Ready Player One
By Ernest Cline
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.
The layout of the book is quite interesting. It’s split into levels, 3 to be exact. It’s basically the equivalent of splitting the book in parts. The levels are also roughly each gate, which is a nice split. It’s understandable why it’s split into levels to help stick with the gaming theme.
When I first started reading the book I realised it was very descriptive which I liked. It make a vast use of funny similes which I really appreciated. However there was moments when it was too detailed especially when it came to Halliday trivia. It was often that the book would go on unnecessary rants about Halliday’s likes and it make the book a bit boring at times. Then there was moments where things weren’t described enough, such as the 80’s pop-culture references. Very few references I understood and sometimes they were explained and other times I just had to know them to understand especially when it came to talking about movies.
One of the things I enjoyed about the book was the natural/realistic behaviour and speech of the characters. It felt like real teenage perspectives of life and I really appreciated it. When the characters were speaking to each other it generally felt like a real conversation. Ernest Cline did a great job at becoming a teenage mind.
This book does contain swearing and although in real life I don’t mind it. I don’t tend to be a fan of it when it’s used in books as normally it seems quite forced, unnecessary and unimaginative of the writer. With saying that however, I thought this book used bad language quite well. It was very fitting for the main character and it helped with his humour.
The plot of this book was there is a VR system known as the OASIS which everyone in the world uses for all sorts such as work and school. One of the creators of the OASIS dies and leaves a challenge for someone to win all his fortunes. The challenge consists of working out riddles to find a key then using that key to go through a gate which is a mini challenge. To win you need to be the first to finish the third gate.
I like the idea of the plot its unique and full of suspense as you await for the puzzle to be solved. However the way this plot has been ruined is with the vast amount of 80’s pop culture references. This book was released in 2011 so there was no need for it to be 80’s themed only that the author enjoyed the 80’s a bit too much. I think the book would have been better if the riddles were less obscure and that the gate tasks were harder and something we’d all understand.
I also enjoyed the creative and imagination put into the book by Cline. He created a world that every child dreams about. Cline made things up in the book that I never even thought about such as trailers being stacked on top of each other to solve overpopulation. I can respect that he put a lot of effort in the book.
I've also reviewed the movie, so check that out: Ready Player One Movie
*SPOILERS*
This book was generally quite funny at times. One of the funniest/weirdest/disturbing scenes was when Wade was describing how he spent his money. After having his trailer blown up, Wade moves away and buys a boat load of equipment to make his OASIS experience more realistic. One of this new equipment was a sex simulator. Basically it was a fancy sex doll and while in the OASIS he could pretend to be having sex with a prostitute. I found this scene disturbingly funny and found it to be very expected of a teenage boy that was going through a breakup.
To an extent though I did enjoy the story and it did have suspense which made it hard to put down at times especially when he solved the riddles. However I was constantly in a battle with the main character on whether he was a ‘Mary Sue’ or not. A ‘Mary Sue’ is when a character is pretty much perfect. For the collection of the first key he wasn’t totally a ‘Mary Sue’ as he didn’t find the location first and also took 2 tries of the game. The second key was also beat for it’s collection but then after that he went full ‘Mary Sue’ mode. He was able to be first for the final key and instantly knew that it would take 3 people to open the final gate. He got himself imprisoned and escaped with no problems. Wade also just happen to find the pacman coin making him the only character to remain alive, in order to go through the final gate first. It was obvious before starting the book that he would win but it could have been more challenging for him. Also he lost lose of weight fast and came muscly of course, to look like a real hero.
The book lacked surprises and twists in my opinion. I feel like a lot of things were predictable such as Wade winning the egg. I also predicted when the names of the first 5 people to gain the first key was announced that they would eventually have to reluctantly team up because of how much the characters talked about being soloists. Therefore I wasn’t surprised they teamed up to take on the final gate and also wasn’t surprised that he still ended up going through the gate alone. Wade was always meant to win.
Don’t get me wrong though there was some twists. One of my favourites was the revealing of the characters true identities. It was expected that at least one of the characters wouldn’t be their true gender. Which luckily for Wade, Art3mis was but Aech turned out not to be. Aech turned out to be a black fat lesbian woman rather than a teenage boy. I appreciated this twist as it wasn’t Art3mis that was the wrong gender. It was also revealed that Shoto and Daito weren’t really brothers and hadn’t actually met in person before. Then finally Art3mis made a big deal about her appearance not being the same when in reality all she left out of her character was the huge birthmark on her face. These were twists that were needed.
A bigger twist that I had a problem with was the blowing up of Wade’s home trailer. This caused the death of his Aunt, neighbours including his friend Mrs Gilmore. Wade showed slight emotion/guilt for it but overall I felt like he should have been a lot more emotional, it was disappointing that he didn’t seem to care. This should have been better written.
In the end of the book as stated before Wade gained the prize and as expected had no problem gaining the girl. The ending was good but like I keep saying just don’t think there was enough struggle in the book. With the obscure 80 references and plot I decided that I enjoyed the book but it could have been done better. So it just makes a 3 star rating, as it was very well written and humorous but it lacked in the overall plot.
Quote:
'No giant two-headed hermaphrodite demon unicorn avatars were allowed. Not on school grounds, anyway.'
- Wade Watts, Ready Player One
Check out the movie review: Ready Player One
written by Lauren
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