hoopla Digital

I have always like audio books. I am a young girl, and I am dyslexic. I have always struggled with reading despite my best efforts. I eventually found out about audiobooks, and convinced my parents to get me a radio so that I could listen to the cds at the library. It helped so much, and I started making progress with my reading and reading comprehension. However, a radio would always lose my spot when I unplugged it to bring around the house with me, and I eventually ran out of books I liked to listen to. I can still recite most of the lines from Harry Potter from how often I listened to them. Anyways, one day, I was at the library, and I say a sing for hoopla. It was exactly what I needed. I downloaded it onto my phone, and fell in love with it. Hoopla’s free and easy to use. I listen to hoopla daily, and it’s a perfect way to read books while getting dressed, driving, or even just so you can follow along. You can even adjust the speed of the book depending on your reading level. If you are looking to have this for a child, you can put restrictions on. Since I got hoopla, I have also gotten Overdrive. I am so happy to have a site that has free audiobooks, and doesn’t even require WiFi.😁

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Hoopla was recommended by my public library and I’ve mostly liked it. It’s frustrating that unlike other audiobook apps, there isn’t a way on Hoopla to listen to a preview of a book before borrowing it. So a few times I’ve gone ahead and borrowed but have been disappointed. I’ve sometimes given the book as much as a 20 or 30 minute chance, but a couple times I had to stop much sooner, largely due to the narrator or the production quality. Sometimes, while the book is probably good and the story or characters are appealing, the person chosen to be the narrator is simply bad or inappropriately cast. Sometimes the audio levels are all over the place, varying in volume and quality. I know no audiobook is read all in one recording session, but most manage to maintain consistent levels and some sound like there’s suddenly a different microphone or sound engineer or he narrator was having a bad day. In any case, I wish Hoopla allowed a short preview. The way it is, I have to borrow the book, thereby using up one of my monthly allotment of books and then have returned it within a few minutes because I was disappointed in some way with the book. I’m glad I discovered the option to give the book a rating, but it would also be extremely helpful to be able to write a review. That way I could tell prospective readers which books (and narrators) I really like enjoyed a lot and caution readers about the books (or narrators) I found to be not worth my time.

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Originally I liked the Hoopla app. Now not so much. It seems to be having what I consider insurmountable annoyances. It first started with the app freezing right in the middle of a book. I switched from using the app to read a book to just clicking on read now without using the app. That worked for a while but is now doing the same thing. Very frustrating when you have only so much time to read and then it freezes and you can’t. It isn’t my device at fault either since it happens not only on both tablets I use but also on my phone. I’ve written to them twice with no response about this problem. I was sure they would fix it but no such luck. Also it doesn’t sync between devices. The other library apps like Overdrive will pick up whatever page you’re on when you change devices. Not Hoopla. I’m sorry to say. This means endless scrolling page by page in order to get to your current page. Oh and the latest annoyance is after reading maybe 10 pages a banner pops up and you have to click out of the book, it comes up with the download page and you then have to click on resume in order to keep reading. It’s almost enough to quit using this app. The only reason I come back to it occasionally is they have some books that the other services do not..if you want to try an app that works the way it should try Libby. They’ve got their act together. Merry Christmas one and all. Hope the powers that be read this and fix these basic problems.

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Pros: I don't have to go out to the library (spending time and gas) to get a book. I don't have to worry about damaging the book, losing it, or late fees. It also saves my place in a book with roughly 80-90% accuracy. And, it offers books I otherwise would not be able to get from my library. Cons: It's not easy to check different pages for something because you swipe to turn a single page at a time. (I can't find a menu or "how to" section to see if there's another way.) Sometimes pages stick (pages stick way too often), have a black spot, go halfway off the screen, etc. so text is unreadable. I would hit the X to go out and back in, but that is often missing too. To fix, I have to power my device off and back on. It's a real pain, but it ultimately works. Finally, there is also a monthly borrowing limit unlike the limitless books I can check out from my library per month. (My Hoopla limit is 10/month.) Honestly though, I would rather have a physical book in my hand for the ease of checking different pages and not having to be tied to a charger, but I am glad to have access to titles that my library doesn't physically have (even if the pages do stick infuriatingly so). (Seriously though, please fix the page sticking. Thanks.)

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While on the whole, hoopla is a nice app to have, to easily borrow books from your library, constant glitches make it frustrating to use. Consistently it zonks out-after a couple of pages and especially after the end of a chapter, the app just stops. One has to click done, go back to menu and reopen the book. Updating the app has not helped. I am also not a fan of the 10 books per month limit. I prefer the “five books at a time” limits posed by other digital reader apps like Overdrive and Axis 360. Update: Borrowing e-books and videos is easy. But videos have an extremely short check out time. On the negative side, the book selection tends to be too heavily leaning on the romance/family genre, and most bestselling authors will not be found here. I had previously given this app three stars, but the glitches have become too annoying to use the app. You have to read the book in portrait mode. Landscape is not available. The page will not reorient itself nor can you set it in one mode over another. They updated the app to give you a page turning experience, but after once or twice, you will not be able to proceed to another page. You will need to shut down the app and restart it. Additionally, it will also shut down on its own while you are reading. There are many readers on the market now. I find overdrive and cloud work best with my library. Hoopla—give it a miss.