What sets it apart from its competitors, however, is that Playster also offers access to books, games, movies and music.
Users may sign up for a one-month free trial, and the cost is $15.99 month afterward for unlimited access to Playter’s media.
Playster is in beta, and their mobile app is scheduled to launch June of this year.
My Thoughts
I’ll be focusing on the Books section of the web app, and of course specifically YA books.
First, I liked the layout of the site. It’s similar to Netflix in that there are rows of books, music, etc. that you can scroll through horizontally and add ones that strike your fancy to “My Library.”
For me, functionality is a huge part of searching sites with a lot of choices.
In the Books section, there are your typical genres of Fiction, Mystery, Romance, etc., as well as Juvenile & Young Adult. I appreciated their additional categories of “Most Popular” and “New Releases.” Always helpful in a search.
Books and series that caught my eye:
The Selection by Kiera
Cass Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn
Anderson Die For Me by Amy Plum
Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard
Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
Arcadia Awakens by Kai Meyer
Withering Tights by Louise Rennison
I liked the selection and have marked a number of books to read on the site. As I’ve said before in past digital subscription reviews, the types of YA books you’ll find are not going to be the latest releases. As long as you know that going in, I think you might find quite a few books from past years to peek your interest. If you’re interested in Playster just for the books, as long as you read two books a month minimum, you’d certainly get your value from this service. As I mentioned, I didn’t take a good look at their other offerings to consider the variety, so that comes down to personal preferences. The one BIG caveat to Playster is the method of reading. Because the site is in beta, there isn’t a mobile app just yet, which means that all books would need to be read on your desktop computer. I did successfully read a book on my iPhone using the mobile site version of Playster, but the login process, etc. was a bit cumbersome. For me, this would be a sticking point, as I mostly read digital books on my Kindle and Kindle mobile app
Between the selection and the cost, I think Playster is a digital book subscription service with good value for those who don’t demand the most newly released YA books. For those of you who do not like to read books on your computer, you might want to wait until Playster is out of beta and has launched their app
