Ready Player One

Author: Ernest Cline

Rating: 2/5

Pages: 374

Year Published: 2012

Synopsis (From Goodreads): “In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. When Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.”

I attempted to read this book for the first time one year ago. However the story and the way it was written quickly bored me, but this year I decided to try again since I liked the idea of the book. So I decided to give it one more chance. The writing bothered me since it was simple, and lacked variety, but I liked the whole hunt for Halliday’s egg with the competition.

What I didn’t like about this book was the language used, the writing and the predictable plots. The language used was simple, and lacked variety. The words used didn’t serve their purpose of making the story come to life. The tone of the story was also blunt and dull which could have been a result of the apocalyptic dystopia setting but it affected my opinion of the story. The plots with the classic bad guy, the hero and the forced romance between Partzival and Art3mis made the story even worse. I could predict the ending before I had even read 100 pages of the book.

The characters felt unrealistic. Wade, the man character also known as Partzival was a blunt character with little emotions. His behavior wasn’t realistic throughout the whole book. This can be seen when the IOI killed a bunch of people due to him logging out of a chat room session with the evil corporate and Wade didn’t feel much about it at all. He didn’t even give it a second thought. He showed no remorse for his actions which is extremely unrealistic since most human beings would be affected by the responsibility for the death of hundreds of people. The romance between Art3mis and Partzival/Wade felt forced. It was too good to be true when he ran into her after finding the first key. I don’t understand why Wade even liked Art3mis when he got to know her as well. She was the stereotypical gaming girl who pretended to be all tough but in the end was very sensitive and insecure. Her character in the Oasis stood out since she wasn’t as skinny as the other girls and that was what made her unique according to the author.

There were many plot holes which the author solved with way too simple explanations that just made me cringe when reading it. The author also over explained everything which made the book boring to read since the book lost focus of the story line time after time. The book takes place in America as humanity is about to go under due to climate change and war over natural resources. It is written out of first person point of view and we get to follow Wade/Partzival as he participates in the hunt to win Halliday’s contest.