A spoiler free 3.5-star review of READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline!

"Jim always wanted everyone to share his obsessions, to love the same things he loved. I think this contest is his way of giving the entire world the incentive to do just that."

Exchange Jim for Ernest Cline and contest for book and you've got yourself a biographic assertion from the author himself. This is pretty obvious even when considering Ernest Cline's author photo is him leaning against a DeLorean wearing a pair of Chucks.

Ready Player One is a love letter from a geek, to all geeks everywhere.

That's not to say I didn't like it. My own profile picture on Instagram right now is me, dressed as Princess Leia on Hoth, leaning over R2-D2. So this book spoke to me.

Does it speak to everyone? Probably not.

Ah, Fan Expo memories.

Ready Player One is set in 2045. Everything IRL is pretty hellish, but dontchu worry because the people (and there is a lot of them) have a virtual reality called Oasis to help them deal. Halliday, the Oasis creator, dies. The world goes nuts when they find out he is going to give his fortune along with Genie-Jafar (sans lamp) power to whoever can complete his series of clues, quests and games. Wade figures the first clue out, but he isn't alone. Enter a romantic interest (Art3mis), a rag tag group of besties (Aech and crew), and a bunch of bad guys (The Sixers) that make things interesting.

I especially appreciated the world building of Ready Player One. I had a very clear image of the world outside Oasis, and the world(s) inside Oasis. This comes from Cline's combination of descriptive language and pop culture references. While Wade was running around the "real" world, I was all like "okay, it's like Mad Max meets Trailer Park Boys", and then when I was reading about Oasis I was banking on every nerdy movie, book and video game I've ever seen/read/played.

I should disclose, I do love the 80's. During the Wade and Art3mis texting session I got all excited when they began saying things like "Answer the question, Claire" because who doesn't love a good Breakfast Club quote? Every time I recognized a reference I gave myself a little pat on the back, which I think proves that whole sharing of obsessions premise of the book.

My brother and I do this all the time, we have full conversations using movie quotes, and if someone recognizes the reference they get to be in our little nerd club. Luckily Hive account@somebuttstuff was able to recognize a quote on our second date, so he has been accepted into the fold.

I think part of the problem with Ready Player One being such a reference packed book is that sometimes I lost interest in the bits of pop culture I didn't know. For some unknown sources, I would rush to imdb or wikipedia and conduct some research, but others I would just let slide by. By the third gate (questy-bit) I wasn't as invested. It was a little like a party trick that had lost its novelty; an overplayed song. Probably kind of like how my brother's wife feels when Corey and I really get going with the movie quotes.

I also didn't love Art3mis. I really liked her in the beginning, but then she felt one dimensional to me. Maybe if I got her perspective throughout the whole book I would appreciate her turn to snarkiness, but I just found her to be a bit annoying by the end. I get that she was protecting herself, and was probably torn between the whole saving the world or being in love thing but sometimes I just found her unnecessary. Is that a bad thing to say as a female? I don't know. Probably.

I did love the whole Aech reveal though.

Overall, this was a fun read, and I hope that the movie is done well. I'm always a little grumpy when characters are depicted differently in the film (a la Colonel Graff in Ender's Game--even though I heart Harrison Ford) but the visuals for the movie look pretty dang cool. Check out the trailer here.

*This is my first posting of a book review on steemit! I would love to know if it's something that people would like to see more of. Give me feedback, teachers love feedback! I've got lots of thoughts on books floating around, what with my addiction to posting pictures of books on instagram.
I would also love to know if you game. What's your favourite platform? Games? Thanks!
Happy Wednesday!

I have yet to finish the new Tomb Raider. I think I'm only 20%, actually. I blame life, getting in the way.