February Review: Ready Player One

February Book Review

Title: Ready Player One

Author: Ernest Cline

The year is 2044, and we follow the journey of Wade Watts, a poor kid from a dirty trailerpark in the crummy part of Oklahoma City. This young man is what’s known as an Egg Hunter, or “gunter” for short. In this time, there is a man by the name of James Donovan Halliday, and he has created a virtual reality unmatched by anything else that could be imagined. This computer program is called The OASIS. Each player has an avatar, and like in any video game, you can explore and level up your character. Unfortunately, Halliday has died, and he has left a MASSIVE fortune. Like, we’re talking 240 BILLION dollars. The Easter Eggs are hidden in the OASIS, and hidden very well. Halliday died in 2040, and the message boards were booming with theories, but no one had found a single clue beyond the first clue he had provided in his will.

“And each year, more gunters called it quits, concluding that Halliday had indeed made the egg impossible to find. And another year went by. And another. Then, on the evening of February 11, 2045, an avatar’s name appeared at the top of the Scoreboard, for the whole world to see. After five long years, the Copper Key had finally been found, by an eighteen-year-old kid living in a trailer park on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. That kid was me. Dozens of books, cartoons, movies, and miniseries have attempted to tell the story of everything that happened next, but every single one of them got it wrong. So I want to set the record straight, once and for all.”

The novel was rich with 80’s nostalgia, as this was the era Halliday lived in and became obsessed with, which was really interesting to read. Everywhere you turned there was a reference to a movie, song, or video game from that decade, from Star Trek and Star Wars, to Deff Leppard and Blondie. I didn’t have a firm hold on a lot of 80’s pop culture prior to reading RPO, so it was cool to learn a bunch about that era.The book is all about Wade’s adventure in finding the keys, working together with other gunters to try and win the prize, and slaying the lives of the morally skewed Sixers. The Hunt seemed impossible and suddenly, it moved at breakneck speed! Many avatars died in the final epic battle, and a few people even lost their real lives.This book had a moment where I was on the edge of my seat, completely confused and worried about Wade, like “WHAT ARE YOU DOING ARE YOU CRAZY?!” I am relieved to report that it turned out just fine, but come on man, don’t scare me like that. A girl’s gotta sleep at some point.

I am trying to keep my reviews spoiler free but I will say I can appreciate a novel with a decently happy ending.

Rating out of 5 Stars: I give it a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars. I loved the plot and the idea of this, and the

reason I only rate it a 4.5 is because I felt a majority of Cline’s writing was around name dropping

and references. His writing felt flat sometimes, but I can’t ignore that I COULDN’T PUT IT

DOWN!! He sucked me into the OASIS, and I didn’t find myself rereading a passage because I

couldn’t picture what was being described. The premise was amazing and I would ABSOLUTELY

own this and read it again. On page 3, I texted my friend and said it was already my new favorite

book already because it mentioned Heathers, which is my FAVORITE movie of all time. I have been

in a major reading slump, only reading for like 30 minutes at a time taking multiple days to plow

through a novel, and I finished this book in a total of maybe 8-10 hours over two days, staying up to

read way past my bedtime. I haven’t devoured a book like that in a LONG time, so thank you thank

you, Ernest! :)

Notable Quotes:  “It occurred to me then that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had

absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS.”

“Listen,” he said, adopting a confidential tone. “I need to tell you one last thing before I go.

Something I didn’t figure out for myself until it was already too late.” He led me over to the window

and motioned out at the landscape stretching out beyond it. “I created the OASIS because I never felt

at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of

my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as

reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do

you understand?” “Yes,” I said. “I think I do.” “Good,” he said, giving me a wink. “Don’t make the

same mistake I did. Don’t hide in here forever.”

“The OASIS lets you be whoever you want to be. That's why everyone is addicted to it.”

How this book made me feel: This book made me feel nostalgic for a time I didn’t even live

through! There were so many nerdy references I loved, and some I didn’t understand. I was rooting

for the High Five through the entire book. There were some moments that elicited a real laugh from

me, and one particular scene that caused me to put the book down for a moment of silence and

reflection. The characters were real, or I felt they were, and so I connected to them immediately.

Aech was hands down my favorite character, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t crushing on Art3mis as

hard as Wade.

Uncategorized Thoughts: This isn’t a criticism just something that made me feel really weird. The

whole hairless body thing towards the middle of the book Haha I get why Wade was hairless but it

gave me major weird heebie jeebies hahaha

Would I Recommend It?: Under specific circumstances, yes. If you don’t understand 80’s pop

culture (there were a lot of things that went over my head) and you aren’t nerdy (I’m nerdy but I do

feel this would appeal to a certain type of video game nerd even more than it did me) then I wouldn’t

bother. It’s a nostalgia porn sci-fi novel, and I wasn’t sure that would appeal to me, but oh-ho, it did.

I loved the camaraderie and the fight scenes, the Easter Eggs and the entire premise of the Hunt.

Giant Robots, epic battles, and even a little tiny smidgen of romance…What more could you want

out of a book, really? :)

If you read this book or have read it before, I would love to know your thoughts and discuss them

with you! Hopefully you enjoyed my review, and I look forward to writing the next one!

--Suze