Ready Player One

A geeky paradise for anyone who loves the 80's, music, video games, or music. A very smooth narration with human characters

Too descriptive and repetitive on gaming and 80's culture and with a manly gaze, to the point I got tired of it.

Probably the coolest book I've ever read.

Probably the coolest book I've ever read.

Really a 2.5. The story was interesting enough to finish but the author's writing or the character he chose to make the viewpoint from is a little vapid and boring. The words "and then" can sum up 60% of the book. The rest of the book can be summed up as a compendium an ode to 80's pop culture. I've learned more about the decade reading this book than I did watching CNN's "The 80s".

Were it not for the fact that this was an audio book for which I wasted a perfectly good Audible credit, I would have dropped this book inside the first 10 chapters. As it was, I could listen to it while I worked, not wasting any extra time trying to read it, and not having to devote all of my attention to it.

I didn't have much problem with Wil Wheaton as the narrator. I particularly enjoyed his rendering of emojis and sound effects. ("Wink!") Things kind of settled down into a dry tone half-way through, with little emotion when there wasn't dialogue, but Wil's voice isn't grating, so that was fine.

The concept was great, but the execution lacking. Once again, a much-hyped-about book failed me. I never felt connected to Wade. Most of the time, I loathed him, and my updates were riddled with sarcastic, snarky remarks about his newest exploit or internal monologue. Wade started out as the token unassuming, fat, acne-riddled nerd. I'm just surprised he didn't have glasses. His ridiculously excellent memory and extensive knowledge of the entire '80's period (which he had cultivated over the course of 5 short years, somehow without flunking school in the process) was the biggest convenient plot device in the book. Wade was rarely confused; if he was, it lasted only as long as it suited the plot. Pretty soon (if not immediately) he was going, "Oh! I recognize this vague, trivial detail," and then launched into what must have been a paragraphs-long explanation of said detail. (Also, every little thing we stumbled upon turned out to be "one of Halliday's favorite" movies or games or the like. Even when 5 other movies or games had already been given that title.) Wade professed to being a socially-inept nerd, true, but in reality he was a self-absorbed know-it-all.

There were info-dumps everywhere. Even if the information had little or no relevance to the plot. "Nostalgia porn", as I saw another reviewer so aptly describe this, is entirely accurate. I felt like Mr. Cline took every opportunity to drag us down memory lane. I now despise the '80's more than ever. Maybe it's just because I'm not a nerd and have no interest in sci-fi pop culture. I enjoyed the brief nods to Middle Earth, Discworld, Firefly, and Star Trek, but that was it.

I no longer wonder at how large this book is; so much telling, very little showing. And there were pretty much no stakes. Everything was resolved quickly and tied up in neat little bows, and I spotted at least two plot points which savored strongly of deus ex machinas.

The story finally picked up a little speed about a third of the way in, but it quickly lost that momentum. Frankly, I didn't care what happened. I knew everything would turn out all right in the end, and I didn't really care how it happened. Never did I doubt Wade would win, even though I was personally rooting for Art3mis. Only once was I surprised by a twist, and that was the revelation of the token black gay friend, thus solidifying this book's status as a modern YA novel.

To top it all off, I couldn't stand the language. Clearly, this book was in no way my type, because I wasn't amused by anything the author tried to pass off as quirky, funny, or clever. I couldn't take it seriously. "I had to save Shoto. He'll die if I don't." Uh, no he won't. This isn't real. He's in the room next to you, and aside from losing some progress and virtual equipment, he'll be perfectly fine. Maybe that's why none of the "stakes" felt like such; because none of it was real. Apart from a few real-world deaths (mostly involving people we were not given the time to warm up to and thus regret losing), nothing truly bad happened to the characters.

Again: excellent concept, poor execution. (And was it just me, or did the end feel a bit like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?)

This is the best book of this year for me so far, just sheer brilliance!

A fun book, but not necessarily a great one.

It was okay / mostly liked it.

It’s been a few months since I finished it and I’ve not once thought about it, so there’s that. Mostly fun, but think I learned about myself that I don’t really like VR game-related ideas.

As someone just getting back into reading in my late 40's, I’m thankful to find something that kept me engaged and caring about how the story would play out. What it did extremely well was have me curious to continue reading to find out what would happen next. Read over 4 or 5 sittings in 7 days. I laughed a few times. To me, these are the little things I need to get back into reading, so a win for me as a new reader.

Exciting book and story once you get sucked into it, but the writing is very simple with not many mind-expanding passages.