Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Rating: 2/5
Synopsis:
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade’s devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world’s digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator’s obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. When Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade’s going to survive, he’ll have to win—and confront the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.
Review:
Okay, so I found out that this is not a stand-alone novel and there might be a sequel soon. I don’t plan on reading the sequel that’s why I categorized this under stand-alone.
While so many people loved this book, it wasn’t for me. I think you had to relate deeply or be a fan of 80’s pop culture to love it. I had high expectations because dystopian, virtual reality and gaming, all in one story is so promising and holds a lot of potentials. But sad to say, it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. Not much action. And too much 80’s references that have dragged the story to a boring degree. I mean seriously, it was 2045, and people enter virtual reality to play two-dimensional video games. It’s for the sake of the egg hunt, I get it. But that made it so painfully tiresome to read. The idea of solving the three clues and completing the tests on a virtual reality egg hunt had sparked my interest but when I actually got to those parts… Lo and behold, they played Joust. And the other two gates(challenges) were pretty much the same. I wasn’t sold to the idea of future technology mixing with the past culture. Maybe it was a mere appreciation of the past but it didn’t fit right. You either travel back in time or to the future. The book did both and they(future and past) collided with each other in a bad way. Maybe I was expecting it to be more of a Sword Art Online-like story. The same idea but rather far from it. I was actually shocked to find some action scenes on the last few pages of the book. Still not enough to find this book entertaining.
Best parts:
- OASIS- I love the idea of virtual reality.
- Friendship- I liked it that Art3mis, Parzival and H became friends in real life
- The battle against the Sixers- too bad that there’s not much like this, the Robot fight, the Oasis-ians uniting together to fight the Sixers
P.S. I’ve watched the movie and they’ve changed more than half of the original story and it was so much better.
Nocturnal Book-a-holic 
I read the book and enjoyed it, I even gave it to my geeky older brother who is not a reader, he gave it 5 out of 5 stars and after he watched the movie, he told me it was decent but the book was much better.
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I see why you both liked it. It’s not bad. Without the 80’s mixed into it, I might’ve loved it. And having Sword Art Online in mind while reading has ruined this book for me. You might also like Armada if you enjoyed this type of genre ☺
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I didn’t get all the references to be honest but I also had the SOA vibes but reading it as a book was a good experience too. I didn’t add Armada to my TBR as I saw many negative reviews!
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I found this review really interesting as I absolutely loved the book (it’s my book of the year so far) and hated the film! 🙂 I think there is a bit of a ‘niche’ audience and the people who I’ve recommended it to have all been around my age or I know they would’ve been into the games mentioned.
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On point! I didn’t like it because of the pop culture references that I can’t relate to. Except Pacman, well everyone knows Pacman. Lol. But no doubt, the geeks and the 80’s people would revel in this piece.
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