love of reading *2026-08-07, version 5.2.0* So many wonderful books with intriguing stories. ### 5/5 — 眠れない！ *2026-07-24* どんな展開になるのか読み耽ってしまいあっという間に時間だ怪我すぎてゆく。寝るのが惜しくてどうしよう。 ### 5/5 — Muito bom *2026-07-24* O aplicativo é maravilhoso ### 5/5 — Joy read *2026-07-10, version 5.1.0* Great stories easy to read text ### 5/5 — Fixed points/ad *2026-07-09, version 5.1.0* Really enjoy this app. Had issues with points/ads, so I reached out to their support. The support lacks in customer service skills, but since they made adjustments shortly after contacted. I can deal with the lack of skill set the agent I spoke to had, as they were professional and proficient. ### 5/5 — Original *2026-06-28, version 5.0.0* Can’t wait for more chapters ### 5/5 — Attention catching stories. *2026-06-21, version 4.8.2* This app has exceptional attention catching stories. Am definitely drawn in and will work to complete the book I’m involved in. Only wish that there were more ways to earn coins/pearls on their app without spending more money. Also would like it if books cost were more reasonable. Paying what amounts to hard back book prices for one ebook seems a bit steep. Wish costs were more reasonable for the full book cost. --- *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 2026-09-05.*