Readme: Co-Stars New Dating App for Readers Is Fine, But Not Worth the Hype
Readme: Co-Stars New Dating App for Readers Is Fine, But Not Worth the Hype
Dating apps are in a weird place right now. Culturally, people are starting to hate them. Whether out of personal distaste or for safety and privacy, more people want to return to the real world to find connections. But dating apps are still big business. Match Group reported net income of $613.5 million in 2025, up from $551.3 million in 2024 but down from $651.5 million in 2023. So, despite the complaints, theyre still making money, and a lot of it.
The ecosystem is getting increasingly niche. Theres an app for conservatives. For leftists. Farmers. Christians. Christian Farmers. The rich. The famous. People who like movies. Double daters. Freaks who use 4chan. And now, entering the field as of last week, the dating app for people who read.
Hearing that a dating app for readers now exists is, at this point, not novel. But what piqued my interest is that the app was being developed by Co-Star, the astrology app. Now thats novel. Beyond that, with the backing of the Co-Star brand and ecosystem, it commands interest among young adults who like astrology and are considered popular and fashionable, i.e., socialite New Yorkers and Brooklyn-based culture writers.
Readme is a book readers dating app, and its mission is to match people spiritually, much like the classic “meet cute” at the bookstore. And maybe, just maybe, spark relationships where they dont have to expose their (male) partners for being illiterate.
Its a book-series-sized task from the Co-Star creators. However, from my brief experience with the app, I found it to be ambitious but not well-crafted enough to justify waiting for the next installment.
Getting Started with Readme
Setting up an account is no different than any other app. Users fill out their name, age, gender, dating preference, and what theyre looking for. One of the apps two big hooks is that your queue of potential matches is built or can be filtered around your friends and people that are associated within two or three degrees of them. Kinda like old-school Hinge or Tinders short-lived Friends of Friends feature.
Within the app, one of the filters lets you see only your friends, your friends friends, or your friends friends friends. Its interesting in theory, in that Readme wants to replicate those meet-cute type moments that you read about in books. Not in practice, though, because none of my friends are on the app or know it exists. It just launched, after all. But maybe this is my sign to start hosting more parties.
The other big hook is the quiz that “uses psycholinguistics to explore the hidden links between how you read and how you relate,” according to the app. Its 25 questions, with the bulk asking you to pick which of two quotes you like or dislike the least. After you pick, it reveals which author it was.
For example, some of the authors I got were Henry Miller, Robert Frost, Casey McQuiston (of Red, White, & Royal Blue fame), and Jonathan Safran Foer. The latter was personally embarrassing cause I really, really dislike Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, as a book and a movie.
Between the quotes are questions about your political beliefs, communication style, and the genres of books you like to read. The latter was particularly irritating because much of the copy in the app has millennial-esque snark that tries to be “smashpunk” but is just grating. I like reading historical non-fiction, and the closest option to that was “straight up facts.” Another genre option was “the writing on the wall,” which is so eye-rolling. Obviously, these are my own personal misgivings, but Readme somehow tries too hard not to be like the other apps, yet also wants you to know its cool, hip, and too irony-pilled to be authentic.
At the end of the day, language like that is fine, but seeing “communism will win” and “nostalgic for Barack Obama” as options under “political beliefs” did get a laugh out of me.
Something not included in the questionnaire, or seemingly anywhere on Readme, is astrological signs. Nowhere to put my birthdate, time, and place. So if youre looking for astrological compatibility, Readme isnt it. (Yet?)
After the questionnaire, you get a report on what your language preferences “reveal about who you are and how you love.” I got “Former Gifted Child” because I prefer metonymy over metaphor. The apps way of telling me I lack imagination. “You rely on structures and systems to make sense of the world,” the app tells me. I wouldnt say its wrong, because my parents always believed I was a precocious kid. Turns out I had ADHD the whole time, so maybe the app was onto something.
The report also details How I Love and What You Need. Overall, the report is neat but a bit basic if you remove the flowery language. I like the book recommendations it gave me, and it even gave me some questions I should ask on a first date. Per my Readme report, Im a lover boy at heart and need someone whos not as rigid.
“You need someone who finds the social script so uninteresting that they havent bothered reading it, and dont know or care whether theyre following or breaking it,” my report read. Sometimes its hard to tell whether the copy was written by a millennial ad executive or by ChatGPTs poor interpretation of one.
Using the Readme App
So now that the setup is done, whats the actual app like? Its… fine. Its definitely a dating app. You click the heart to like and the minus sign to dislike. At the bottom of every profile, youll see a similarity score based on their quiz answers and choices. And thats it, honestly.
The big glaring issue here is that Readme just doesnt have the juice yet. Immediately upon getting to the app proper, my recommended likes all live in New York. I live in Chicago. Theres no filter or setting for distance. The only settings you can change are age, gender, and mutuals. For me, the app is a nonstarter. Not that it cant be successful, but I live in the third-largest city in the U.S., and Readmes algorithm is only showing me people who dont live in my city. Maybe it shouldve had a limited launch in Brooklyn first, gotten some hype, and then rolled out to other major cities.
I swiped right on between 70 and 80 profiles in my selected age range (24-32) before running out of people to see. None of them was based in Chicago. I saw accounts from Vermont, New Jersey, Denver, San Francisco, and even Tokyo. But not one in 70+ swipes lived in Chicago or set their location as Chicago.
I guess on the positive side, unlike the big power players like Hinge and Tinder, you do have unlimited likes. Itll be interesting to see if thatll be the case as the app gets more attention — venture capital and vibes can only subsidize an app for so long. Maybe then the dating pool will keep me invested enough not to be on the app when the bill comes due.
To be frank, having a cis hetero male perspective on the dating app for readers probably doesnt give one a sense of what the dating pool is like. Statistically, people dont read that much in general, but women read far more often than men. According to a Pew Research Center study conducted in Oct. 2025, “women are more likely than men to say theyve read a book in the past 12 months.”
One can extrapolate from the many cultural reasons why women read more than men. I imagine the main appeal of an app like Readme for women is that avid reading can be seen as a sign of intelligence, empathy, and curiosity. With the rise of dudebro, Barstool conservatism in young men, an online dating app that, to an extent, filters one from an embarrassing partner, is appealing.
All of that said, this is from my perspective as a 28-year-old Black man living in Chicago. The aesthetic leanings of Readmes dating pool are what youd expect from an app that markets itself as a zine-style, indie sleaze, Y2K vintage fashion store youd find in the more affluent parts of Brooklyn. In short, its very white. Which is not bad, and I dont mean to imply that there arent women of color on the app, but as its been researched before, dating apps algorithms are not kind to Black women, or people of color in general.
Its a shame because its style and interface are easy to get acclimated with, but beyond the mutuals feature and the quiz, it doesnt really do enough to stand out. If anything, what sets Readme apart from the crowd of hyper-niche dating apps is that it knows and markets itself exactly towards the audience it wants.
Thats fine, but itd be interesting to see whether it can expand beyond that — if it even wants to.
The Verdict
Readme is aesthetically pleasing and hyper-niche, but frankly, its nothing new. Its a dating app for readers that fails to deliver on its ambitious promise. The Co-Star backing gives it a cool factor, but the lack of distance filters, the limited user base, and the try-hard copy make it feel like a beta test rather than a finished product. If youre a reader in a major city other than New York, you might want to wait for the next chapter.
Practical takeaway: Before jumping on the latest niche dating app, check if it has a critical mass of users in your area. Otherwise, youll be swiping through profiles from Tokyo while sitting in Chicago.
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Mike Brown
Mike Brown – One of those authors who helps readers not get lost in today's news flow. He dives into political affairs as well as world events, social trends, and everyday stories that matter to everyone. The main focus of his work is fact-checking, clear language, and the ability to lay out the key points so that the reader gets a comprehensive and reliable picture of the topic in just a few minutes.
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