Ready Player One

How it reads

Ready Player One is science fiction (dystopian adventure, specifically), and its dominant mood is adventurous. It's driven by momentum, discovery and getting into trouble. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in an invented world, in the future, told in the first person by a single narrator. Its central concerns are survival, art and creativity and identity. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 480 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.