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Books & reading.

Installs
4282.6M

Across 9 of 12 apps we could match.

Google Play Books & Audiobooks has 90% of them.

  • 12 apps
  • 5,278 reviews held
  • 1,925 negative
  • Median $3.999 of 12 charge.

3 gaps.

Shares of this market’s 1,925 negative reviews.

Sync & datahigh

1.8% vs 0.9% typical store-wide.

Reviews · 3 of 35
  • WeRead: Popular Books & Novels1star· Aug 29, 2026

    Scammy — I spent 10$ earlier today to test out this app and to read a book that caught my eye. However, not even 24 hours later my purchase history is gone. The chapters that I read are locked again it’s basically as if I spent money on nothing. And if I try to go on the app Support, all I get is error. So definitely deleting this app and requesting a refund.

  • Wattpad - Read & Write Stories2star· Aug 28, 2026

    Very disappointed — The new rules have wiped out all the books I usually read as a user of years I’m disappointed and have to find a new app when I search certain genre’s I get different language books this app is not the same at all

  • Goodreads: Book Tracker & More1star· Jul 20, 2026

    Lost data — I was trying to figure out why my Goodreads was not updating my reading data from my kindle and somehow lost everything when I logged out and logged back in. Disappointed because I’ve had this account for a couple years and when I asked for assistance to see if they can look to see if I had another account I wasn’t aware of they gave me a generated response with links and didn’t help m

Named problems · 2
  • Sync fails between devices5 of 35
  • Everything gone at once3 of 35

Adselevated

18.0% vs 10.2% typical store-wide.

Reviews · 3 of 346
  • Wattpad - Read & Write Stories2star· Sep 15, 2026

    Ads — The ads have gotten out of control. After every page you have to watch one which never use to be like this

  • Inkitt Galatea: Audio & eBooks2star· Sep 14, 2026

    Points — This is one app, where we can’t earn points through rewards, ads and check in. We had to buy points to read the book.

  • Manobook: My Good Story Reader1star· Sep 13, 2026

    Review — Why is it that you have to either watch ads or purchase? Not impressed. Impressed with the stories but not on how to to continue read.

Limits & capselevated

2.5% vs 1.8% typical store-wide.

Reviews · 3 of 49
  • Wattpad - Read & Write Stories1star· Sep 12, 2026

    Trash — Censorship and puritan culture ruined this app. I’ve been a member since 2011/2012 and this app used to be full of fun and genuine art. Until it got overrun by ads and paywalls and greedy authors. The final nail in the coffin, however, is the banning of smut. A very unwise, stupid, foolish, and asinine decision considering more than half of your users read or write erotic literature. Now y

  • Inkitt Galatea: Audio & eBooks1star· Sep 4, 2026

    Don’t believe the add. — It said you could read for free. I don’t mind watching ads to read for free but after reading 3 chapters, the app wanted to charge me $60+ a year for unlimited access. And the charge for points would have ended up costing more than a book purchased at a bookstore. I deleted the app immediately.

  • Inkitt Galatea: Audio & eBooks1star· Aug 28, 2026

    Rip off — I would like to try the unlimited option but there is no way to do so without spending at least $70! That’s literally insane. They should have a monthly or weekly option that doesn’t require you to sign up for an entire year. It makes me think the app is so bad no one would renew the subscription. I’m deleting it.

Also counted

ThemeOf 1,925 negatives
  • Billing663 · 34.4% · 12 apps
  • Performance283 · 14.7% · 11 apps
  • Support115 · 6.0% · 11 apps
  • Login & auth106 · 5.5% · 11 apps
  • UX99 · 5.1% · 11 apps
  • Accuracy7 · 0.4% · 5 apps

The tick marks the store-typical rate. A review can mention more than one theme, so these sum past 100%.

What Apple surfaces for “books”

Position in Apple’s suggestions
1510
bookshelf
booksy
apple
booksy biz
books2door
bookshelf (for…
booksy for customers
bookshelfbreathe
bookscouter
audio books & stories
drift
grimoire
simple book notes
hangman books edition
010203041
Countries

Is anyone looking for this?

What Apple and Google complete after books & reading, in their order.

Who they're for
babieskidstoddlers
Google
books readingbooks reading appbooks reading onlinebooks reading app freebooks reading quotesbooks reading imagesbooks reading online freebooks reading for free
App Store
book trackerfree books for kidsfree books reading appfree kids books to readfree kids books to read freeread books for freebook tracker & reading logbooks

Marked App Store phrases are searched, but no app in this market says them in its name. Audiences are what Apple and Google complete after “books for”, with the query stripped.

Potential customers

People the apps here do not serve, and what they asked for.

  • Wants lesstoo many features 8 · just a basic one 211
  • Shut out by device or contextiPad 410
  • Outgrown itbulk entry 3 · bulk delete 2 · select all 24

Counted in 1 to 4 star reviews. The small numbers are how many reviews named each thing. What they wrote is in the free trial.

Who’s in it

All 12 apps counted in this market · 2026-09-14.

Apps count as part of a market for 90 days after they last appear in it. Installs are Google Play's own count, last captured 2026-09-14. 9 of 12 apps have an Android listing we could match. A dash means we could not pair the two stores, not that the app is absent from Play.

What they charge, and what it costs them

Prices from Apple’s public pages; the share counts payment-mechanics language only.

AppMoney complaints
Yestory - Read Books & Booktok$4.99–$24.99 · 10 tiers27.8% of 79
Manobook: My Good Story Reader$1.99–$29.99 · 10 tiers22.7% of 44
Inkitt Galatea: Audio & eBooks$3.99–$69.99 · 9 tiers15.2% of 99
WeRead: Popular Books & Novels$1.99–$49.99 · 10 tiers14.5% of 55
WebNovel - Read Novels & Manga$0.99–$99.99 · 10 tiers10.9% of 377
Skybrary – Kids Books & Videos$4.99–$49.99 · 5 tiers6.2% of 146
Epic - Kids' Books & Reading$4.99–$13.99 · 7 tiers2.7% of 149
Wattpad - Read & Write Stories$3.99–$89.99 · 7 tiers1.6% of 377
Bookmory - reading tracker$3.49–$30.99 · 2 tiers0% of 17

What each one owns, where each is exposed

Owns. Massive serialized fiction catalog; 47,524 ratings

Exposed. 68% negative; coin economy generates $46-per-novel complaints; cancellation nearly impossible

Owns. 705,799 ratings; dominant brand; creator community

Exposed. 56% negative; ad-per-chapter cadence drove long-term loyalists to AO3 and fanfiction.net

Owns. 9,627 ratings; cross-platform; no IAP complexity

Exposed. 69% negative; worst anger in set; sync and UX broken on iPad

Owns. 10,257 ratings; social/BookTok angle

Exposed. 61% negative; perceived as overpriced scam with buggy content

Owns. 86,154 ratings; zero IAP friction; OS-native

Exposed. 46% negative; ecosystem lock-in; sync data fails; no export

Fable: Track & Discuss Books

Owns. 77,659 ratings; 24% negative — lowest anger; community features

Exposed. Performance and reliability complaints; 1–2 min load times driving users back to Goodreads

Owns. 744,524 ratings; category default for tracking

Exposed. 23% negative but stagnant; mobile feature gap vs. website; groups barely usable on app

Owns. 284,845 ratings; lowest neg_pct (10%); audio + ebook bundle

Exposed. IAP up to $69.99; tier complexity still present under calm surface

Browse the apps behind these counts

Every app we count, with the complaint it runs furthest above the store’s typical rate.

Open the app library

Is there a market for a new books & reading app?

12 apps compete on this shelf, holding 5,278 App Store reviews. And the widest unfixed complaint, sync & data, runs in 7 of 12 of them at 1.8% of negative reviews against 0.9% typical. Those are counts, not a verdict. The page shows what is unfixed, not whether to build.

What do users complain about most in books & reading?

1. Sync & data: in 7 of 12 apps, 1.8% of negative reviews; 2. Ads: in 11 of 12 apps, 18% of negative reviews; 3. Limits & caps: in 11 of 12 apps, 2.5% of negative reviews.

How many books & reading app reviews did App Imp count?

5,278 US App Store reviews across 12 apps, 1,925 of them negative. Counted on the 2026-09-14 snapshot, never estimated.

How this is counted

Every number is arithmetic over the reviews we hold, re-counted weekly: nothing modelled, nothing scored. Themes come from a frozen pattern classifier rather than a model reading reviews, so the same review always lands in the same bucket. A market rate is pooled across every app here; the store rate is the same count across 13,217 apps. A complaint is only called a gap when at least half the market carries it, at least 20 reviews are behind it, and the market’s rate is elevated above the store’s, the same cutoff used everywhere on this site, because a problem concentrated in one app is that app’s bug, and a problem every app on the store shares is nobody’s gap.