Book Review: Ready Player One

Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: SciFi/Fantasy, Dystopian
Rating: 5/5
Publication Date: August 16th, 2011

Story Notion: Why is this just ONE BOOK? Why can't there be a whole series about everything ever? This world is amazing.

Plot Summary: (From Goodreads)


It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune--and remarkable power--to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved--that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt--among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life--and love--in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?


Review:
This book is amazing, breathtaking and stunning, and has a world that I would love to live in. I guess, more like the virtual world of the OASIS, the actual world doesn't seem that great. The characters in this book are fantastic and the plot and just everything in this book is fantastic. And I should stop using that world, but I'm just so flail-y about this book, I can't help it. The writing and how he can make you see exactly how everything would work is one of the main reasons I love this book so much and why I'd want to live in it because you can just visualize everything so well.

A friend, Haley, actually took the book off my shelf handed it to me and made me start reading it in the middle of March (our sleepovers are very interesting obviously), and I knew immediately that It was going to be a new favorite and I already didn't want it to end.

This book is full of '80's trivia. Full. And not just things that normal people would know, but also random stuff like cereal commercials from the time. It's a huge part of the plot, though, and almost one of my favorite parts. Before I start to just ramble about the amazingness of this book (rambling about it more), I think I'll try and wrap it up.

Overall, I think you should read this book. Even if you're just a casual gamer or if you know nothing about the 1980's, because it's such an amazing book with complex world and amazing writing. I have a feeling this will be the book that I'll be forcing on people for a long time, it was truly an amazing book and I'm glad that someone forced it on me.