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Kobo Books - eBooks & Audiobooks

Kobo Books - eBooks & Audiobooks

Kobo Books

One home for all your eBooks and audiobooks.

Google Play Free App Store Free
4.2 Ratings 338K+ Reviews 10M+ Downloads

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Ratings & Reviews

4.2
337.8K+ Ratings
5
65+%
4
17+%
3
6+%
2
4+%
1
9+%

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  • img Community
    When you want to read more books but can't find the time, listening to audiobooks is a great solution. You can find 100s of audiobooks to enjoy using the Kobo Books app, They also have an excellent selection of eBooks available to view on your tablet or smartphone device.
    img by Dave
    2 years ago
  • img Community
    Having a home library is great but you can hardly bring more than 5 books when you travel. Kobo is a good way to go through your saved PDFs and EPUBS and adapt the visuals to suit your style. You can also bookmark, highlight, and annotate every useful detail.
    img by Stefan
    1 year ago
  • img Community
    Ebooks are a practical way to carry your entire library wherever you go. They can also be much cheaper, especially with Kobo which regularly offers books for as low as 50% of the original price.
    img by Sharon
    11 months ago
  • img Community
    Nowadays there's really no point in hauling around hefty hardbacks. Ebooks and audiobooks are so much more convenient. Kobo offers an enormous selection of stories and novels in 10 different languages, including English, Spanish, and Japanese.
    img by Snehal
    5 months ago
  • img Community
    eBooks burst on the scene just over a decade ago, and now there are plenty of apps that can make your daily commute more fun. Try Kobo, a solid app with over 5 million titles, and you'll probably notice your commute seems quicker than before.
    img by Antonio
    1 month ago
  • img Community
    Ebooks have many benefits: they save space on your shelves, many are often cheaper than physical books, and they don't require trees to be chopped down. Kobo has 1000s of titles to choose from, and you'll be safe in the knowledge you're doing your bit, too.
    img by Antonio
    1 month ago
  • img Expert
    1. Your personal, portable reading world - all in the palm of your hand
    2. Full bookmark sync across devices! Kobo App always remembers where you left off, so you can stop reading on one device and pick up on another
    3. Post your favorite quotes, notes, and thoughts from what you’re reading with easy social media sharing feature

    Reviewed by Kaylin on July 19, 2018

  • Great app with a wonderful selection of books! Aug 4, 2018

    By Erik ilia
    It works well, has a lot of sort options (including downloaded only for offline). Adjustable displays, and a home page to remind you of what you’ve been reading. Only issue I have is there is no way to sort by ratings that you give to books, genres of books, and it doesn’t recognize the names of authors from books you download from another site (like the authors website or a free giveaway). I love taking advantage of giveaways and buying books (as well as reading them) so I end up with a lot of books and it can be hard to remember and find the ones I liked best. When I am looking for something random or a specific genre my kobo app is too hard to sort through. I also wish you could filter your books by more than one option at a time.

  • Jan 24, 2022

    By K Peterson
    Interaction with purchased books is pretty smooth, but I keep having trouble with the interface for making annotations. In particular, highlighting sometimes doesn't work. Overall, reading in this app works decently.

  • Amazing App Apr 20, 2020

    By The rightttt Stuff
    I am an avid reader, and love audio books. This app is simple to use, the online list of books is inexhaustible, and to top it all off, they have great, great deals on premium audio books. Ive listened to hundreds of hours at this point, but I have encountered a problem. Randomly, my books have begun to stop playing, and I get this message “something went wrong, please try again”. Which... for an app where I have products that I BOUGHT is very discouraging. So I went to their help line at the site, and did the recommended actions- Clear local history, log out, log back in. Which works, but A) It’s annoying to re-download my books and B) the problem comes back after about 5 hours of listening. Now, again I say that this is an AMAZING app for listening and reading books. Really cant beat the price on their audio books bundle option. But what brought me to write the review was the hopes that the developers see my issue and can fix it! Im changing to 5 stars if an update comes out in the future addressing my issues. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have great adventures in many books to come!

  • Great app with a wonderful selection of books! Aug 4, 2018

    By Erik ilia
    It works well, has a lot of sort options (including downloaded only for offline). Adjustable displays, and a home page to remind you of what you’ve been reading. Only issue I have is there is no way to sort by ratings that you give to books, genres of books, and it doesn’t recognize the names of authors from books you download from another site (like the authors website or a free giveaway). I love taking advantage of giveaways and buying books (as well as reading them) so I end up with a lot of books and it can be hard to remember and find the ones I liked best. When I am looking for something random or a specific genre my kobo app is too hard to sort through. I also wish you could filter your books by more than one option at a time.

  • Jan 24, 2022

    By K Peterson
    Interaction with purchased books is pretty smooth, but I keep having trouble with the interface for making annotations. In particular, highlighting sometimes doesn't work. Overall, reading in this app works decently.

  • Amazing App Apr 20, 2020

    By The rightttt Stuff
    I am an avid reader, and love audio books. This app is simple to use, the online list of books is inexhaustible, and to top it all off, they have great, great deals on premium audio books. Ive listened to hundreds of hours at this point, but I have encountered a problem. Randomly, my books have begun to stop playing, and I get this message “something went wrong, please try again”. Which... for an app where I have products that I BOUGHT is very discouraging. So I went to their help line at the site, and did the recommended actions- Clear local history, log out, log back in. Which works, but A) It’s annoying to re-download my books and B) the problem comes back after about 5 hours of listening. Now, again I say that this is an AMAZING app for listening and reading books. Really cant beat the price on their audio books bundle option. But what brought me to write the review was the hopes that the developers see my issue and can fix it! Im changing to 5 stars if an update comes out in the future addressing my issues. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have great adventures in many books to come!

  • I shouldn’t have to work so hard to read. Jul 17, 2019

    By GeriG429
    I am used to scrolling up and down when I read. I read for a couple of hours every evening and I am now, exclusively, a e-reader. The look of the pages and the setting options are all great. They give you an option to mark your book as finished, which I really like. The ONLY thing I don’t like is the page turning process. You tap right or left to turn the page forward or back. The problem is you tap to move forward and you are back at the beginning of the chapter you just read. There’s no fast forward, you have to Tap to turn each page. Even when I pay very close attention, it’s still happening and I can’t figure out why. I’m a fast reader, I can read at almost 500 words a min... if I can get to the correct page. Even though I really like everything else about this application, I won’t be using it again. It very distracting and just way too much work to just read a book. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, I’d appreciate feedback. If I can get this resolved, I’ll gladly use this e-reader!

  • Great app with minor flaw Aug 1, 2021

    By TheTif
    I’ve been using Kobo for a while now in an effort to not give money to some bigger ebook companies. It’s definitely the best reading app alternative that I’ve found. You can change the text colors and size, you can bookmark, and you can adjust the brightness of the screen without changing the brightness for your whole phone. Also if you are reading a preview and buy the whole book, it saves your place and all of you bookmarks and highlights, which is something even the biggest guy doesn’t do. I would give this app 5 stars if the improved the highlighting. When you are trying to highlight something it’s always ends the highlight like two or three letters before you stopped dragging. I wish it would just default to the end of the word. Also highlighting from one page to the next is just impossible. I also hear that it’s hard to get your highlights out if you wanted to import them to another app for doing research.

  • Jan 8, 2022

    By Krishanu Sankar
    Does all right in the store and library, but fairly buggy while reading. Often skips or omits whole sections of chapters and have to reload to get them. Highlighting sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

  • Great customer support Nov 22, 2018

    By S-K-Papa
    I had an issue for signing in and I read other reviews saying something similar. I decided to contact the support via chat window. Unlike many of the customer support of other apps or online stores, a guy named Arturo knew what he was talking about. I described my issue and he immediately pointed out what I’d have to do. It had something to do with the unclarity of sign-in options on the screen. The App designer definitely needs to make it more visible. You need to sign in by specifying what you originally signed up with. There is a small text below sign in boxes saying “more sign in options”. If you click on that there was a long list of different options. After going through that, there was no problem. Thanks again, Arturo!

  • Dec 30, 2021

    By Daria Akinyemi
    Pretty basic and gets the job done. I started using it only because an audiobook I wanted was only available on Kobo. Disappointed (and a bit frustrated with how much re-reading I've done) since it's lacking a bookmark feature for audiobooks, which I thought was mostly standard. Likely will only use it for Kobo-only audiobooks.

  • note taking & high lighter Jul 31, 2020

    By kalikalinko
    I am not an avid ebook reader, but with the current times, I have found myself increasingly turning to it. I am starting to use this more for studying various texts, and so, i like to take notes & high light passages often. The very frustrating component is that almost every other time i highlight a passage, the app freezes and, also tries to pop-up the dictionary definition for the word my finger tapped on (to start the highlighting process). So i either have to wait a few minutes, or, more often than not, restart the app. Argh! I really want to love this app (as an alternative to the “other” app(s)) but this may keep me from continuing my use :( Thus 3 instead of more stars. I do enjoy the audiobook set up very much. It’d appreciate if you could let me know if I’m missing on some specific instruction or “fix” issue somehow for use-friendliness. Thank you.

  • Dec 19, 2021

    By Robert Berrong
    If you own a Kobo reader, you need this app. If no Kobo reader, no need for this app. Pretty simple. I think the amount of points needed for a free book is a bit much. Kind of ridiculous actually.
See all positive reviews

  • Dec 27, 2021

    By Don Bright
    The audiobooks section still is showing the opening "subscribe" screen even after you pay for subscription. It doesnt work in multi window. The serif font has no serif. They have a facebook link right inside the app anytime you highlight a word. I dont want facebook inside my books. The audiobook audio quality is absolutley terrible. You cant truly delete items only archive them. I cant find categories like a library it just uses The Algorithm. Sigh.

  • Unreliable Nov 15, 2018

    By McPhee-Bell
    I like to listen to books while I fall asleep and I always set a 30 minute sleep timer. One time it turned off and I thought “that couldn’t possibly be 30 minutes already” and when I looked, it was still counting down. It had only been 15 minutes. I tried to press play to start the audiobook again and it would play for a split second then pause again. Over and over I tried it but would only ever play a split second until I fully exited and closed the app and restarted. If that isn’t happening then sometimes it ignores the sleep timer all together. 2 nights in a row it didn’t stop after the 30 minute sleep timer. I woke up hours later and my audiobook was still going. The first time it happened I thought maybe I did forget to set the time but the second night I KNOW it was set. It has happened at least 2 other times since that back-to-back night. I can always scroll back to where I last remember but it’s kind of a pain to be woken up because my audiobook can’t obey a sleep timer.

  • Jan 24, 2022

    By Minda Zetlin
    I used to love this app but lately the only font available is a plan sans serif. I guess I'm stuck with the Kindle app from here on because I hate reading in that font.

  • Jan 12, 2022

    By Kicki Crozier
    I used to enjoy this app. Then all fonts were removed except Droid Serif, Droid Sans Serif, and Open Dyslexic, all of which are the opposite of pleasant for me to read. Why the app can't offer the same font choices as the Kobo ereaders makes no sense. Bring back the missing fonts!

  • not great, to be honest May 31, 2019

    By 29028
    Not terrible, but not great either. - takes a good number of taps and navigating to make notes or to find then - options to change fonts, line spacing and margins is limited (unlike on my h2o, where there are a lot of options) - background color choice is very limited, and text color cannot be changed - bugy: i get notified that i have opened my book on another device when i know i have not. another time my book got marked as read half way through without me intending to do it. and a couple of suggestions: - how about a setting that would allow the reader to keep page numbers regardless of font size. say a particular book is 200 pages in print. i would like the option to have those pages marked on my e reader as well. this 100% system of marking progress is really clumsy. - i would also like the option to read while holding my device in a way that my finger rests on the screen without highlights or notes or other helpful things popping up. there could be a way to activate and deactivate it easily - say by long pressing in one corner of the screen, and while activated, the device would only react to a gesture to turn the page, which would be elaborate enough so it would not be activated by accident... - changing font size would be nicer using buttons to incrementally increase/decrease. the current slider is clumsy and not as effective. doubt this will be read or considered by a human, but on an off chance.. good luck!

  • A Class Action Lawsuit Waiting To Happen Apr 23, 2021

    By BrendansFriend
    There are three major E-book readers and services in English - Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. Kobo is my choice of the three and I've used it for a number years now and have LOTS of experience with it. The biggest problem Kobo is there are many, many, many duplicate entries in its book database, where the exact same edition of the same book is listed two or even more times, frequently with different prices. What if you happen to buy a more expensive instance of a particular book? Well, unless you catch it and demand the difference in price be returned to you, Kobo will happily pocket your extra money. For years and years they have let this go on and on and take no discernible action against this fraudulent practice even though they could and should easily fix the problem quickly. Its like Kobo is just so negligent they won't bother to fix their issues until forced to by a lawsuit. It's a class action lawsuit just waiting to happen.

  • Not Good Enough Alternative to Kindle Jun 6, 2018

    By ultramookie
    All the books I bought from Sony when they ran an ebook store got moved over to Kobo, so I downloaded this app to read a book. The app just is not that great. There are great ideas here, but the execution is terrible. The good thing I like about it is the reading stats which are compelling. The layout of the app outside of reading is also pretty good and useful. But, all of this is lost because of usability issues. The app cannot keep sync at all. I will read on my iPhone and come back to my iPad to find that the Kobo app on my iPad is still stuck where I left off on the iPad. Sometimes, the app syncs and brings me to where I actually am, but it doesn’t happen much. Though the app shows me the percentage of how far I am in a book before I enter the book, there’s no indicator in the book itself. All that I see are pages in the section/chapter that I am in. There’s no way to see how far I am in the book itself while I am reading. The layout options when reading are woefully lacking. I want to like Kobo because I think there should be an alternative to Kindle, but Kobo has a ways to go before this can even come close to being a decent alternative. All of this is strange because the Libby app from Overdrive (which is own by Rakuten, who owns Kobo) is a fantastic reading app that has none of the issues that the Kobo app does.

  • App glitches Mar 26, 2019

    By Jade F
    If you have a lot of annotations the boom will take forever to load. On top of that all my annotations are some how filed under the “contents” section of my book and not the actual chapters. It doesn’t track where I am in my book in the contents tab. I’m about four chapters in and the red check continues to show that I am on the first page. I also don’t like how true page numbers aren’t available. It only tells you what page your on within the chapter. Not what page your on within the whole book. Page numbers are very important how am I suppose properly quote the book if I don’t know the page number? This app doesn’t have a dictionary built in It seems like a pretty useful feature to have especially for an ebook app. In my opinion you’re probably better off using Apple Books. Small glitches are fine but when you have several of them it gets annoying and Apple Books offers more features anyway.

  • Doesn’t Hold up to Kindle Dec 5, 2021

    By Alfjsgak
    I usually use my actual Kindle, sometimes my Kindle app, but downloaded this to read a Kobo exclusive. It just does not hold up to the features I like on my Kindle, such as changing the “page count” view to show either the page number you’re on, percentage of book you’re through, or time left in either chapter or book (which I use the most and this doesn’t seem to have that option at all). Also when I switch out of the app and go back later it often freezes and the page is blank and I have to completely close out the app and reopen it. If you navigate to another part of the book, you can’t always easily get back to where you left off reading (hope you remember what page you were on!). I wanted to give this a good shot but it just doesn’t compare to Kindle.

  • Dec 1, 2021

    By James Hicks
    Really terrible experience. Granted, this is an older device but it is running marshmallow. book downloads fine. Interface fine. However, book will not open and just sits there with a spinning wheel. Rebooted the device. Deleted Kobo and reinstalled. It doesn't make a difference.
See all negative reviews
  • img Community
    When you want to read more books but can't find the time, listening to audiobooks is a great solution. You can find 100s of audiobooks to enjoy using the Kobo Books app, They also have an excellent selection of eBooks available to view on your tablet or smartphone device.
    img by Dave
    2 years ago
  • img Community
    Having a home library is great but you can hardly bring more than 5 books when you travel. Kobo is a good way to go through your saved PDFs and EPUBS and adapt the visuals to suit your style. You can also bookmark, highlight, and annotate every useful detail.
    img by Stefan
    1 year ago
  • img Community
    Ebooks are a practical way to carry your entire library wherever you go. They can also be much cheaper, especially with Kobo which regularly offers books for as low as 50% of the original price.
    img by Sharon
    11 months ago
  • img Community
    Nowadays there's really no point in hauling around hefty hardbacks. Ebooks and audiobooks are so much more convenient. Kobo offers an enormous selection of stories and novels in 10 different languages, including English, Spanish, and Japanese.
    img by Snehal
    5 months ago
  • img Community
    eBooks burst on the scene just over a decade ago, and now there are plenty of apps that can make your daily commute more fun. Try Kobo, a solid app with over 5 million titles, and you'll probably notice your commute seems quicker than before.
    img by Antonio
    1 month ago
  • img Community
    Ebooks have many benefits: they save space on your shelves, many are often cheaper than physical books, and they don't require trees to be chopped down. Kobo has 1000s of titles to choose from, and you'll be safe in the knowledge you're doing your bit, too.
    img by Antonio
    1 month ago
See All Community Reviews
  • img Expert
    1. Your personal, portable reading world - all in the palm of your hand
    2. Full bookmark sync across devices! Kobo App always remembers where you left off, so you can stop reading on one device and pick up on another
    3. Post your favorite quotes, notes, and thoughts from what you’re reading with easy social media sharing feature

    Reviewed by Kaylin on July 19, 2018

See All Expert Reviews

  • Great app with a wonderful selection of books! Aug 4, 2018

    By Erik ilia
    It works well, has a lot of sort options (including downloaded only for offline). Adjustable displays, and a home page to remind you of what you’ve been reading. Only issue I have is there is no way to sort by ratings that you give to books, genres of books, and it doesn’t recognize the names of authors from books you download from another site (like the authors website or a free giveaway). I love taking advantage of giveaways and buying books (as well as reading them) so I end up with a lot of books and it can be hard to remember and find the ones I liked best. When I am looking for something random or a specific genre my kobo app is too hard to sort through. I also wish you could filter your books by more than one option at a time.

  • Great customer support Nov 22, 2018

    By S-K-Papa
    I had an issue for signing in and I read other reviews saying something similar. I decided to contact the support via chat window. Unlike many of the customer support of other apps or online stores, a guy named Arturo knew what he was talking about. I described my issue and he immediately pointed out what I’d have to do. It had something to do with the unclarity of sign-in options on the screen. The App designer definitely needs to make it more visible. You need to sign in by specifying what you originally signed up with. There is a small text below sign in boxes saying “more sign in options”. If you click on that there was a long list of different options. After going through that, there was no problem. Thanks again, Arturo!

  • Dec 19, 2021

    By Robert Berrong
    If you own a Kobo reader, you need this app. If no Kobo reader, no need for this app. Pretty simple. I think the amount of points needed for a free book is a bit much. Kind of ridiculous actually.

  • Kobo is my favorite reader for use on the iPad Apr 17, 2018

    By Zhies
    I like how the Kobo app works, especially the way folders can be used to sort books. Now the app on the iMac allows better search options. It is also easy to go back and forth to keep Plaintext notes on my iPad. I also like how it is set up to easily give a review of the book when I finish. Improvements? It would be nice to have an archive folder for books I have read and probably won't revisit. It would be such that the all folder still shows all, but if I want to edit my books-read folder, it would let me go to the all listing minus the archive ones. As it is now, as my library gets bigger, it gets clumsier to use.

  • Jan 11, 2022

    By James Ponder
    Syncs up with my kobu just like kindle but it's much easier to manage library books! Getting books from the library is always fun but now it comes with the added buzz of NOT giving amazon any money!

  • Very Pleased With My Kobo App Feb 11, 2021

    By anndv
    I am happy with the Kobo app and have had no problems. I also have other popular reading apps and Kobo compares very favourably. The Kobo app actually had extremely convenient features far earlier than the most popular American app, so it’s definitely a quality product. I had an early Kobo device and I liked it but I found I preferred to use a large screen iPad for reading (ageing eyes). Being able to still access my Kobo books and to continue to purchase new Kobo books through the app was a key factor in my choice. I recommend this app to anyone who wants a reading app rather than a reading device.

  • Love the books but app is so so. Jul 25, 2019

    By GraneeJ
    Audiobooks in particular can be problematic. I belong to the audio club but find myself frequently frustrated with the app which hasn’t a way to flag & doesn’t do a decent job of tracking where I am. The controls are sensitive & suddenly shift back or forward when I move because something has brushed the screen. I listen to audio so I can do things while reading so this is very irritating. The text capabilities are better with flags & search capabilities but I have trouble making the annotation capability work & usually give up in frustration. Bottom line, I love Kobo; belong to VIP & audio clubs; but app itself could be improved.

  • Works awesome! Oct 23, 2017

    By HavaWorkman
    So I have to admit that I was a little scared off by the low rating (three-star rating is pretty harsh) but figured hell, it’s free - why not give it a shot. Well, it works awesome! Logged in quickly and easily, all of my Kobo books were there - good to go! The instructions on how to flip pages in it was a little overboard bc every other reader out there works exactly the same way, so...duh? But I’m also a Millennial who grew up with this stuff, so I’m not going to be thrown off by simple technology, whereas maybe someone else would be. *shrug* Anyway, loved it - glad I downloaded it and gave it a shot! Kobo is an awesome store that treats its authors right, so I’m happy to support them however I can.

  • Better than Kindle May 15, 2018

    By atbui25
    I have been a long time Kindle user. I feel Kindle is not made for readers. The Kindle restricts you from changing the formats. Kobo focuses more on the readers’ unique reading style. No two Kobo is the same. This is in the app and Ereaders. If you reorder the letters Kobo, you would have book. That tells you a lot about the company that name itself using the letters in book. They are tailoring to readers. They don’t have other products, just creating unique reading experiences for each reader. Try its ereader as well. You won’t be disappointed.

  • Dec 11, 2021

    By David
    Its very good. One thing that could be improved is that on some devices a little larger text size option than is available would be great. Otherwise excellent.
See all 5 reviews

  • Jan 24, 2022

    By K Peterson
    Interaction with purchased books is pretty smooth, but I keep having trouble with the interface for making annotations. In particular, highlighting sometimes doesn't work. Overall, reading in this app works decently.

  • Great app with minor flaw Aug 1, 2021

    By TheTif
    I’ve been using Kobo for a while now in an effort to not give money to some bigger ebook companies. It’s definitely the best reading app alternative that I’ve found. You can change the text colors and size, you can bookmark, and you can adjust the brightness of the screen without changing the brightness for your whole phone. Also if you are reading a preview and buy the whole book, it saves your place and all of you bookmarks and highlights, which is something even the biggest guy doesn’t do. I would give this app 5 stars if the improved the highlighting. When you are trying to highlight something it’s always ends the highlight like two or three letters before you stopped dragging. I wish it would just default to the end of the word. Also highlighting from one page to the next is just impossible. I also hear that it’s hard to get your highlights out if you wanted to import them to another app for doing research.

  • Jan 14, 2022

    By isaiah
    I like the books but reviewing books in the app is kinda terrible it doesn't let you change your reviews after you leave the page ever

  • Good but not great Aug 6, 2018

    By Jamesgaston
    I'm a long time Kobo reader and am seeing two weaknesses in the iOS app. First, there is no way to see where you are in a book page wise. Yes, there's a percentage, yes there's a page within a chapter, but there is no display of page within a book. Second, more problematic, is the book mark / last page read feature is buggy. With the book i'm reading now, Swann's Way, the kobo app invariably starts up at a place in the book that is incorrect, and when i navigate to my bookmark it thinks that's a temporary location and the little go-back arrow in the lower left corner appears. Really this is a very basic feature --- last page read -- and it should be working perfectly.

  • Would be 5star if not for the typos in every book! Oct 17, 2018

    By BikerGarfield
    The app is easy to navigate and instinctive to use. My only problem is that EVERY book I’ve downloaded so far has contained a large number of typos- far more than should be expected. I’ve checked some of the books on other platforms and these don’t appear on them so must be down to the way that the material is scanned in? Other than that though, the choice, availability and price of material is comparable to its rivals, while not being limited to particular devices or platforms which is a great bonus as I can read when and where I like, picking up where ever I was on whichever device I use

  • Highlight Feature doesn’t work well Oct 8, 2020

    By minabeca
    I like that kobo puts the book in sections so it’s easier to manage a very long book. I use the highlight section to stay engaged in the book and highlight parts I like or am confused about. However it is very hard to use and to switch colors. It is very frustrating and I have to be very patient with it. I have to restart the app sometimes . In future updates I hope they can fix this because I don’t use it nearly as much as I would like to, otherwise it would add like 2 hours to reading a book.

  • Fix the dictionary bug already! Jan 31, 2020

    By djb9
    Went back & forth with customer support a month ago about the dictionary issue on iOS devices. On my iPad mini the dictionary takes about 30 to 40 seconds to finally show up. On my iPad Pro (12.9”) it never shows up at all! Even after wait minutes. I Don’t understand why it would make any difference which kind/size iPad I’m using if I’m using the same version app on both. “Thank you for contacting Rakuten Kobo Customer Care It's a pleasure to assist you today! The DEV team has taken care of your case and this is the recommendation. The dictionary can be used but in some cases, it takes very long to appear. Please highlight one word at a time until the dictionary tool appear. I hope that the information I have provided has been useful, and all your doubts cleared, let me know if you still have any inquiry. I will be glad to help you. Have a great day! Sincerely Rakuten Kobo Team”

  • Highlighting has become harder Oct 21, 2019

    By BalancedAm
    I would never write in a print book which is why I love ebooks that I can highlight and annotate. Unfortunately, in the recent version of Kobo, you can no longer tap on a word and then drag the highlight box around the text you want to capture. Now you have to tap and drag which can be difficult to get right on the first try, especially if you’re reading with small text. Can you please go back to the old way, or at least provide an option between the two highlight methods? Thank you

  • Can’t find my books in the app Dec 18, 2020

    By NamasTeTe
    I’ve got the app open, as well as the kobo website and even though I bought two new books, I can’t get them to load into the app. If I log out and try to sign back in, I lose all my books. What to do? ~~~~~ UPDATE: Kobo read my review and got back to me about how to fix the problem. That’s great customer service! However, the only way to fix this for me was to delete the app, lose all my books then reload the app and then download my books again.

  • My favorite reading experience. Dec 29, 2020

    By Calebrity620
    Recently switched to reading Kobo over Kindle because I can support my local bookstore. The app is great, and I love the level of customization for font and background colors. My only issue comes with the stats. They haven’t been right since I started. It says I’ve completed 0 books in my collection even though I’ve read nearly all of them. And my average time per book is 3000 hours, which is cartoonishly wrong. Would love to see this fixed!
See all 4 reviews

  • Amazing App Apr 20, 2020

    By The rightttt Stuff
    I am an avid reader, and love audio books. This app is simple to use, the online list of books is inexhaustible, and to top it all off, they have great, great deals on premium audio books. Ive listened to hundreds of hours at this point, but I have encountered a problem. Randomly, my books have begun to stop playing, and I get this message “something went wrong, please try again”. Which... for an app where I have products that I BOUGHT is very discouraging. So I went to their help line at the site, and did the recommended actions- Clear local history, log out, log back in. Which works, but A) It’s annoying to re-download my books and B) the problem comes back after about 5 hours of listening. Now, again I say that this is an AMAZING app for listening and reading books. Really cant beat the price on their audio books bundle option. But what brought me to write the review was the hopes that the developers see my issue and can fix it! Im changing to 5 stars if an update comes out in the future addressing my issues. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have great adventures in many books to come!

  • I shouldn’t have to work so hard to read. Jul 17, 2019

    By GeriG429
    I am used to scrolling up and down when I read. I read for a couple of hours every evening and I am now, exclusively, a e-reader. The look of the pages and the setting options are all great. They give you an option to mark your book as finished, which I really like. The ONLY thing I don’t like is the page turning process. You tap right or left to turn the page forward or back. The problem is you tap to move forward and you are back at the beginning of the chapter you just read. There’s no fast forward, you have to Tap to turn each page. Even when I pay very close attention, it’s still happening and I can’t figure out why. I’m a fast reader, I can read at almost 500 words a min... if I can get to the correct page. Even though I really like everything else about this application, I won’t be using it again. It very distracting and just way too much work to just read a book. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, I’d appreciate feedback. If I can get this resolved, I’ll gladly use this e-reader!

  • Jan 8, 2022

    By Krishanu Sankar
    Does all right in the store and library, but fairly buggy while reading. Often skips or omits whole sections of chapters and have to reload to get them. Highlighting sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

  • Dec 30, 2021

    By Daria Akinyemi
    Pretty basic and gets the job done. I started using it only because an audiobook I wanted was only available on Kobo. Disappointed (and a bit frustrated with how much re-reading I've done) since it's lacking a bookmark feature for audiobooks, which I thought was mostly standard. Likely will only use it for Kobo-only audiobooks.

  • note taking & high lighter Jul 31, 2020

    By kalikalinko
    I am not an avid ebook reader, but with the current times, I have found myself increasingly turning to it. I am starting to use this more for studying various texts, and so, i like to take notes & high light passages often. The very frustrating component is that almost every other time i highlight a passage, the app freezes and, also tries to pop-up the dictionary definition for the word my finger tapped on (to start the highlighting process). So i either have to wait a few minutes, or, more often than not, restart the app. Argh! I really want to love this app (as an alternative to the “other” app(s)) but this may keep me from continuing my use :( Thus 3 instead of more stars. I do enjoy the audiobook set up very much. It’d appreciate if you could let me know if I’m missing on some specific instruction or “fix” issue somehow for use-friendliness. Thank you.

  • Jan 18, 2022

    By Keith Helms
    The app is filling up my main storage on my samsung tablet, but there seems to be no way to move the books to the sd card which has 8 times as much memory.

  • Nov 4, 2021

    By Kevin Traser
    This is a competent option for reading books. But it is lacking in some ways. It doesn't have as many options as the Amazon reader. And curiously if you try to start this with Wi-Fi and data on, sometimes it will take an absolutely egregious period of time to start. And that's for an already downloaded book. I can only imagine that this app is helping itself to my data for something that I don't need or want and that's what's slowing it down.

  • Dec 7, 2021

    By Richard Wright
    Reading is OK, about like you'd expect from an e-reader. The ability to highlight and copy bits to a note pad for use later is severely limited, to the point of being worthless.

  • Dec 4, 2021

    By Greg Cook
    Needs more features for Andriod. It appears you can't quickly move around the book; only Chapter by Chapter. The blue line should allow you to do that. The fonts and and background colors don't do well on a Samsung S7, had to go to B/W. The next book in a series should immediately be available for purchase..

  • Books Kobo Oct 8, 2018

    By Fairy breakfast
    Kobo is a bit cheaper than some other audiobook subscription survives. I began reading Anne of Avonlea as an audio book and the audio is good enough, kobo has an easy to use design and I like that they show you how far you are in the book by a percentage below the title/cover icon. However, I also realized that when I got Anne of Avonlea when I clicked through to the audio display, the cover of the book is blurry for some reason, not so much that I couldn’t see the art or title but enough for it to ruin the aesthetic of the cover. I don’t know if this is a problem w the app itself or not but it makes it look kind of cheap tbh. That’s why I’m giving this three stars, not amazing but also not too bad. I can’t complain too much as it is cheaper than audible
See all 3 reviews

  • Dec 27, 2021

    By Don Bright
    The audiobooks section still is showing the opening "subscribe" screen even after you pay for subscription. It doesnt work in multi window. The serif font has no serif. They have a facebook link right inside the app anytime you highlight a word. I dont want facebook inside my books. The audiobook audio quality is absolutley terrible. You cant truly delete items only archive them. I cant find categories like a library it just uses The Algorithm. Sigh.

  • Unreliable Nov 15, 2018

    By McPhee-Bell
    I like to listen to books while I fall asleep and I always set a 30 minute sleep timer. One time it turned off and I thought “that couldn’t possibly be 30 minutes already” and when I looked, it was still counting down. It had only been 15 minutes. I tried to press play to start the audiobook again and it would play for a split second then pause again. Over and over I tried it but would only ever play a split second until I fully exited and closed the app and restarted. If that isn’t happening then sometimes it ignores the sleep timer all together. 2 nights in a row it didn’t stop after the 30 minute sleep timer. I woke up hours later and my audiobook was still going. The first time it happened I thought maybe I did forget to set the time but the second night I KNOW it was set. It has happened at least 2 other times since that back-to-back night. I can always scroll back to where I last remember but it’s kind of a pain to be woken up because my audiobook can’t obey a sleep timer.

  • Not Good Enough Alternative to Kindle Jun 6, 2018

    By ultramookie
    All the books I bought from Sony when they ran an ebook store got moved over to Kobo, so I downloaded this app to read a book. The app just is not that great. There are great ideas here, but the execution is terrible. The good thing I like about it is the reading stats which are compelling. The layout of the app outside of reading is also pretty good and useful. But, all of this is lost because of usability issues. The app cannot keep sync at all. I will read on my iPhone and come back to my iPad to find that the Kobo app on my iPad is still stuck where I left off on the iPad. Sometimes, the app syncs and brings me to where I actually am, but it doesn’t happen much. Though the app shows me the percentage of how far I am in a book before I enter the book, there’s no indicator in the book itself. All that I see are pages in the section/chapter that I am in. There’s no way to see how far I am in the book itself while I am reading. The layout options when reading are woefully lacking. I want to like Kobo because I think there should be an alternative to Kindle, but Kobo has a ways to go before this can even come close to being a decent alternative. All of this is strange because the Libby app from Overdrive (which is own by Rakuten, who owns Kobo) is a fantastic reading app that has none of the issues that the Kobo app does.

  • Doesn’t Hold up to Kindle Dec 5, 2021

    By Alfjsgak
    I usually use my actual Kindle, sometimes my Kindle app, but downloaded this to read a Kobo exclusive. It just does not hold up to the features I like on my Kindle, such as changing the “page count” view to show either the page number you’re on, percentage of book you’re through, or time left in either chapter or book (which I use the most and this doesn’t seem to have that option at all). Also when I switch out of the app and go back later it often freezes and the page is blank and I have to completely close out the app and reopen it. If you navigate to another part of the book, you can’t always easily get back to where you left off reading (hope you remember what page you were on!). I wanted to give this a good shot but it just doesn’t compare to Kindle.

  • Lots of glitches Jan 23, 2021

    By Warmewe
    I admit my favorite reading app is the Apple Book app, followed by the Kindle app, which I would rate as a 4 out of 5. My rating is based on comparing my experiences with Kobo against the other two apps. I also read primarily nonfiction. In black background mode the text is very faint. Highlighting text takes too many steps and doesn’t cross pages. I also have to be extremely precise with my finger to highlight and too often, the last word is cut off in the highlighting. Opening footnotes also finicky. Adding notes is a terrible experience, too. The GUI doesn’t show the text where I am adding a note and the note space at the same time. It is a frustrating app to use and detracts from my reading enjoyment. I’m not even sure my local bookstore received any benefit from my purchase through the app.

  • Dec 3, 2021

    By Kurt Edward
    Nice reader but not being able to sync my personal books (using Calibri) between the device and my phone is a deal breaker. Only 'purchaded' content will sync, too bad, returning and upgrading my Kindle instead.

  • Poor download procedures Jul 31, 2019

    By VEXED Review
    Bought three books for a long trip. Went to read but they were not downloaded. So pushed Download button, first problem, if you don’t stare at the screen “download failed” message won’t be seen. This message box should stay until acknowledgment. Second problem, the button went to “Read” but hey nothing downloaded, so stuck there until closing the window. Next issue go back to download to try again but just hangs no message either. Fourth in order to try again you actually need to reboot the iPAD. So other than the procedure issues it appears that you can’t download everywhere in the world. That is disappointing. I don’t have any download issues with Kindle, even in China.

  • Not up to par May 17, 2020

    By Kiri Pawo
    I want to like the Kobo reading app, I really do. But when I compare it to their e-readers or the Kindle app, it pales in comparison. I use the app with an iPad Mini and the text formatting lacks customization options I can easily find in both the e-readers and Kindle. The margins are too wide – plenty of screen dead space. The font’s either too big or small. No font weight customization. Highlights and notes do not transfer from app to e-reader. Reading location updates lag in being updated from one device to another. I love my Kobo Forma and Libra. But the iOS app needs a considerable upgrade before I can give it a better review or use it to read my books.

  • Not an Audible Alternative Mar 18, 2020

    By irikah
    I tested out Kobo in hopes that it would be an alternative to listening to audiobooks on Audible but ran into a slew of technical issues immediately. Once ‘downloaded’ the audiobook would occasionally cease to play and prompt me to download the rest of the audiobook. In addition, sometimes the audiobook would not play at all and the prompt: ‘an error has occurred’ would appear until I did a hard reset of my phone and tried again. Kobo does have a nice selection of audiobooks but the technical issues with playing them make the service not worth it for me.

  • Sadly lacking in text and layout options Feb 20, 2018

    By danvpeterson
    Considering Kobo e-reader devices are well known for their text customization features I was shocked to see how few options they have in the iOS apps. No line height options, not great typeface choices, no margin or any other spacing options. Many books by default have super short line heights making it difficult and uncomfortable to read in this app. No two column support in landscape on iPads is a big disappointment as well along with no way to keep sideloaded books in sync. I really, really wanted to switch from Kindle but all of this is making it sadly unlikely.
See all 2 reviews

  • Jan 24, 2022

    By Minda Zetlin
    I used to love this app but lately the only font available is a plan sans serif. I guess I'm stuck with the Kindle app from here on because I hate reading in that font.

  • Jan 12, 2022

    By Kicki Crozier
    I used to enjoy this app. Then all fonts were removed except Droid Serif, Droid Sans Serif, and Open Dyslexic, all of which are the opposite of pleasant for me to read. Why the app can't offer the same font choices as the Kobo ereaders makes no sense. Bring back the missing fonts!

  • not great, to be honest May 31, 2019

    By 29028
    Not terrible, but not great either. - takes a good number of taps and navigating to make notes or to find then - options to change fonts, line spacing and margins is limited (unlike on my h2o, where there are a lot of options) - background color choice is very limited, and text color cannot be changed - bugy: i get notified that i have opened my book on another device when i know i have not. another time my book got marked as read half way through without me intending to do it. and a couple of suggestions: - how about a setting that would allow the reader to keep page numbers regardless of font size. say a particular book is 200 pages in print. i would like the option to have those pages marked on my e reader as well. this 100% system of marking progress is really clumsy. - i would also like the option to read while holding my device in a way that my finger rests on the screen without highlights or notes or other helpful things popping up. there could be a way to activate and deactivate it easily - say by long pressing in one corner of the screen, and while activated, the device would only react to a gesture to turn the page, which would be elaborate enough so it would not be activated by accident... - changing font size would be nicer using buttons to incrementally increase/decrease. the current slider is clumsy and not as effective. doubt this will be read or considered by a human, but on an off chance.. good luck!

  • A Class Action Lawsuit Waiting To Happen Apr 23, 2021

    By BrendansFriend
    There are three major E-book readers and services in English - Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. Kobo is my choice of the three and I've used it for a number years now and have LOTS of experience with it. The biggest problem Kobo is there are many, many, many duplicate entries in its book database, where the exact same edition of the same book is listed two or even more times, frequently with different prices. What if you happen to buy a more expensive instance of a particular book? Well, unless you catch it and demand the difference in price be returned to you, Kobo will happily pocket your extra money. For years and years they have let this go on and on and take no discernible action against this fraudulent practice even though they could and should easily fix the problem quickly. Its like Kobo is just so negligent they won't bother to fix their issues until forced to by a lawsuit. It's a class action lawsuit just waiting to happen.

  • App glitches Mar 26, 2019

    By Jade F
    If you have a lot of annotations the boom will take forever to load. On top of that all my annotations are some how filed under the “contents” section of my book and not the actual chapters. It doesn’t track where I am in my book in the contents tab. I’m about four chapters in and the red check continues to show that I am on the first page. I also don’t like how true page numbers aren’t available. It only tells you what page your on within the chapter. Not what page your on within the whole book. Page numbers are very important how am I suppose properly quote the book if I don’t know the page number? This app doesn’t have a dictionary built in It seems like a pretty useful feature to have especially for an ebook app. In my opinion you’re probably better off using Apple Books. Small glitches are fine but when you have several of them it gets annoying and Apple Books offers more features anyway.

  • Dec 1, 2021

    By James Hicks
    Really terrible experience. Granted, this is an older device but it is running marshmallow. book downloads fine. Interface fine. However, book will not open and just sits there with a spinning wheel. Rebooted the device. Deleted Kobo and reinstalled. It doesn't make a difference.

  • Dec 4, 2021

    By Bradley Farless
    My previous review was deleted, so I'm putting it back again. The Store pages won't load from behind a VPN. Disabling my VPN and the removing the kill switch settings just to view content in this app would be incredibly onerous. I want to get away from Amazon but you're making it hard for no reason.

  • Jan 8, 2022

    By Twinblaze
    Somehow fails to accomplish the most basic part of playing an audiobook: picking up where you left off.

  • Poor customer service. Took away my purchases. Sep 7, 2020

    By love my dog.
    I had a subscription which purchased me book credits, but because of COVID and the scare of income loss, I canceled my subscription after a year of having it. Because of the world issues, Reading was the last thing on my mind, so when I recently decided to use my last two credit, I found they took my credits away. I talked with customer service and they were very unkind saying that that’s the agreement and they couldn’t change it. Being the most subscription companies have been kind to offer half price or even free services during this time, I don’t see how they could just not reinstate my two credits. This is stealing. I purchased the credits. This is 2020 and we live in a technological age. They could just reinstall it, but they refused I do not recommend KOBO at all.

  • Misleading “unabridged” audiobook descriptions Aug 11, 2019

    By nopicnic
    My son has a learning/reading disability and really needs audio narration to accompany his reading (he reads along while the book is being read aloud). I can no longer read aloud to him due to medical issues/surgeries, leaving me with a severe speech impediment and pain after prolonged speaking. Audiobooks have been an incredible help for him. Came across Rakuten/Kobo and purchased one audiobook which was fine, but our second purchase - the book details listed “unabridged”. Turned out that the “audiobook” was just a radio show performance and was not the full book - it was just the dialogue and skipped over the majority of the book. Worse part - found out that the radio performance of the book is available online on public archives?!? The book details and description this app/company used was incredibly misleading - feel cheated.
See all 1 reviews

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Kobo Books - eBooks & Audiobooks

Kobo Books - eBooks & Audiobooks

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