Yuzu eReader Reviews

by Kathyesf

I had to use YuzueReader because it was the only option to purchase the e-book through my college bookstore Barnes & Noble. YuzueReader worked for a couple of days and then I got an error message and it logged me out and will not allow me to log back in. I get a small message in the upper left hand corner that just same error. I can log into YuzueReader on my iPad but need it on my iPhone for the audio. Called customer service and was on hold and three times it told me to press one to leave a message but it did not wait to see if I pressed one it forced me to voicemail where my call would be returned within one business day. On the fourth call I finally got a person who’s only solution was to delete YuzueReader and download it again which I had already done. So the only option because they do not have any tech support is to escalate to a Supervisor to see if they have any other ideas and they will be back in touch with me within one business day. For an app that provides college books for students there should be better support. I am loosing valuable reading time in a short summer semester. If you can get your ebook another way do it, avoid YuzueReader anyway you can!

by Mshear

I only use Yuzu when that is the only way to get a digital text. I am once again a Yuzu captive and quite discontent. I just received a textbook and the highlighting is not functional on YuzueReader . I have never had this problem on Kindle. Hence, once again disappointed. When I called I was told they would get back to me - in 1 to 3 days. Update: 1. has been 2 business days since I called about this problem and still no help in highlighting on YuzueReader . 2. Have used the website version and had trouble with highlighting there. When I called they said, it works on our book here. I asked if they used PC or Apple. I was told they only have PCs. I have been told by techies in other venues that just because an app works in the non-Apple world does not mean it will work on Apple systems.

by Mieko10121

I used YuzueReader my first semester and it was perfectly fine. Now its all messed up. it says i have too many devices even though i don't have a single device logged in. now i don't get anything. i log in and it just takes me back to the log in screen over and over again. i asked customer service and all they said was there a "resolve this error" button...NO THERE ISN'T!! I don't get a single option for that. they will ignore your emailed after the first one they send. They copy and paste a vague answer. Christina Q if you are a real person. why would you do my dirty like that >:| I just wanna read my textbook and study for my classes dammit. now it wont even let me email customer service. BOI

by Rigauth

I purchased 3 books for yuzu. After receiving email confirmations that I had access to the books, I checked and only had access to 1 book. I attempted to contact customer service by phone and email. No one ever answered the phone and there is no option to leave a VM. I sent an emaiI and received a confirmation email, but no other follow up emails. After that I couldn't even login. I attempted to call again-no answer and sent 2 more emails but no response. To their credit they did resolve the issue but it took a week. I didn't have books for my first class, but got them eventually. Now that I have been using YuzueReader . It is horrible. It freezes up constantly. I use YuzueReader on my iPhone 6 and I use the website on my surface pro 4. It doesn't function well on either one.

Follow up 1 year later. Just to make YuzueReader worse. When you purchase an ebook. You don’t actually purchase it for an extended amount of time. You only get the book for 1 year. Look at the fine print. It should say you can rent the book for a semester or for a year because those are the options. You don’t actually purchase the book.

by MattA234

Holy _____. The highlighting feature in YuzueReader is the most infuriating, useless, and COUNTER productive thing in the planet. You highlight a section, and then it jumps to another section, forcing you to rehighlight over and over until YuzueReader responds appropriately. Highlighting text in multiple lines is an utter disaster and can take anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes of constantly trying and re-trying to get it to work. What an utter nightmare. It’s a shame this book is only offered here, as YuzueReader is absolutely abhorrent. A dreadful waste of time.

I’d rather drop out of school than have to use this to read and highlight the rest of the book. I’d give 0 stars if I could.

by Shelbybr105

If you’re searching for an audio version of your textbook YuzueReader is not it. It uses an audio function from your phone. The voice reads things completely out of order and mis-pronounces basic words to the point you can’t understand it. When it says it will read all the text on the page it reads ALL the text on the page. Even the stuff like the title at the top of every page. YuzueReader itself is not super friendly. It would not recognize the chapters in my book, it takes forever to load, and the page changing button doesn’t function properly. Don’t waste your time. Use use the computer version.

by ILLdAle

I learned today from customer service that web access to purchased textbooks expires after one year. After one year you must use YuzueReader and can no longer access Books from the website. This is unfortunate because I am currently taking a class which uses the same textbook that I had already purchased, however now I must use a separate device instead of just my computer to read and word process at the same time.

Nowhere is there any warning of this, seems they bank on students having the book one semester than never looking at it again. Shady non full disclosure marketing. Will be informing the head of our bookstore and hopefully the university reaches out. Clearly they don’t care about the individual student end user.

by College Student Problems

If I could give them a zero I would. I rented the yuzu e-book for my microbiology class for $160. The rental expired a week before my final exam and practical (which doesn’t make sense). I called customer service and I was told multiple times there was nothing they could do and I would buy a new one full price. I continued to escalate my issue until a manager told me that he would have it re-added to my account and it would take 24 hours. It has been 4 days and still do not have access. I am unable to study or do any of my assignments. This is extremely frustrating and unprofessional and I will never use yuzu again and would urge everyone not to either if they actual want to pass their class!!! Just terrible...

by Thatone321

first of all you apparently need some sort of account to access YuzueReader . there is only a sign in option, NO OPTION TO MAKE AN ACCOUNT. what kind of account do you need to create you may ask? well YuzueReader says you’ll need a campus bookstore account (which i don’t have a campus bookstore) someone online said you’ll need a barnes and nobles account but now i just checked the yuzu website and apparently you need a barnes and noble EDUCATION account (which there is no option to create an account on that website anyways.) i emailed the given customer support email on their app and the email is BROKEN. now im about to contact customer support directly on the yuzu website and if that’s also a dead end then i’m going to call customer support. wish me luck i guess :/ this should of only taken 3 minutes MAX but it’s been half an hour of frustration already

by Kathria

YuzueReader is interesting. It’s easy to read but I have a few problems with it. 1, randomly the highlighting feature will stop working. Only way to fix it is to restart YuzueReader . It’s annoying. Takes time away when I need to read and take notes. 2, the copy feature does the same thing, as well as the note taking. Randomly it will stop copying to the clipboard or allowing one to use the note taking highlight. Way to fix? Restart YuzueReader entirely.

Third, this is more of an annoyance to me, you can and cannot highlight/note with different colors. Technically you can, it will show up in your annotations with the different colors. I say you can’t because overall one color will show on the text. It’s not like when you mix colors on a regular book the colors will overlap, no YuzueReader only shows one dominate color. Which is annoying to someone like me who prefers to go back through the pages while reading then click on the annotations tab.

I do like the flashcard feature. Which would be more enjoyable if the copy feature worked regularly.

Overall it’s good to use, has bugs and annoying things to it that should be updated.

by UNTcs0908

As I’m reviewing the text and highlighting for notes it will randomly and frequently just stop highlighting. I have to force close YuzueReader and restart. This can happen up to seven or eight times in a 30 minute session!

I’ve now had two texts through YuzueReader and there is no consistency for font types or text color. As someone with a light sensitivity I prefer to read white letters on black text but that isn’t an option with one of my texts. Some consistency from YuzueReader , vs just leaving it up to the publishers, would be nice.

Out of four reader softwares I use on a regular basis this is by far one of the worst. B & N should be able to do better, especially with what we pay for these digital textbooks.

by Kalimaren

The read-aloud jumps from column to column, reading the text out of order on some pages. Also, the read-aloud reads out some words letter by letter and this is very annoying. I recommend fixing these errors of the text read-aloud to make YuzueReader . feature more enjoyable. I really like the read aloud feature when I don’t feel like reading or can’t read, but please fix these problem I stated above to make it better. If fixed, I will give YuzueReader . five stars. Also, her (the readers) voice is very monotone making it difficult to listen too and hear after a chapter or two. I really like how I can change the speed of the read aloud.
Thank you for listening
Katherine M.

by Dfjjlljvfdgnn

I’ve been using YuzueReader for a semester on my iPhone 11 and iPad Pro, andPC, for two textbooks.

The form factor for phones isn’t consistent and leads to having to move the page back and forth to keep it centered when scrolling. This also affects highlighting.

Adding notes is lackluster. Keeping them in a small box, especially while typing, is purely an annoyance.

There should be more highlighter options. 2 colors doesn’t cut it, and for someone like me, who uses different colors to mark different topics, subtopics, categories, and notes, it’s a must.

If YuzueReader is minimized (not closed) or the screen locks, it will often “close” the book on both iPad and iPhone. Having to reopen the book again gets pretty annoying.

The options to change text size and font is appreciated. A dark mode would be helpful. I also appreciate the highlighted material is across devices. The option to turn pages rather than scroll would also be nice. The search feature could be more streamlined.

by Breaking_720

YuzueReader isn’t a bad app at all, it’s just average. I use it to rent out my books digitally and it is definitely amazing to be able to turn to a specific page instantly and not having to carry many actually textbooks instead my backpack. However, YuzueReader could definitely go above and beyond what it does now. I’d love to be able to ‘write’ in the book to annotate, like box words or make little notes. Just make it one more step closer to like having the physical book but with less hassle. I’d recommend using it if you don’t want to pay full price though 👌🏼

by Siyurka

It’s okay for If when you’re done using the highlighting functions and notetaking system. But I find it frustrating that I can’t change the highlighters color like how I can in the web version. Blue highlighter just doesn’t cut it for me. They should really focus on their app if the want to continue marketing to college students who buy their books for their courses.

I don’t see myself using YuzueReader unless they change a few things around.

Update:
after sitting down and playing with YuzueReader I discovered If you already have saved highlighter colors from the website the way you change the highlighter color is that you highlighter with the color already selected. Then you select whatever you highlighted and then THERE SHOULD BE color options display. Tap on that and choose the color you saved already.

The reason why I still only gives this three stars (was one star) is that this highlighter option isn’t known to a lot of people hence reading a few of these reviews. So they should at least state how you change the colors of the highlighter in some sort of way. They should incorporate the web version more into YuzueReader version Still, Yuzu should update their app to make it more digital text friendly.

by Twinkie72

The book is ok but extremely difficult to highlight important concepts with my Apple pen. I also tried to highlight with my finger but it’s as if the screen doesn’t recognize where I want the highlighter to go. This has consequently lead me to take twice as long to read chapters but I have to struggle with this. This doesn’t happen with Kindle ebooks. Unfortunately this is the only place that I can get an ebook for my classes so I don’t have a choice.
Very disappointed and soon as I’m done with these classes, I’m returning the ebook for a full discount.

by Kj6566

Downloaded YuzueReader and can see the textbook is in my library but it won’t open. I can’t find one FAQ or support number for help. The bookstores are clueless. I will never buy or rent another B&N textbook.

Yuzu app stalls, tried multiple laptops & nook. Want to choose/should be able to choose page format. Pages only open in fixed/flow format. (It flows up/down through the segment. You have to go back to the chapter index And then click on the next chap segment.) Their help page says it’s the publisher that chooses formatting. That’s not ok, B&N should have clearly stated the restriction since it isn’t a free rental.

by Overall Pretty Good..

If you're having difficulty signing in with an error message popping up, reset your password and try again and it will work. App runs fine, all my books are downloaded and I saved over $150 dollars on three Ebooks.

by Miss.right

I really loved everything about YuzueReader. What I love most is the ability to have the read aloud button. Make it easier to retain.

I really dislike the new update. The words light up and it jumps around as it reads which makes me nacreous and my eyes dizzy. Before it was just the section highlighted. Also if you need to zoom in the reading stops. You can’t pick back up in the middle of the text like before hand. I’m not a fan of the update but love everything else.

Happy reading!

by Valbuenajr

I love the features. YuzueReader is for modern students, who prefer to use mobile devices like tablets for reading and note-taking.

The YUZU app allows the user to highlight easily with different colors and listen to whatever text you have on the book, thanks to reading aloud where you can even change the reading speed.

It also has an option for doing citation work with the citation bottom. Moreover, searching is quick and easy thanks to the index and word searcher(btw you cannot use a word searcher in a traditional book). Also, Look for definition just by clicking or touching the desire word and the option of creating a deck flashcards.
Take notes easily or open a note-taking app like notability and split the screen between both apps, the best thing is that YUZU app will resize the format of the book so it won't look weird when stretching it.

I am an Ipad pro 11 user. YuzueReader works perfectly with it and in a regular desktop PC browser like Google Chrome.

by Reyn8

Unfortunately I was obligated to get a digital textbook through YuzueReader. There is only one voice option for text to speech, and it’s incomprehensible. YuzueReader even shows you how to go through your phone and change the voice. I emailed customer support for help and they said it was my phones problem even though I have the latest software installed and everything is up to date. I asked which voices were available for my device and have not gotten a response. I am taking online classes, have a two hour commute to my full time job and an 11 month old at home, so I was really depending on the text to speech reader while on my commute.

by Chukcvshijfdbuid

I am a college student and I made the mistake of purchasing digital books from this company. First of all, you cannot access your books online because the feature does not work on their website. Secondly, the customer service is terrible, I was put on hold for 4 hours! 4 HOURS!! This is not a biased review, you can google other peoples reviews online about Yuzu and they are all negative. Don't make the same mistake I did, please buy either a real copy of your book or try to buy from another company if you want to use a digital copy. I cannot emphasize this enough, DO NOT BUY FROM THESE PEOPLE.

by Thistledowne

Developer, before you respond like you have to others, please know that I could care less what the publisher wants. Instructors assign things by page numbers. If you do not do this, then you have failed to rent or sell the resource needed for a class.

Pagination should match the book precisely and -in addition to- font resizing options, there should be zoom options including view extents, view width, etc.

12.9” iPad Pro with Zagg case/keyboard and I’m forced to undock and view in portrait and thus not be able to use my device as intended.

by Cmemovemmmarshall

I really don't understand why YuzueReader has horrible ratings. I work full time and go to school and I think this is the greatest thing ever, because you can have the book read to you. I wish this kind of technology would have been around when I was in undergrad 10 years ago. I had an issue with the books downloading the second semester and customer service responded right away and walked me through it (I emailed, didn't call).