Hi, I'm the current translator for Reader. Reader is a good novel but it has a slow pace.

The author likes to repeat things and describe scenes in Multiple POV. Since the pace is slow, it's harder to see the characterisation and people can easily get lost in a subplot and lose sight of the original motivations and goals of various characters. For example, the MC could make a seemingly s*upid decision but if you consider the original goal of the MC, then it actually makes sense. It's just that the... more>> slow pace makes some people forget.

For people who complain about the weird execution of VRMMO, well it's fiction. Read if you like and don't if you don't like it. I'm not going to comment about romance, plot or the characters but there's some decent action later on. Read it if want to know. That being said, I don't know if the novel will go downhill or uphill at some point but if you don't hate slow pace, then give this a try as it's being released at a decent pace.

P.S I would appreciate if people don't give spoilers even with a tag. (Because some people check it anyway and it ruins the story for those who hasn't read to that point yet.) <<less

This novel is a slightly refreshing twist in a decidedly generic setting.

My enjoyment of this novel is marred by a translation that, in my opinion, takes too many liberties.

Reading this novel you can expect occasional intrusive translator comments in the middle of the text along the lines of (tlnote: LMAO (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)).

I stopped reading this a couple of chapters after the translator explained that they changed a title completely because the actual translation wasn't "cool" enough.

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Spoiler

The previous translator translated a title as descendant of "Medusa". The new one explained that Medusa wasn't accurate, and the actual title was descendant of the "great mage" or "archmage". Because the translator thinks that isn't cool enough, they changed it to descendant of "Odin".

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Reader takes place in a standard "near future with a vrmmo" world identical to other popular novels like Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and Overgeared. The primary aspect in which this novel breaks away from the million other similar titles is in its book-loving protagonist. If the protagonist does anything in this novel, it's with the express purpose of reading books.

Beyond the protagonist's simple and refreshing goal of reading, don't expect anything mould-breaking from this novel's writing. <<less

To be honest, I don't really get why this one have a very high reviews. I tried reading this because of the comments and such, but honestly.. It was boring. I thought the story would improve over time, but then, it didn't. The main character is so bland.. Just like what the previous commentor says. He gets OP, just because of his addictness with reading, which is okay with me at first.. But then, I think its a bit unrealistic. The MC lacks determination, and only likes reading books. You... more>> can notice this from the way he is narrating the story on the first few chapters.

The way the character views everything is boring, I don't know maybe because the author doesn't describe fight scenes much? There's this chapter where the MC would just say the spell (for instance, "fire bolt" and then the enemy would drop just like that). The story lacks descriptive writing, unlike other stories that I have read with the same genre like this one.

Spoiler

(From chapter 39)

"Firebolt, Fireball, Magic Missile."

Soo Hyuk fired the firebolt which had the longest cooldown time first.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The wolves died instantly after getting hit by the spells. Soo Hyuk hurriedly collected all the drop items and dashed away.

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*****

Anyways, credits to the translator. The translation was great, but I think the story was not that good. It is still fun though, if you want some light read.

No hates everyone. This is just my opinion ?? <<less

It started out fairly good with an interesting concept and ok character. But by about chapter 40-50 the writing itself, not the translation, just plummeted in quality. Super op protagonist with little to no real character and a bunch of extremely repetitive and dumb descriptions of the same thing from different characters perspectives to make the character seem more amazing despite barely any of it being true. So basically the same thing that destroys most good stories. Kudos to the translator for doing a good job translating it at least.

A fairly decent VRMMORPG story, with the usual weaknesses of the genre present.

• • Premise:

The MC is an introvert who is obsessed with reading. Not stories, just the act of reading itself. He gets roped into trying out a new VRMMORPG, where he continues his obsession with books, which, by sheer coincidence, allows him to gain access to one of the absolutely broken secret classes in the game. Not only that, because of his compulsive reading actually giving him extra Wisdom stat points (the main stat of mages), he becomes horrendously OP once he actually begins leveling, which slowly draws the attention of NPCs and player guilds alike.

• • Setting:

More or less your standard Korean VRMMORPG setting, where even though the game has only been running for a few months, everything in the real world seems to be revolving around it. As for the game itself, it seems to be your cookie-cutter Korean grindfest, with no balancing at all, secret classes that give the lucky few a ridiculously huge advantage over their peers, hidden and undocumented game functions that exist mainly to make the OP "high rankers" even more OP, and developers who don't seem to do anything besides being baffled by and fanboying over the MC's achievements.

As for the actual game systems, it is a combination of stats (which can be raised by leveling up or by doing certain actions, such as training or reading), titles (which are gained for certain achievements, such as completing quests or killing a certain number of a type of monster), and classes (which are tiered, with the highest tiered ones being unique and absolutely OP). There are eight types of magic, and players can only have access to three at a time (except for the MC, of course), and both spells and abilities have casting times and cooldowns (something that exists in real MMOs for balancing, which makes them all the more baffling, considering how hilariously unbalanced this game is).

• • Characters:

The protagonist is an emotionally distant, single-minded bookworm. He gets into the game to read books, he becomes a mage to read more books, he starts level grinding to get access to more books, and that's about it. He barely socializes and has no love interest, meaning that while there are a number of supporting characters, they are not really fleshed out, and they have little connection to the MC, making everyone beside him mostly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Thankfully, while the MC's personality is not terribly interesting, his thought-process and the way he deals with things is fairly unique, which makes his POV decently entertaining.

• • Plot:

There is very little in terms of plot, if any. The narrative is driven by two factors: the MC's desire to read books, and him getting a secret class and becoming OP making other people interested in him. Because of this, all of the interactions involving him can be boiled down to two scenarios: it's either comedy, where people are baffled by his single-minded obsession with reading above all else, or it's power-fantasy face-slapping, where he curbstomps people by exploiting his cheaty power set.

Since there is no external driving force in the story, it results in a slice-of-life narrative with occasional combat to shake things up. The overall story progression is paced well, but on closer look, the individual "arcs" have pacing issues on their own, manly due to the incessant juggling between the game, the real world, scenes with the antagonists, and reaction scenes by the developers.

• • Final Verdict:

In short, this is a decent read. The prose is a little bit janky at times, but it might just be the translation, and it improves over time. Overall, this story's main draws are the MC's unusual motivations and thought processes and the power fantasy aspect, while it's main weaknesses are the cookie-cutter tropey VRMMORPG system and setting, and the weak supporting cast.

In conclusion, I would rate this story around 3.7/5. Not particularly amazing, but it's a decent light read and enjoyable enough if you don't set your expectations too high.

[Edit]: The story is getting steadily worse over time once the MC stars power leveling. The author started doing multiple POVs, often more than one in a single chapter, probably to do some world building as the MC is so single-minded he just doesn't care about the game world. The problem is that he uses NPCs to do this, who are inherently inconsequential in the story due to there being no ambiguity about them being AIs playing their role, so their plans and schemes become equally inconsequential, as they have no agency. Because of all this, the setting appears incredibly bland and dry, which becomes a big problem when combined with the inherently dull and single-minded protagonist. Then, to make matters worse, either the author or the translation fails to give the different POVs their own voice, which makes the story confusing and, ultimately, a chore to read.

I Hope someone will pick this novel, this Virtual Reality novel is interesting, just like many others out there. To bad the Translator drop it just the things getting interesting~

I know a lot of people don't read stories without reviews. Basically, the protagonist is an optimized reader, he reads and every other part of his life is focused on making him better able to spend time reading. The story hasn't progressed enough to tell how the mechanics work, there's a VR system that he joined, but it's not far enough yet to tell whether he's going to be expoiting in-game mechanics or if it will affect the real world.

Just started reading this yesterday and it's pretty interesting and a cool read so far. I really like the MC.

The phasing of the story is good.

To the people that is working hard on the translation of this novel. Please keep it up cause we badly need more chapters and thank you for your hard work!

Rating: 3.25 stars

Quick Remarks:

• Translation quality
  • Decent overall but can be choppy and a tad confusing at times.
    • Typically expect a few errors per chapter.
• Protagonist
  • The main character's primary motivation is to read all of the books in the game.
    • Simple but novel
  • OP
    • Ridiculously powerful to the point of killing other players that are 200+ levels above him
      • A bit too much for a not being a Slice of Life novel
      • Can be tolerable given that level ups only provide 5 stat pts per level
        • Effort makes a significant impact in earning essential extra stat pts
• Game World Building
  • Minimalistic and generic but contains some novelties
    • Disappointing amount of lore for environments and NPC background info.*
      • *Possibly because the translated story is still early, but the untranslated story is already finished at 500+ chapters, so it is unlikely to change significantly.
    • Libraries
      • Strong focus on libraries and knowledge in game development is an interesting idea
        • Would make world-building more essential
      • Would give mages a severe advantage though, given reliance on wisdom stats

Conclusion:

Reader is not for serious action/adventure enthusiasts. It lacks the proper level of world-building a VRMMO game of its size and status should have. Background information and character development for NPCs and players is also too poor. However, for a casual read, the novelties in this story can be quite entertaining. If you can accept those points above, and remove the word "nerf" from the game... more>> development dictionary, then you will enjoy Reader. <<less

probably one of the most bland vrmmo stories on this site

The Main character has no personality at all (literally the only thing I could tell you about him at this point is he likes to read and he had one friend in school) the game he's in is so incredibly generic the author doesn't really even pay much attention to making it consistent

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Spoiler

The MC's main "cheat" is he has super high wisdom stat which is supposed to give him magic resistance but when someone with maybe 1/4th his magic resist attacks him he can't resist it, he also supposedly can't use that resistance to learn poison magic despite all the normal noobs being able to learn it

also stat distribution, the only other players stats we've seen has 10 points per level but the MC despite having "the greatest class ever" only has 5 points

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The whole thing is just incredibly boring, there are no goals or sense of purpose or any meaningful gain from leveling up, there aren't even really any side characters to provide entertainment <<less

I read both the manwha and the novel raws and tbh it doesn't really get any better. In a way it's worst than reading chinese novels. The characters in this novel are so bland and 2d its so predictable. As of this point everyone sucks up to the MC. The villains are even more s*upid than the stereotypical Chinese novels you read here that it makes no sense. The bad characters feels so forced it makes me want to throw up. Everything is basically handed to the MC with little... more>> to no effort, he can solo most mobs/bosses with ease. There are no twists and turns nor are there any surprises in this novel at all.

Spoiler

For example some idiot tries to rob the MC quest item because he saw a high ranking npc give it to him after telling him not to skip the line, afterwards he makes it his life goal to annoy and camp the MC in order to pk him hoping he drops the quest item. Since the library is a no pk zone, he starts camping outside. Even after getting his ass beat numerous times he thought it would be a even better idea to pk random people in town for fun with his buddies.

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Have you ever dreamed of entering a library and discovering a mysterious book that takes you to another world?

This novel gives me that feeling, I look at it every day since I do not know how long.

Stopped net in chapter 14. Maybe someday someone will take it back and we will finally be able to discover the story that this novel holds for us.

Will this novel carry us with him? This is the question :p

Some seek to conquer the world. Others want to sample all the foods in the world and still others want to have a sensual time with anything and everything under the sun. MC's goal is none of these and he seeks to read.

MC is a prolific reader who enjoys reading. So much so that he decides to buy virtual reality game to read all the books and "conquer" all the libraries in the world. Thing is, reading more books means makes you smarter (who would have though, huh?) and so... more>> MC is on the path to OP brokenness even when all he cares about is the reading of books ?.

I think it is a good read with a unique premise even though it isn't going to turn into a SAO death game and that's fine. Just enjoy it for what it is reading ?. <<less

It's pretty entertaining just watching him tear people down to read more books. Avoids romance which I like (too common in wish fulfilment novels).

You may be bothered if you understand game design/balancing but looking past that it's a pretty fun. Though I would bit*h on the forums so hard if a dude like this twat killed me.

It's a game novel, which I happen to love! Also, it splits off from the normal run of the mill variety and focuses on reading which circles back into the normal gaming madness but it's different and enjoyable. If you like gaming novels then read it, if you like novels with a twist from the normal then give it a try as well.

I don't know how long the quality or speed of the releases will continue but it should be a good read for at least the next 100 chapters... more>> in my opinion. <<less

Looks good so far. The MC's like a curious cat given a wonder box. His interaction with others are also fun to watch/read.

I'll recommend to read this after there's some more releases. Its not a cliff hanger everywhere you turn but mellow? Its a story to pass time as in like a fluffy story.

Very disappointing.

I read on all the way to the last currently available chapter since a bit of characterization in one of the first few chapters was pretty interesting. Specifically, the main character, was characterized as someone who rarely talked to his parents (due to their work arrangements) and found escapism in reading. This hit a bit too close to home for me, so I had pretty high hopes for the rest of the novel, thinking it might be about using VR to reconnect with his family and maybe making some... more>> friends. Instead this was just one of those typical Korean power fantasy novels. Like from "Rankers" to the "Guild Wars."

The main character is very bland. He has basically like no personality, and his motives are constantly unclear. Like I actually don't know why he bought this extremely expensive game to read books instead of like just going to a different library than his school library. Every single plot point in this novel feels extremely contrived. Like who makes a game where you implement like 10k books and then expect no one to read them?? Just so happens MC is here to be this random book addict who just happens to like buy a VR capsule/game to read instead of just going to a different library in real life.

There is actually no conflict in this novel. Like MC is op and every "conflict" just feels like a new opportunity for him to flex his op "reading obtained" stats. You can only read "Wow how can he do so much dmg" so many times and still get the endorphin dose.

Translation: 2/5 - very confusing at times

Plot: 2/5 - the saving grace of the novel, basically hinges on "wow what OP skill will MC get from this quest"

Characters: 1/5 very boring characters

Overall: 1.6/5 <<less

The series forgets itself very quickly.

Starting of, we have MC who likes reading books. A lot. There seems to be reason for it, maybe with some drama mixed in, not that author cares about expanding upon the topic.

It takes a lot of time but eventually, everything that is setted up in the early portion of the novel has but one purpose... and that is to make MC the Overpowered protagonist in the VRMMO series.

I actually did enjoy the story about the chill MC who doesn't care about the game and... more>> just reads the book. There were few ways to develop the story in an interesting way from then on.

However after the long reading session, the series losses all that made it unique and turns into your typical Overpowered protagonist recking noobs in completely unbalanced game that has no right of existing. Of course there are a lot of good series that follow this patter but this story simply changes genre which is quite irksome. <<less

I don't know why this story has so high rating.

Overall the concept of balance is totally absent. "Reading" considerd "ineffiecient" in game but for his reading time he got equivalent to 306 lvl in stats wisdom. While his friend (top player) is about level 200.

Overall the story fills to fake, like conditions were written around players actions and not like some reasonable conditions which players strugles to achieve.

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Spoiler

It's like developers made a class that could be gotten if you read the books for one 2 month in initil location, and you can't do it after you leave this location, than you need satisfy some other low probability no brainer conditions to do it. And developers like "we never expected this would happen". And why do you created such class with such nonsense conditinos and don't expect conditions to be fullfilled.

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To understand how fake it fills just imagine like you getting home from work and you spit few times and your saliva flies with specific angle and spesific distance. And this specific angles and distances are actually a precondition to get super power, and nobody belivew that you can do it, because it's so amazing that you fullfilled them.

Also till chapter 43 nothing happens, actually everything that happened could be described in line and reading this line you can continue read from chapter 43 and lose pretty much nothing)

Spoiler

Just shor summary of 43 chepters he got to library, read books, get a lot of stats, get a lot of skills, become op, started hunting, hunts very fast. No charachter interaction, no story

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Also there is some illogical things if you try to think. Like assuming that killing of mini level boss was by top player, but it should be possible to anyone with exception of new players. <<less

It's been an interesting read so far. I think that it's unfair to say that the MC has no personality, more like he's mundane or average. It's a slow paced story but very detail oriented which is a plus for me. So far combat isn't much of a focus yet but there's definitely potential for the future. Loads of different classes in a hierarchy of power levels. Even the simplest of mages has 9 schools of magic to choose from as well as an option of using 1, 2 or... more>> 3 of those schools. There's already been examples of combining spells for amplified effect.

Also mad props to the translator. Doing a great job and giving us fast updates. <<less