Ready Player One (Ready Player One #1)

Excruciating. I don\’t understand how there appeared to be no one who edited this book. Some issues: 1. The first 17% of the book (kindle says how far along you are) is pure exposition of the world. That\’s one sixth of the book where nothing happens except our hero attends two classes in his nonsensical virtual high school. 2. There is a chapter where the characters sit around and tell each other what\’s already happened in the book. Why?!! I\’ve already read it, why are the characters explaining it to each other. 3. The insanely over explained pop culture stuff. Example \”oh wow that looks like Rivendell!\” \”Yes it does! Rivendell, from the Lord of the Rings movies!\” I\’m surprised the author doesn\’t break the fourth wall and just scream \”GET IT?!\” 4. The swearing. The multi page treatise on the virtues of masturbation (Lord I wish I were kidding.) I\’m not a prude and am all for profanity when it is natural and adds to the emotion of the story. Here it just feels like a 13 year old who just learned to swear and does it to feel grown up. I skimmed the entire second half and am much happier for it. The only joy I got from this book is reading the one star reviews so I could agree with all of them.

I got this after seeing the movie and hearing from a few friends about how different the book is. My two main points after reading this book in 3 days: 1. Love the 80\’s pop culture references integrated into the story. No book I\’ve ever read has ever gone this deep into 80\’s game, movie, TV, music references. The writer is obviously a true 80\’s fanatic and geek. No doubt about that, this guy has lived it and did his homework. 2. The main character is completely unlikable. He never arcs or changes, even at the end (finding \’love\’ is not a character change). Honestly, I\’ve never read a book where the main character is just a complete and utter unlikeable character even to the end. You never really want this jerk to succeed. His inner workings and thoughts are as just about as bad as the main villain. Conclusion- Steven Spielberg did a brilliant job taking the meat of this story and actually making the primarily character LIKEABLE because the writer was just down right horrible at it. If the filmmakers had followed the book, no doubt it wouldn\’t have been successful. I did enjoy the 80\’s references, but too bad the main character was unlikable.

Reads like it was written by a high-school student. And to the people that think that\’s because it\’s POV: ALL of his writing is like that. Everything that the protagonist needs to happen, happens fine and everything works out because he is the chosen one of some rich nerd\’s world. It\’s the worst kind of wish fulfillment. I hate the term Mary-Sue but that\’s what this book is about.

I can hardly understand the allure of this novel. Or how it managed to gain such popularity. Feels like its written for a fourteen year old, which is in such contrast to the age group who would either understand or have experienced anything that happens in this book… those of us in our late thirties, early forties. It read like a list of games and game explanations, with zero character development. I never finished… because I really didn\’t care about any of the characters in the book or what the outcome would be. I often found myself nodding off, chapter after chapter. It\’s a poor write… and a poorer read.

I really like the story line and the idea. I had to read through to find out how the characters figure it all out. I have a soft spot for virtual worlds – I met my wife online the virtual world called Second Life. I enjoyed how the virtual world is described and all of the technology in this book is within reach (except maybe the huge bandwidth to feed the world to that many people – but it will come with time). So why only three stars? Ernest Cline writes really well, with one issue – the incredible amount of exposition. At least once every chapter, I found myself saying, \”Enough already, get on with it.\” Sure some of it is from my growing up in the eighties and EC explaining parts of the decade *in detail*, but not all. There is a lot of explanation of the main character\’s life and how he got where he is. You don\’t find out things a little at a time – there are multi-page explanations. The book could easily have been half the length – or could include more from the virtual world. I did enjoy the imagination of the author in the building of the worlds (after seeing the amazing variety of user created content in existing virtual worlds). So, I would have to say – very good book to read, but you can skip a lot of the exposition (or skim it so you don\’t miss something).

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