GALATEA
reviews and complaints

The fluctuation of point cost and wait time is absolutely preposterous. If that wasn’t bad enough they got rid if the free for 24hrs book section for me like just today. I was in the middle of binge reading the free book. This is the last straw. I have literally one book which is my only reason for still having the app and once I finish that in 2-3 months I am deleting this ridiculous app. There is too much stuff I can read for free for me to be sitting here dealing with this bull.

I came across a facebook ad with the first bit of a story from this app, and it seemed like a good story. So I decided to try it out.

The first handful of chapters are free. The next paid chapters after that start out at a lower point value (about 10 points for each chapter). I had bought 110 points at $5.99 to start off with, thinking that would get me significant access to the book. But only a few chapters were 10 points after that. They quickly shot up until I was using 20 points to unlock each chapter, and these are not long chapters. I ended up spending over $20 today.

I'm on Chapter 32 of 212 and have only enough left in my point balance to buy 21 more chapters. At this rate, it would cost me over $100 to finish this book. That's insane and wrong.

After I'm done using the rest of my points (or as much of them as I can without having to buy more), I'm uninstalling this app and DNF'ing the story I'm reading... no matter how good the story is.

The stories are good… slightly predictable but definitely surprising points that keep me coming back. They use the same names in a lot of the stories, like Hart, Knight, Xavier, Gideon, Mason, etc. So it feels like they read some kind of study on how to draw people into a story and these are names people love…? There are too many grammatical errors making me think they don’t have a professional editor so the price they’re asking is too much. You can always tell what they’re going for but it always makes me pause, slightly coming out of the story I was completely immersed in which isn’t ideal. The wait times are ridiculous! Thats the worse! Literally having to wait a day and a half for the next chapter to unlock. It comes across, to me, as money hungry since they make it pretty difficult to get a lot of points to unlock the chapters. Again not worth the price seeing the editing lacking. I’m in the middle of three stories and once I finish them I don’t see myself continuing with the app because of these issues. Only wrote this review to get 10 more points but they never gave the points! So trying this again but something else that I’ve noticed since writing the original review is that the authors don’t even keep track os names, characteristics, or the day! In Mason the little girl was named Amelia but then it changed to Sophia. In a Beautiful Mistake, it’s Sunday night she picks up Jenson and the next morning she sees her shirt is ripped but she needs something to wear to work so she takes one of his shirts and goes to work but then when that night is referenced again it was Saturday night…? I could go on but this is already long. So again $70 is asking an awful lot for the stories provided.

Last time I’m updating this.

They still didn’t give the 10 points that was said would be given if you write a review. Instead they deducted the last point I had.

I love to read, and I love that they have made it where you get a new chapter every 6 hrs instead of waiting til 7 am to get to the next chapter, unless you spend money to get early release of the newest chapter. My only complaint is that the chapters seem shorter now and it’s like they are dragging the stories now. I take that back, I have two complaints. The second complaint is I have read chapters and then come back 6 hrs later and it is still on the 6 hrs time counter, like it never started, but I know it did because when I checked earlier it only had a few hrs left. I wrote and looked up things to do, which the company said to delete the app from my phone and then download it again and it would fix it. That didn’t work, and I had to go find the book myself, and I had to to use all my points I had saved up for when I wanted to read more than one chapter because I didn’t realize it was more than one book in the series that I am reading right now and I’m sure it will be considered my fault for not knowing that or what chapter I was on when I deleted the app from my phone. I then had to spend all of my points to figure out which book I was in and which chapter I was on because when I downloaded the app again it didn’t unlock the books or chapters that I had already read. So, like I said before, I had to use all my saved points to go through and try to guess which book and chapter I was on, which was a waste of time and points.
I don’t know if that is how you do things like this, but I think it is crappy and not good customer service, especially when you have a username and password that you have to set up just in case something happens. I have all of that and it still didn’t save my books and what chapter I was on. Sorry for the long review and it’s probably not what you want to hear, you probably only want 5 star reviews, but maybe you should try and do 5 star customer service.

Let’s get real, I’m a reader, and when I received a teaser of two chapters of The Millennium Wolves I read them greedily and tried to find the book elsewhere, not available, okay I downloaded the app (it can’t be that bad, right? Wrong). The book was edited okay, but for the amount of money you have to pay, I could’ve bought three books from kindle and still be reading them. The developer clearly wanted to hook people into paying for the stories, offering either subscriptions or point passes, the subscribe and save option doesn’t function. Since I had some money in my Apple account I opted to buy just enough point passes to get me through, but it definitely wasn’t worth the cost. The first “book” in the series is short, basically a read in an hour or two if you’re a fast reader, I am, but claimed to be 19-21 chapters or so…basically every third page maybe fourth or fifth page is the start of a new “chapter.” Which makes reading, particularly “binge reading” which to the developers must be classified as someone that can read a newspaper headline in one sitting. Add to the the “immersive reading experience” which cannot be turned on or off makes it hard to read with the noise, the pulsating colors on the screen, and the haptics…good grief I get a headache just remembering those. Overall, it’s not worth the $10 I paid to complete just ONE story, not book STORY, but…
Good stories if: You hate reading for more than two minutes at a time, you don’t mind paying to read a few more pages, you don’t mind struggling to read through the logo plastered on the bottom left hand of the page, you don’t mind waiting 10+ minutes for the new “chapter” to download, you don’t mind the noise, visuals, and haptics that are meant to “enhance” your reading experience, you have a short attention span, you’re willing to wait 6+ hours for a few more pages if you don’t feel like paying, then yes this is the app for you!

Apple, you should remove this app from your store! This app is literally a thief. I started reading a book with this app, and the first 5-6 chapters were free. Normally, it would only take me 2-3 chapters to really decide if a book is worth my investment and commitment. However, the chapters in this book (and maybe it’s just THIS book) are soooo short I still couldn’t decide if it was worth a read to the finish. After the free chapters were complete you have to either purchase a $69.99/yr subscription for unlimited reading OR you can purchase points to purchase by the chapter. Since I wasn’t yet committed to the book, much less the app, I decided to purchase 110 points for around $4.99 which would get me an additional 5 chapters (each chapter costs 20 points). After I blew through those chapters (remember TINY chapters), I was invested in the book so I decided to purchase enough points to finish the book. After paying $17.99 (plus tax, people) for 550 points, I started reading and enjoying the book. I’ll most likely write a review for the book because while it was good, there were some issues I had with it. At Chapter 16 the extortion occurs! You CANNOT use your points to purchase by chapter going forward. If you want to finish reading that book then you have to purchase a subscription! Now let me tell you, the points per chapter are already quite expensive and when you add up the points needed for a whole book you basically purchased a $25 book - at least in my case. So, to literally be forced to purchase a subscription or just abandon the book altogether it’s just super frustrating and disgusting IMO. Keep in mind that most of the books featured in this app can’t be found anywhere else (yep, I checked for my book and can’t find it). Oh, and already my review that I just wrote here is longer than most of the chapters I’ve read so far in that book. I NEED them to refund my money ASAP.

Mad Reader in Lancaster

There are so many great stories on this app, they have so many different types of genres to choose from, it’s a little bit of different stories for almost everyone. There are a few things things that I would change in the app though. For example: they give you different types of options to buy more points to continue reading your stories or if you don’t want to spend money or are like me and don’t have any money to spend then you have to wait almost 6 hours to read a new chapter of the story. So it gets really aggravating sometimes when you can only read one chapter and then have to wait forever to read another one and so on and so on. I really hate it when the chapter it short or when it ends on a cliffhanger and you have to freaking wait just to read another chapter. They do give you a couple options to earn some points that you can save up to buy a new chapter but most of them you can only earn 1 or 2 points and you can only earn the point once a day also for most of the stories in order to skip waiting 6 hours to read the next chapter it’s 10 or more points to skip waiting so it takes a couple days just to work up to 10 points. I find myself really aggravated and disappointed in this app throughout the day because I want to keep reading and I can’t. I won’t lie a couple of the books I have read on here I got so fed up with having to wait to read them that I just went online and found different websites that has the whole book on there where you can read them and not have to wait hours to read another chapter and you don’t have to pay or earn points you can just go and read the whole story for free with no interruptions. I honestly thought this app was like Wattpad and Inkitt so that’s why I downloaded it but then I started reading a couple stories and couldn’t delete it. Most likely after I finish the stories I am currently reading I will probably delete the app and stick to Wattpad and Inkitt and just different websites to read stories.

All 3 of those stars are for the stories. They’re good, engrossing, and satisfying for the quick reads they are. There are few grammatical errors, so kudos to the editing team. The chapters are nice and fluffy...

BUT. There’s always a but. The chapters are extremely short. I feel as though I were reading a middle-grade adventure, these would be those chapters. That’s about how short they are (and says nothing for the content. Please don’t go into this app assuming middle-grade is what you get...)

And after I’m done reading that really short chapter, I’ve got to wait 24 hours for another really short chapter. I get that these are supposed to be steamy stories or whatever, but give us some more character and story development to lengthen the chapters and not leave the reader frustrated because we got cut off just 4 paragraphs into a chapter. That’s what this feels like. They’re not even full chapters, not really even full scenes. We’re left reading the equivalent of the blurb on the back of the book each day.

On top of that, it takes 10 points to get the next chapter without the wait. You can get a grand total of 3 points per day without spending a dime. So every 4 days, you can choose to skip the wait once. Yay. This is an easy fix, either give more than one point per day for comments (5 per day via comments would go a long way here), or drastically shorten the wait time for chapters. I’m talking 4-6 hours rather than 24. Most of the stories are complete arcs, and for a reader who devours 300-400 page novels in less time than it takes this app to put out a single chapter this is absolutely INFURIATING.

I love the premise of this app. The stories are sufficiently good with editing that doesn’t make my head hurt to try to read them. I’m not going to delete the app because I can’t skip the wait on the 10 + stories I’ve got going at one time. But I’m also not going to change my star rating because of the discrepancy between wait time and what we get for it.

First, why I like the app:

For starters it’s innovative and intriguing. The stories are interesting and the sounds help to pull you further into the story.
For the most part you don’t have to deal with many grammar errors or half baked characters (though I’ve only been reading for half a week and I’ve got a lot of stories and chapters to get through) and that’s nice.

Why I don’t like the app:

However, there is the issue with the coin thing which I can see has been the main qualm with many users and although it’s a little frustrating that you have to wait 24 hours to read a new chapter (that’s relatively short, but that’s supposed to be one of the appeals of the app; that it fits into a busy schedule) the developers have clearly tried to come up with a multitude of ways for users to gain coins, hence this honest review. I do agree with some of the other reviewers that maybe it shouldn’t cost so much to buy a new chapter, and that maybe the time in between free chapter should be a bit shorter.

BUT, the main thing that I think could stand to be scrutinised is the lack of diversity in the books. Sure, lots of the books are of the werewolf/paranormal sort and to be honest that not really my thing, but there are also other types of romance like, young adult, contemporary, historical, etc. Which is nice, but I think that there’s a disproportionate amount of paranormal books compared to the other types of books.

Additionally, there is a lack of diversity in regards to ethnicity and nationality in these books. So far, most of the stories I have read feature a presumably all Caucasian cast of characters (at least the stories don’t identify the character one way or the other) and all the girls have black or red hair and green or hazel eyes and the guys have black or brown hair with blue or green eyes. These are all fine physical characteristics, but it’s kind of tired and dry when all of the characters look and sound the same with no accents or identifying quirks.

Thank you, I hope this review finds those at Galatea well :)

A new episode unlocked at 7am and that's IT? What the crap is that about? One point a DAY? Honestly this is ridiculous and useless. It takes so long I forgot the app was in my phone and about the story I was reading for several days and it always pretends something interesting is going to happen in the next chapter but it doesn't. How many DAYS will I have to wait to get to a good part of a story? The only saving grace is that the story I'm reading is slightly better than most wattpad or Episode stories. You said you were working on pricing in other reviews but it looks like you've only managed to be more stingy with points. I would rather have an option to watch ads to see the next chapter or make my time shorter, OR EVEN WATCH ADS FOR POINTS. You'd make more money off of ad revenue than you will off of forcing people to buy outrageousely expensive points. No way am I going to spend more than $20 on a story on the internet when I won't be getting any physical copies or anything to keep, that's just ridiculous and throwing away your money.
APP USER BEWARE- MONEY GRUBBING EXECS WHO INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO REVIEWER REQUESTS FOR MORE REASONABLE PRICING INSTEAD OFFER YOU LESS POINTS FOR THE SAME RIDICULOUS PRICE
I would have given four stars but after reading through reviews and seeing you say just 3 months ago that you were working on pricing and then here you are making it WORSE than what that reviewer said it was. Nope. Not a fan.

I just read more reviews and your responses are disgusting. You saying "our stories are designed to be read in ten minute episodes a day for people with busy schedules but we know one episode isn't enough so we sell a package for $20" EW. What a horrible company. I'm going to delete this app and forget this story in a day because I will not support such shoddy business practices. You should know you're wrong when it costs more money to read the book on an app than it would to go out and buy a physical copy of a book that was ACTUALLY good enough to get published and put in a book store. Bye Felicia!

Now, I only gave this app a second star because there’s just one story that I like and I can’t just tie it in to the entirety of what makes this app kind of poorly made. But I will offer some key points as to why this app has no story diversity amongst all of them along with why it’s cliche.

Every story seems to be tailored to one specific crowd. Women with romantic fantasies, or if you want to get down and technical, the 16 year old girls who are going through hormonal puberty. It’s all romance and no suspense, mystery, horror, or even romantic-comedy. Every man in the story is typically the same. Muscular, buff, and is the popular guy that every girl wants and even secretly the protagonist. Oh! Werewolves are in this season because that’s what most of these stories have. I’m sure these stories could do greater if there was simply diversity in background and plot, all of it feels and is simply just the same for every character.

The chapters are short, possibly to make you want more. However, what happens next is predictable. That’s what makes these stories cliche. There’s really no original thought to them. Suspense is a genre that makes you wonder “what happens next?” Not an action that makes you physically wait 24 hours to read another 3 minute chapter where you know Boy is going to kiss Girl like Girl always wanted.

I’ve seen other apps that offer stories of romance and other genres and every story is legitimately hosting original thoughts. They’re wonderful. This one still has a long way to go to be considered “up there”. It’s okay to tailor to a specific crowd of sexually aroused young adults, but not every romantic fantasy is nor should be the same. It’s unoriginal and with every story, it will feel like you’re reading the exact same thing. Maybe different plot, but the key details are all the same.

This app and its stories host no originality, if you’re wanting stories where every single one feels different, I’d go to Hooked or maybe even websites like Wattpad and Quotev. This one has a long way to go to be considered good.

The books on there are range from a variety of genres. I’m not entirely sure if any are published on paper, I have noticed minor grammar mistakes in the books. However, they’re all still very well written. The app on the other hand needs some work. You have two options, read everything for free, but you have to wait 6 hour per “chapter” (they’re essentially pages and NOT chapters. The second option is paying $60 for the year to read it without waiting. Some flaws are that other users say they get notifications of free chapters day or shorter wait time days. However, they never receive it. Some state that they wait 6 hours only to receive the same chapter that they already read! Lastly, you can buy chapters with coins you earn. The problem with that is that you have the opportunity to earn 4 coins a day and it takes 10 coins for a chapter. So it essentially takes 3 days to earn a single chapter. They need to offer different ways other than: daily reading, 1 comment a day, and watching 1 video a day. The do have some other options for more points by following their social media accounts, referring a friend (which would get great, but you only get the points if they purchase points.) writing this review, and even then calling you for a review (which a lot of users said they never received a call.)

It would be great if they gave extra points for finishing a book or series! They should also give free chapters on free chapter day! Just one chapter would be cool! Even the short wait time day would be cool!

We wait six hours for a page, and I do mean it’s more a page than a chapter. Sure, some are more like 2 pages. But it’s definitely not more than that, and some are literally 2 paragraphs. When they’re that short, they need to give 2 “chapters”.

The app is cool, but they need to make it a bit more enticing for those of us who cannot justify paying $60 for this stories. For example, they should give us the option at the end of the book, to earn points by writing a review on it! I mean, what’s better than the readers telling you how they loved it so much they waited 6hours per page?!

To start off, I love the overall concept for this app and I can tell there was an insane amount of work put into this app. From the clean Home Screen to the vast variety of novels, it’s apparent that there is a whole world of writing to discover here.

However, there are many minor things that if changed, could exponentially improve the user experience. (1) the “Genres” button is not super visible and there’s no icon to mark its spot, like how the search button is represented by a magnifying glass on the opposite corner. Putting a little menu symbol or something else to make it more conspicuous would be neat. (2) one of my main irks when using Galatea is that I can never preview a book without having to go through the whole downloading process. Sometimes I just want to see the summary before diving in, and having to remove the book from my library if I don’t end up interested bugs me. I noticed that the summary is listed in the “Coming Soon” section, but it would be great if i could access it in the main page by holding down on the cover or something. (3) finally, it would be extremely useful to have the timer of when a new chapter is available located on the Home Screen. Some possible locations is placing the timers accordingly on the novels’ covers or a pull down tab that would tell me which books have chapters available/still have an hour left to go. *Also, I noticed that in the Community tab, posters will @ a story, but they don’t act as a button to the story. For example, if someone posts with “@bestnoveltitle”, I would have to manually search up “bestnoveltitle” to find the novel.

All in all I have high hopes for this app and can’t wait to explore more. Of course, as an impatient human being I wouldn’t mind a shorter wait time, but I find the current 6 hours to be reasonable. Any pop-ups about getting Galatea Unlimited are understandable since this app is free, and the app does offer many opportunities to obtain free points.

I highly recommend this app to anyone who bothered to read this lengthy review and am looking forward to some developments in this app ^-^

— from a novice Galatea user

nice reading app so far I really love the experience but I have to take away stars for a couple reasons. You get one point a day if you leave a comment but I have wanted to comment more and have been unable to. So about points well I will give it this unlike Dreame it unlocks the next chapter you are reading after you purchase one so that is nice BUT and this is a big BUT if you like to read like I do this is crazy expensive I have spent $40 in few days I have had this app to read 3 short stories. Crazy! Yes you can wait for a new chapter to unlock for free once a day but they are very short I’ve seen a ton of complaints about that. It’s 5 mins of reading.. maybe 10 if you read slow add that up to 30 chapters and yeah not worth it. Okay sorry about the rant back to points points are what you can use to not wait and read ahead as I said you can get 1 per day for leaving a comment. Some for doing a review which takes a few days to verify 10 each to follow on Facebook and Twitter. Obviously you can only do these things once there is no daily login reward for loyalty no bonus points for purchases basically you wait or pay once you finish the few tasks they do have for free points and one of them is even calling them and it is only 50 points that is 5 chapters at the rate I have seen so far.. I have to give it to them though there are places where a heart beats fast and you can feel it in your phone. I will not lie the experience is amazing it is the price for points and the fact that they have no loyalty points for you that gets me 1 point a day is crap for comments ten days then you can read ahead one chapter smh. If they had a daily login reward and maybe some insensitive for purchasing points or daily tasks anything it would make me like this way more as it stands now I really like the series I’m reading but at the price when I’m done I will be done with this app as well and back to Dreame Inkitt and Whattpad I really wish that was not the case... Not that I would have given those up entirely anyway but the experience was so great I was spending way more time here until I realized how much it cost.

Edit to review on changes made to app!
I still love the app and the fact that you have made it to where we are able to read an extra chapter but it still is not appealing enough to keep readers intrigued! For instance I wake up and go to read the next open chapter and then collect my 10 points for watching 5 ads then comment so I can get another point! Then I have to wait another 6 hours to read the next chapter! Therefore I am only allowed to collect 12 points a day unless it happens to be day 7 for that week then I can get an extra 30 points! That is another place that need improvement, for instance I have a 106 day reading streak but only collect 1 point for today, why? I mean if I was the developer of this app I would want to keep my reader’s satisfied so I would likely give them at least a way to earn enough to keep them reading! No one wants to have to have 10 or 12 books started because they want to read but have no points to use to open the next chapter! People are likely to not recommend your app because of the flaws! I have another app that awards points for how long you read for instance 5 points for 10 or 15 minutes of reading time, 10 points for 20-30 minutes of reading and so forth! Just my 2 cents on how to improve your app! Oh and actually award the points for the review, the last time I never got my 10 points for the review even thought I uploaded the picture!
I absolutely live this app and the stories that are available on it! Although there are some things you can do to make it better! For example you only give 1 point for opening the app every morning at 7 am but it takes 10 points to read a chapter, at that rate it will take a reader a month to read 1 extra chapter! Six hours is extremely too long to wait to read a chapter! Also you may want to consider unlocking more than 1 chapter at the beginning of a book, I will allow the reader to become more immersed in the story than just reading 1 chapter! For example I just started read a story the first chapter did absolutely nothing to get me immersed enough to want to wait six hours to read the next chapter so I will most likely delete it from my library!

EDIT: WOW. WHAT A LYING ANTI-CUSTOMER APP. IT SAYS YOU GET POINTS FOR LEAVING A REVIEW, JUST UPLOAD A SCREENSHOT OF YOUR REVIEW AND TWO DAYS LATER YOULL HAVE POINTS. DID I EVER GET MY POINTS? n o p e. I heard other people weren’t getting theirs either.

Unkept, broken promises.

Not to mention BASIC functionality of the app is not even remotely close to 2019 standards. How you going to be an app developer in this day and age that DOESNT. WORK. How embarrassing!

I get asked every day by the app — every. day. — to turn on push notifications. I HAVE THEM ON ALREADY AND HIT “okay” EVERY TIME. WHY IS IT STILL ASKING ME?

This app is a joke. Whoever runs it should be really embarrassed that it reflects on them.

One star for the idea of the app.
One star for the story that has me hooked.

Missing 3? That’s because:

I like the app and I like the stories, but it’s horrendously un-user friendly. They clearly have money in mind rather than their customers. You can’t watch an ad to earn points, you HAVE to buy them and it’s not enough bang for your buck. They even took away the feature where you earn a point a day, as well, so I don’t even get an extra chapter every 10 days. Do they hate their users that much? I’m more than just a dollar sign. I would absolutely churn through these books and episodes if I was given a way that seemed fair to earn points and skip the wait, but it’s so daunting to know you only get one chapter a day, or have to spend $50+ to finish ONE book. Makes me want to give up entirely.

It’s little things that really make an app too. Like ease and convenience. If you click a story even once just to see what it’s about, it sticks into your library. You can’t delete or organize your stories so it’s just there, staring at you.

I don’t know. I’m here for the stories. The authors have worked so hard on them for readers, and us, the readers, have to struggle just to enjoy their work on a basic level. If I didn’t like this one story so much, I’d of deleted this app immediately. Most other stories are terrible. Hopefully they make improvements IMMEDIATELY, or I stick it out, finish my story and MOVE ON WITH MY LIFE. It’s 2019. You can’t have an app that’s not functioning at 100%. This one... 67%.

So my first few impressions of the app are pretty standard. It’s your usual story app, it has a pretty neat way of delivering a story. You need points to skip ahead and all that good stuff which isn’t too bad. Nothing can be for free for real right? The bad part is that you can only read one chapter a day? Why? Why not at least a few before it requires points to read more? And then to earn “free points” you have to jump through a bunch of hoops. You can earn 350 points for referring a friend, but you will only receive them if they actually purchase points. Or you could have a 20 minute call to give feedback about the app for like 50. Or you could write a review for it and upload a screenshot to earn 10 points but you have to wait 48 hrs. Or if you’re the patient type, you could comment on the skip the wait page for one point. But don’t think that a random comment of one or two words will get you anywhere with that, they demand a more detailed comment . All in all, it seems pretty scammy to make you pay for average stories when you only get to read one chapter a day, easily making those addicted to said stories spend a ton of money on a ton of useless points. Do not recommend. Will be deleting seeing as the 10 points this review would get me would only get me one extra chapter one time. There are much better more free story apps out there that will at least give you three or four chapters before asking for money, even then the wait period is usually like 15min-1hr before you get to continue for free again. Or you know, just make a Wattpad account for FREE 100% and there is no wait time in between any of the chapters. Only down side is the story may be incomplete but, hey, you can’t argue with free right?

EDIT: So as I’m going through the reviews I’m seeing a lot of excuses from the app developer. “Oh this app is supposed to be for those on the go who can’t read a whole lot in one sitting!’” Ok? Who cares? They can just put their phone down when they want to. Theydon’t need to control the reading pace. Especially since those who would like to read more could easily spend upwards of 40$ for one really long story since each “chapter” is like maybe two paragraphs. Feels like more since it’s listed sentence by sentence.

I kept seeing ads on this app and then one day I decided to get it. I’m very impressed honestly, I love audio books and this app is literally the only app that have a bunch of audio books on genres that i’m interested in. It also has reading books that are good too. It’s like Wattpad but better since wattpad doesn’t have an audiobook option; they only have text to speech on certain books, and it literally sounds like a robot reading. Galatea audiobooks sounds like a human being narrating, and they voice switch when a man, women or another person is speaking. Just like any app there are things that I think should be improved. I’m not doing the yearly subscription, to be fair the yearly subscription isn’t too bad but I don’t understand why they don’t have a monthly subscription. I would honestly be okay with paying $10 or even $15 a month because it would be fine with my budget. So I do wish they had that option. But you can still use the app for free and read books but that comes to my second issue, The extremely long wait. A chapter every 6 hours? That’s really long. There are ways you could read more chapters, Its through their points. One chapter is 10 points. You could buy points but you could also retrieve some by doing a couple task. The points system isn’t bad but I think their marketing team could come up with better ideas that can help accommodate us free readers. Episode for example, they have this ticket and gem system. The tickets is for the actual reading and the gems is for the story line. Each chapter you use one ticket to read. You get 4 tickets and once they’re gone it refills back to 4 in 3 or 4 hours. But if you have their subscription plan you have many benefits. How you could retrieve more gems is by buying them, joining their subscription or through surveys. I’ve gotten so many gems on episode from doing surveys. Galatea could create something like that. They could replace the 6 hours wait with a similar ticker system. Apart from the actual tickets, they could just unlock At least 2 chapters every 3 hours. And for the points they could do what episode does with their gems, they could have a survey thing that is sponsored with other websites that would in turn help us get more points. Maybe it’s not easy to gain sponsorships though.

I personally love the Millennium Wolves book. The story is interesting and the immersive ness added by the background noise is awesome. It definitely helps put you in the head space. I’m not, however happy with the wait time for chapters to unlock. When I pick up a book, I binge it. I will read and read until my eyes just can’t stay open, I get hooked. I can’t do that with this app unless I buy points. It cost 10 points to unlock each chapter after your free chapter for the day unlocks..that’s right, it gives you ONE free chapter a day. That actually wouldn’t be all that bad if it was for the fact that the majority of the chapters are incredibly short. It takes maybe 5 minutes if not less to read each chapter, so I’m here waiting 24 hours to read for 5 minutes. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was a decent way to earn points. You can comment on a story each day for ONE point, so 10 days before you can unlock and additional chapter. You can refer friends but it requires them to make a points purchase, you can accept a call to give your opinion of the app, join the FB group, follow the Instagram page, leave a review, or buy points but you can’t earn an effective number of points to get anywhere. The book I’m reading has 7 books in the series, each with 30 chapters. That’s 210 chapters with only a single chapter unlocking each day. If I don’t buy points, it would take half a year to finish the series which is ridiculous. There needs to be more ways to earn points daily, whether it’s a sign in bonus, watching ads, etc. there also should be more chapter releases each day. One chapter a day is torture. Why not timed releases every few hours after you finish a chapter. Either way, as much as I want to finish the series, I’m getting frustrated that I’ve already spent over $20 buying points to read the book after a single day and for the amount of reading I’ve done, it’s not worth it. The length of each book in the series of printed would probably the size of a Junie B Jones chapter book because the chapters are literally THAT short and I wouldn’t pay but maybe $5 for it if I bought it at a store. I’m almost ready to delete the app because the money I’ve spent just isn’t worth it for the amount of content I’m reading. PLEASE make some updates and make it easier to get chapters unlocked!

I am an avid reader and have read books in all sorts of environments throughout my life. I really enjoy e-books for their portability. It is nice having a “library” available and at my fingertips whenever I’m having to wait for something. The concept of immersive books sounded intriguing to me, so I thought I’d give it a try. In all honesty, I didn’t really do much research into which immersive app would best suit my needs. I installed this app with the promise of unlimited chapters for a limited time. I figured that would be a good way to start. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t able to start reading the day (or for a few days after) I installed the app.

The app alerted me that my unlimited chapters were soon expiring. I proceeded to the app, picked a book and began reading. It was a bit clunky at first, but I quickly got the hang of it. To my immense disappointment, the “chapters” for the book I chose were extremely short. Additionally, my “unlimited chapters” for that limited time were not what I was expecting. I was stopped after reading just six chapters into the book. A count-down timer popped up saying I could read the next chapter in 6 hours or pay an annual fee to unlock the book. I was not a happy reader.

I proceeded to do some research into the truly “unlimited” options. The price to gain access to unlimited chapters is quite steep. In a standard e-book or a hard/paperback book, the chapters tend to be at least twice as long as those provided by this app. In reviewing the comments for the past TWO years, there is a frequent complaint - how difficult it is to “earn” points and the little return you would get for the usage of those points. There have been recommendations, ideas and requests made over the past two years to make the app a bit more competitive and a more enjoyable experience.

The most common complaint is how difficult it is to earn a SINGLE point and how few you could freely obtain per day. There really isn’t a reason for such limited “earnings” and such an exorbitant point-cost. There should be options for earning additional points - most commonly through ads.

The second common complaint is having to expend 10 points for a single chapter within just a single e-book. The number of chapters made available per points should be increased. Having the option to unlock a specific book for a point-equivalent amount could be offered.

The final issue is the cost to make the app truly unlimited. There is no other option than an annual price. As with many other apps, you could provide a monthly or per e-book purchase option. Typically, a monthly rate would be a bit more expensive than the convenience of an annual charge. But, it could be a more affordable option for your readers

All three of these complaints should be addressed by the developers. Move forward with the times. You’re already partly there with your immersive books. Now…make reading them more accessible and enjoyable!

This app is a rip-off! You get sucked into a series and then when it is time to start a new book in that series, you must purchase a membership. Another book can't be finished because it is considered "premium". At least be honest and say up front that you will have to purchase a membership to read a particular series.

In another case, 3 books I had started to read just disappeared. This app is beyond frustrating!

I purchased points on the app so I could continue to read my stories and when I went and checked Apple Pay and my account I noticed I was charged way more than what was showed. I purchased the $13.99 package and $29.66 was stolen from me. This is terrifying I don’t ever use my Apple Pay and based on the time it is from this app. I am mortified at the fact it’s put as recurring too.

Very frustrating, I paid $7.99 so I can tead some chapters, a fee days passed, I cannot go beyond chapter 5. I emailed support who has not given me any support, no response.

If this is how ita going to be, I WANT MY MONEY BACK, PLEASE REFUND ME INSTANTLY. This is hopeless and leaving a very annoying experience. I have been using POCKET FM and NEVER HAD A PROBLEM.

This app is so frustrating! Trying to read a book but then eventually get to the point when I constantly need 20 points every time I want to read a chapter! 20 points is way too many! I don’t see why I can’t just keep waiting for free chapters but even the 36 hour wait is less irritating than needing points! And that awful music refuses to mute too! Don’t find the app immersive at all!

I love reading, but honestly this app makes me hate it. I get that it’s supposed to be an interactive reading experience but it is definitely 100% not for me. Unfortunately, the books I am interested in reading are ONLY available on this app so I either have to suffer through it or not read at all! I hate having to tap the screen just to read the next line, I hate that you can only read one short chapter a day and have to wait 24 hours to read the next one unless you spend money so you can skip ahead (if you want to read a whole book without waiting be prepared to spend WAYYYY more money than the book is even worth), and I hate the sound and visual effects! You can mute the sound effects but you can’t get rid of the incredibly distracting visual effects that will give you a headache if not a full-on seizure! The whole point of reading is to let your imagination take you to an entirely new world where you can lose yourself in the story... but this app has ruined pretty much the entire point of reading for me and I am so disappointed.

I’m glad that some people are enjoying this app, but if this is what reading has come to I am genuinely disappointed. I literally just downloaded this app 20 or 30 minutes ago, I explored the app a bit and found out that I don’t like it. It’s a rip off to those of us who just want to dive into a book and just read to their hearts content! I just want to read a good book with detailed chapters that I don’t have to wait hours for! I understand authors need to make money too, I don’t mind pay for a good book, but I’m not paying for second long chapters were you have to tap to read each and every sentence. Also the point system is not in favor of the reader, to receive points you either pay for them, refer a friend and THEY pay for them, comment and receive (1) point or become a ambassador as long as you are an IG model or YouTube personally with 2,500 followers. I’m not going to make this any longer than necessary, but again I’m disappointed and to the great authors who chose to write on this app be prepared to lose an abundance of readers.

I enjoy reading, but this app makes it seem like a chore. When you get into a story, it’s difficult to jump right back into it and dive into another world when you have to keep starting and stopping, and when the story line isn’t consistent (as if different writers are writing different chapters), and when some chapters take 10 minutes to read and others only 1 or 2, and the list goes on. So, after a couple minutes of reading, it’s time to wait. But the reading didn’t accomplish much with the story, or it didn’t progress. With the exception of a few chapters, it left me more frustrated than not. Oh, and the constant cursing is unnecessary. It doesn’t add to the story or emphasize the characters emotions, it’s like a teenager is just spewing it out to sound important and impress the older kids in a group. It’s just not necessary. I’ve only ever looked at one book, The Millennium Wolves, and I’m thinking I’ll be done all together as soon as I’m done reading it… or sooner. If I didn’t want to find out what happens to the kid, I’d be done already.

I love the concept of this app and the stories keep you wanting more. However, only getting 1 point per day and having to wait 24 hours to get the next chapter is frustrating and has made me stay off the app for a while. Mind you this is after spending some money to get points to skip a chapter. But I was not getting the next chapter each day. It costs 10 points to skip a chapter but you can only earn 1 point per day. So you have to wait 10 days to earn enough to skip. The chapters are two short to only get 1 per day. Now I did prob spend enough to purchase a book or two in this app because they were addicting, but the cost was way to expensive and I stopped because once I started spending I stopped getting the next chapter every 24 hours.

Now skip ahead to now, I want to get back to reading my chapters. Got a new phone the other day and now I can’t get into the app. Keeps giving me an error message and will not open. I’m guessing I just lost all my progress and all my points I have paid for. SUPER DISAPPOINTED and upset! Looks like I’m deleting this app, thanks for taking my money!

This is my second time testing this app, and it seems like a decent and original app, love the sounds and different looks while reading, that was very creative but one chapter a day is ridiculous! There is no book that is going to hold my attention one scene at a time. The developers need to get a grip, with all the other similar apps competing, a few noises and lights won’t hold my attention for more than a month just to get through 1 season. It doesn’t even take me that long to watch a whole season on Netflix! By the time you get to the end, I find it doubtful to be able to remember half of what you read at the beginning. While the beginning of the story seems interesting I will never know how it ends! Therefore the actual authors success was limited and based on the first chapter, sad but true! Good thought but horrible execution. I find it very unlikely that this app will be around too much longer due to the limited access, and a point system that’s a joke, which is why I didn’t even remember that I tried this app once already and deleted it for that exact reason months ago. Complete waste of time! Too bad, because it was a creative idea!

Unfortunately I have to be very critical in my review which is not something I usually do. I downloaded the app after seeing an ad for it. I was intrigued in the story advertised and ended up reading it. Since the app works with points that cost money, I very quickly spent all the free points I had. Then I bought points with money, twice. I spent $10 just to get through around 20% of a book. Thinking about that with normal book prices, I’ve spent what I would to get any other regular fiction book. To finish the book on the app I would need to spend FORTY DOLLARS. That is honestly absurd and when I realized that I was so upset I spent the $10. Now I’ll either wait 3 months to finish the book or spend more money? Which I promise I won’t be doing because there is no way this book is worth $40. All respect to the author and the app creators but you’re definitely over valuing yourselves for adding music and some vibrations to a book, for the sake of calling it an interactive experience. I found out the author of the book I’m reading will be publishing the book later this year so depending on if it’s within the next three months, I may be finishing the physical copy before I ever finish this one.

I personally do not like the Text Message story style reading when it applies to actual novels. And the entire Galatea app is this style of reading on novels. I also have an Inkitt account and many of my favorite authors have removed some books or published their sequels on Galatea but I’ve come to the app, and searched for the novel only to have no results come up when I know for a fact the book should be on the platform by now. The way to discover new books is also lacking. There are not filters or tags you can apply to a search to find a list of books you may be looking for. You have to have a title in mind or just scroll through the options on the home page organized by their given categories rather than your own genres or specific preferences.

I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. You also have to wait 6 hours between each chapter before you can move on or spend 10 points to skip the wait. Shockingly enough you can actually buy a decent amount of coins for their prices. But regardless I’d rather read on Inkitt, or Wattpad or even Radish where you have to wait for chapters. But you can stockpile while you’re reading a different book until you’ve unlocked all the chapters of the book and then start reading it.

I do like how the app tries to put you in the story. My phone will vibrate to simulate a heartbeat, the screen will flash if there’s a certain feeling, the speakers make noise if there’s supposed to be thunder in the story. I really do enjoy those parts. What I don’t enjoy is how short the chapters are and how we need to pay to read more. Your options are to pay, to wait a full 24 hours for one 5 minute chapter, or to try to rack up points by leaving comments, writing a review (hehe) or by talking to a person on the phone for 20 MINUTES about the app. You can only get one point a day no matter how many comments you leave, the review part only gives you 10 points (enough for one chapter) or you can talk to someone for 50 points. I’m poor as heck so I can’t afford to pay for points, I don’t want to talk to a stranger for 20 minutes, and I can’t get points by leaving another review, so I have to wait over the course of a few months to read one single book. I love the book I’m reading, but I hate that it’s only available on this app.

UPDATE: I took the app from 3 stars down to 1. It says that you can get points by leaving comments on the chapter but it only gives one point a day, no matter how many chapters from different books you comment on.

I was sucked into this app off Facebook. I was starting to thoroughly enjoy the book I started on Facebook and then as soon as I got to the first good part it asked for points. So I searched around on the app to find out how to obtain points. What a joke that turned out to be. There are a few options as to how to obtain points but ultimately you will be left with either waiting 6 hours or paying for an entire year of unlimited use of the app. That is $59.99 by the way. What if I only want to read this one book? I have numerous book apps and they all have lower priced options. I wouldn’t mind paying $5, $10, or $15 to finish this book. It’s possible I would spend those amounts numerous times and total over the yearly $59.99. I just have a hard time justifying the price with the urge to finish one single book. What if I ultimately find the books on the app lacking? What if this book becomes boring part way through it? Welp. It would have been too late then. $60 is much to much to demand without offering a cheaper option to people who are curious about the app. Stop trying to trap people and try offering a more user friendly price point. I would pay $4.99 for a month. I will not commit to a whole year. Thank you for thoroughly disappointing me and wasting two hours of my time. I’ll never find out if she’s his mate now lol.

Okay first of all, I love the stories I’m reading. I also think this is a great set up and a really good idea however this app has not been executed well. The amount of money you have to pay (if you don’t want to wait) for the next chapters, can equal the price of a whole book and yet you still only get a few chapters? Also it takes FOREVER to accumulate points. I think there should be easier ways to get them or maybe like 3 points for commenting, 2 points for something or a similar point system. Also, I recently got a new phone, didn’t think it would affect this app. However I open it up today to read the new chapters and...I can’t. I have to wait ANOTHER 24 hours before I’m able to read the next chapter. Which is completely ridiculous! I also for whatever reason lost all of the points I had accumulated. This just doesn’t make sense to me. And with how short the chapters are, I’m starting to not really want to use this app anymore. I have to wait 24 hours for 5 minutes of reading or spend $20 to read like 6 chapters. There has to be a better way to run this app unless the creators only care about making money.

*Edit*
I waited the 24 hours, opened it today, ready to read the next chapter and guess what. I was back at the beginning of the story all the chapters were locked so I lost all my progress and all my points. This is ridiculous. Deleting this app. Thank you for nothing.

First off what I mean by the app keeps crashing is I have to delete the app and go to the App Store and reload it EVERY TIME to start listening to the audio books after I need to pause it or close out of the app. Yes my phone is up to date and apps are up to date. Another bug is after listening to a chapter and waiting the OUTRAGEOUS time of 6 HOURS it STILL says I have to wait ANOTHER 6 HOURS! After I have already waited and listened to that chapter waiting for the next. I stopped using this reading app quite a while back because of the wait time and how expensive it costs. When I reopened the app to see what has changed I was pleasantly surprised and excited to see the Audiobooks option! Great idea and I love it because I can listen to stories while driving around for work instead of the radio.
Please:
1.) Fix the app crashing issues.
2.) Change the wait time to something more reasonable like other apps with 2 hour wait times.
3.) Give us more coins for what you charge! I have been having to use up all my coins to be able to listen to the next chapters because the app keeps crashing. I had to stop purchasing them because it was getting way too ridiculously expensive.
4.) Also the audiobooks need to be updated more frequently with new chapters and also some of them are they just not finished books?! It’s incredibly frustrating paying money for an unfinished story with no ending and no updated chapters for months.

I downloaded this app just to read millennium wolves. I enjoyed the overall story but had a love hate relationship with how the app would constantly crash or put me back into a chapter that I had previously causing my timer to restart my 6 hour wait time for a new chapter. It takes 10pts in order to read the next chapter if you do not want to wait for the timer to count down. You only get 1pt for commenting one time a day. You can comment on each chapter as much as you want but only get credit for one time a day. It’s not a priority or in the budget of mine to pay for the unlimited. The unlimited allows you to unlock all of the chapters. I have paid for extra points to unlock chapters but I stopped doing that because I don’t like spending money on something like that. I hope that some of these issues are able to get fixed and they come up with a more fair way to accumulate points rather then having to buy them. I will continue to read stories on this app as I do enjoy the stories, I just don’t find myself jumping to the app due to the wait time in between what they call chapters. The length of the chapters are more equivalent to one or two pages in a book.
Updated review: Here we are
AGAIN with sending me back to the same chapter I’ve already read! This app and it’s issues and bugs are really starting to annoy me. I finished this chapter at 130pm today and it sent me a notification that my next chapter was ready. Well here I am at 10:19pm and I have to wait a whole 6 hours again.

It’s... okay. Definitely not something for long term. This app needs some serious improvement.

Pros:
-pretty good stories
-has audio books available

Cons:
-Long wait times for all stories. I literally wait 3 hrs each book.

-This has to be my biggest pet peeve: the app doesn’t let you listen to your own music while reading. I have the mute button on but sounds and vibrations from the story still happen and it’s very annoying.

-There isn’t a scrolling option. You have to click through the whole story, and I wish they kept it optional

-Minimal ways to earn points to unlock new chapters. I earn max 4 pts a day and to unlock a new chapter it’s 10 pts.

-Pop ups are so annoying. Everytime you open the app and one of your books there’s a pop up encouraging people to use premium.

-Very slow and need wifi to read books. It take a little while to load, and you can forget about reading it if you don’t have good wifi/data. I have data and half the time it still doesn’t load

-Books don’t necessarily have a lot of variety. I’ve picked tags so I can broaden the horizons in reference to genre, and the same genre keeps popping up in my recommendations.

Just based on the length of my cons list, you can imagine my fustration. Honestly, giving this rating two stars is generous. Keep in mind I’ve had this app for about a month, and will probably be deleting it soon. I really like the stories that I’m reading right now, but I wish more improvements can be put in the app overall.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope this review helps.

The idea of this app is great. The execution leaves much to be desired! 1) You have to wait 6 hours between chapter (you literally have to click next chapter, then wait 6 hours, chapters do not unlock automatically). 2) There is no way of knowing if a book is actually complete, unless you search for comments on Facebook and get recommendations/warnings. At least in InKitt it says if it’s “complete” or when it was last updated. Some have been waiting a year for updated chapters. 3) The prices are outrageous, I could have a library filled with actual hardback books if I paid what they asked. 4) Glitchy, glitchy, glitchy…sometimes you lose your library and have to start from scratch & sometimes you lose your reading streak (which changes the amount of free points you earn each day) 5) Tech support is really only helpful if it’s a very basic problem, otherwise it’s a “know issue they are working on” and from many comments, they’ve been working on the same issues since the beginning. 6) They buy these books and sometime put chapters from the original author, then bam you are reading “their” version or interpretation of the rest of the authors book. This leads to themes and storylines not adding up and can really make a book horrible (Example: Millennium Wolves). It would be nice if you had the option to read the authors original or their version (it seems they pretty much rewrite all immersive stories). Stinks to get a couple of chapters into a book and then it all changes and doesn’t even read the same anymore or they leave big details out or they completely change the character’s personality. If it ever gets better, I’ll revise my review, but as it stands, I can’t see why anyone would give this app a 4 or 5?!

So I have had issue after issue with the app and the way they scam the readers with other peoples stories that I’m sure the authors are unaware of. The first few incidents were bothersome but they did make it right or tried to do so but this last one was it for me, and let me say I was ready to just make the jump and pay for the subscription until I got yet another glimpse into how they scam the readers. So first the start of my last and final issue began when I started reading a book that was to become free for 2 days the day after I began, well it said it was free on 9/27 though it was not free until late night on the 27th I was annoyed so I sent a request telling them how un cool this was and they ended up issuing me some points make up for it I guess, anyhow I continued the story and though I was nowhere near the end I had made it to book # 2 of the story I knew I would like have to pay to finish the book which was fine since I was planning to subscribe but then when it was no longer free I went to pick up from where I left off since I still had points to use and to my dismay they had sent me all they way back to the beginning of book 1 right about where I was when it went free most likely and when I tried to go back to the chapter I was last reading it said I needed like 500 points to unlock book 2 or I’m left to start at the beginning. No way would I reread or pay to reread something I’ve already read so again I’m left with abandoning yet another good book having to leave it unfinished. There are a lot of good stories here but unfortunately a lot of people including myself will never get to enjoy them unless you go broke while making the developers rich. Too much greed in the world. Back to paperback books for I.