This month our readers chose Ready Player One by Ernest Cline! The reviews are below.

At its core, Ready Player One is a complex exploration of humanity’s relationship to the digital world, and a discussion of the internet’s ability to be authentic and performative, the problem and the solution. The world building is as vast as its references are numerous, and combined with an interesting puzzle and likable characters it makes for a a solid read.

It also has one of the worst protagonists in all of popular fiction. As a female internet user, our main character Wade is literally my worst nightmare and embodies everything the Barbie movie warned us about.

It’s almost ironic. Ernest Cline so perfectly illustrates the duality of man-kind through both the on and offline worlds, and still manages to write a protagonist that can be a “pick-me” in both.

— Izzy Cooper, ‘25

Set on earth in the year 2045, Ready Player One depicts a world ruined by war, pollution, and overpopulation. As we all experienced in 2020, when things get miserable people take to the virtual streets to escape reality. Just the thing happens in Ready Player One with the popular game OASIS, and we follow a Mr. Wade Watts as he tries to crack the secrets of the game. So first and foremost, I think the worldbuilding and pacing are excellently done. The characters feel really real and their motivations are well explored. The only thing that really turned me away from the book was that it just felt really predictable. While the story was done well, it felt so much like any other dystopian sci-fi book. However, if you can get over the cliche, it’s a well written book.

— Emma Meng, ‘26