Book Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Published: 2012
Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction

Synopsis: 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.

My Rating: 

My relationship with this book was rocky from beginning to end. I started reading the book, couldn’t get into it and switched to audio which helped a lot, actually it helped me not DNF the book. Finally, as I was completely ready to give this book 3 stars the last 75 pages happened and I enjoyed them more than the entire book. Combined.

I took some time to think over why I didn’t LOVE LOVE LOVE this book the way most people do and the one thing I can claim is that I just don’t think I’m the target audience for it. I appreciate and respect that. I think that Cline wrote a novel for a niche group of people and you either appreciate it and submerge yourself in it or you feel a bit left out, lacking any interest to continue. Now, I legitimately believe parts of this book and the ideas in this book are great. I liked it well enough but quite often through it I was bored, overwhelmed and uninterested in the plot or character.

I think Cline has created something utterly unique that I think I would really love to watch rather than read. I think once I see the film adapted in all its glory I will appreciate the story much more. The ending, it’s saving grace, was very well executed and I enjoyed it despite having decided long ago that I did not love this book and truthfully I don’t love it but I do realize that for those who enjoy these types of stories, this is a great book..

The entire concept of virtual reality made me truly sad in this bleak future that Ernest Cline paves,  we have an entire world of antisocial and socially awkward individuals that is too close to comfort to what we have now. Saying that, I was so glad at the message in the end, the one that encourages us to live our life because through the book I became unsure if Cline was critiquing our life in social media or he was exalting it. I got both from the book and I dare say a part of him loves it and a part of him hates it. For that alone I appreciated the social views, it made you think and left a kind message of hope.

Now, I think I’m done with sci-fi for a bit, maybe time for some contemporary.