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Ready Player One: Book Review & Discussion

“We’d been born into an ugly world, and the OASIS was our one happy refuge.”

If you love video games and the 80s, you MUST read this book. USA Today’s comparison of Ready Player One to Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory couldn't have been more spot on, but instead of the inheritance of a man who owns a chocolate factory he is playing for the inheritance of a video game creator.

Overall Rating: 4.5 / 5 Stars

My biggest argument is that because there was so much info and teaching about the 80s and video game references it felt choppy and it was hard to get lost in the book. However I absolutely loved learning all of those fascinating pieces of information. There were surprisingly many great life lessons in this book and I feel like I am walking away more knowledgeable.

Age Recommendation: Well.... it depends on the child. It does curse a few times (but let’s be honest the kids already know the words, the aim isn’t for them not to learn it but to know not to use it.) However there is a bit of a lengthy section on things I would not even want my 13 year old sister reading on 193-194 so I recommend you take their book, rip that page out and then they are all ready to go. They will never even miss it. I think there are great life lessons in this book though for a young teen age group like the importance of logging off and living offline and not getting wrapped up in trying to constantly escape the real world. It talks about how people should be judged by their personality not their appearance. If we could simply choose out skin color, gender, and appearance like an avatar, life would be easier but life doesn’t work that way so accept people the way they are. You may surprise yourself with who your closest friends up being.

Spoiler- Free Review:

Wade just really doesn’t like his lot in life, whether that be in the real world when he’d rather be in a video game or that he is in the 2040s when he’d rather be born in the the 80s, or at the least before the Global Energy Crisis. Though he doesn’t mind living in OASIS soaking up the endless knowledge. The vast source of all books, movies, art, history, videogames, and, most importantly, information on James Halliday. OASIS is like the internet but with VR glasses only 10x more detailed, advanced, and infinite. Wade doesn’t even go to a real school he goes through the virtual reality of OASIS. “In OASIS, you could become whomever and whatever you wanted to be, without ever revealing your true identity, because your anonymity was guaranteed.” (pg 57) When James Halliday, inventor of OASIS, dies and leaves his fortune (240 billion dollars) to the first player to find the three keys hidden within his own video game, the world goes crazy in pursuit. Though after numerous years no one had found a single key, until Wade. That’s how the story begins.

I loved that Cline’s writing encourages readers who know nothing about the 80s or video games to read this book. That has been a massive concern for people before they pick up this book, that they won’t understand the references. To be honest, there were many hidden “eggs” in the text that I saw that I knew were references that I just didn’t understand. (Which was still cool and I enjoyed looking them up and learning more.) However, all of the big, important references he explains in the book and he doesn’t make you feel stupid for not knowing but explains it clearly for those of us who aren’t experts. I genuinely feel more intelligent by reading this book and now know a lot more about pop culture in the 80s. Who knows this all may come in handy on Trivia Night? I highly recommend this book for a fun, nostalgic read.

SPOILER Review / Book Discussion:

Isn’t it scary how possible this all could be? With virtual reality continually advancing (in real life) how much longer will it take until people go to school in virtual reality like Wade or before the internet takes on this new form?

Though obviously in Wade’s world as technology has advanced his real world has been given up on. The stacks, while a great concept and super cool looking on the front cover, are atrocious living conditions. Though I must give Wade kutos on his battery powered heater and computer but really just his van in general. It makes me want to make my own Bat Cave inside a van. This was when I knew what his advantage would be in this game, he was a self-teacher, self-motivator, and dedicated his whole life to the hunt.

One of my favorite parts about Cline’s writing was how it was constantly breaking stereotypes and speaking about important topics. I really appreciated the backstory that he gave Halliday. Especially how even though he wasn’t good at school he became a multi-billionaire. I am so tired of the assumption that being good at school has a direct correlation with future success. So many people who have changed the world never went to college, dropped out, or did poorly in high school. Another thing that I loved was the fact that this whole story wouldn’t have happened if Ogden Marrow (Og) wouldn’t have walked over to Halliday when he was sitting alone and invited him to play Dungeons and Dragons. It reminds me how much can change by a simple act of kindness and stepping out of your comfort zone to talk to new people. This whole story wouldn’t have happened, their world may have been drastically different if it wasn’t for Og’s invite. My favorite part though was how he had Asperger’s autism because my older brother has it as well and I could see the connections. Halliday’s lack of desire to express social skills, inability to step into other people’s shoes, and his few unhealthy obsessions were the most common traits. However I wish he wouldn’t have made the connections between Halliday’s crazy side and his Aspergers because that gives a bad name to this type of autism. (I mean you can’t win every battle right?)

One thing that really bothered my is how indifferent Wade was to risking everyone’s lives in the Stacks during his meeting with IOI. Once he realized he wasn’t actually gambling his own life because he wasn’t at home then it didn’t bother him anymore. He was willing to risk that. I understand that his aunt was cruel to him and that there were thieves and rapists roaming around the stacks but that’s not a good enough excuse as to why his conscious was clear about all those people he played a part in murdering. He said that there were no survivors. I understand that his other option was be enslaved to IOI but he is very smart, he could have figured out an alternative where hundreds of uninvolved people don’t die. (pg 146)

I personally love when authors put deep meaning into characters, places, animals and other things’ names. I loved that Art3mis was the greek god of the hunt and that Wade was Parzival. “On the day the Hunt began, the day I’d decided to become a gunter, I’d renamed my avatar Parzival, after the knight of Arthurian legend who had found the Holy Grail.” (pg 28) I love when author’s twist different stories together like that and give character’s deeply meaningful names. Like Alaska in John Green’s Looking for Alaska, or Katniss from The Hunger Games whose name is from a plant that is latin for archer. I prefer a bit more meaning than when Rainbow Rowell named the twins in Fangirl Cath and Wren because the mother didn’t know she was going to have twins so she split up the name Catherine. Though I do apprecaite it more than when authors just randomly name thier characters. (Also, Darth Vader’s name is literally Dark Father in Dutch so his name is a spoiler in itself.) I applaud Cline for his good choice in names.

The first task was where players went into the Tomb of Horrors from Dungeons & Dragons to play Joust against Acereak. It was amusing to me but as someone who doesn’t know the first thing about Dungeons and Dragons the references were lost on me. However this line really stuck me as funny..... “It suddenly occurred to me just how absurd this scene was: a guy wearing a suit of armor, standing next to an undead king, both hunched over controls of a classic arcade game.” (pg 82) The whole time after he met Acererak I just imagined him going from his scary, glowing eyes to his best friend playing a video game and them fist bumping each other. Like I genuinely wanted them to become friends. Haha.

The first gate was where players played Dungeons of Daggorath to open the gate where they had to say and act all the lines of the character David Lightman in the film WarGames. This was my favorite task / gate he had to do and I wish I had my own version for The Hunger Games where I could be Katniss. Anyone else agree? They called them “Fliksyncs” (112) and I genuinely think if they make something like it in real life, it could be my favorite invention of all time. You would get to walk, talk, and live the life of your favorite character, your heroes, or be 1/2 of your favorite OTPs. ( I would gladly be Clary to play besides Jace from The Mortal Instruments... just putting it out there.)

A really important message that spread throughout the span of the book was that the internet (OASIS in RPO’s case) can take over our lives. ”It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity,” he wrote, “A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.” (pg 120) How much truer does that get?? Than once Wade won the egg even Halliday admitted that that was one of his biggest regrets, not logging off and living life the way it was meant to be, truly using your senses and awakening your body instead of constantly trying to mute it and hide yourself. “I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be. it is also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?” (pg 364) I think that is something people across the globe can relate to. We could all use a lesson in learning when to turn off our screens and fully engage in the world around us.

Another really important message was during that OH MY GOSH! AECH REVEAL!.... which at first I felt like it changed everything but that’s the whole point, it didn’t change anything. She was still the same person she had always been. We see what we want to see in a person when we make assumptions about them from what they look like. It’s just a genuine reminder of how the lines between gender are so fluid and it doesn’t matter what you are born but how you act. I’m not even referencing transgender specifically but just boys being free to like pink and girls feeling free to be obsessed with Star Wars and video games. Though there was another lesson in this which was how she chose to be a white, male avatar, because her mother told her it would help her get treated better, even in the virtual world. “In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie has used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.” (pg 320) Why is this so painfully true?? I really loved what Wade said after he found out, “We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation.” (pg 321) Though I will admit I am glad that Cline made Ache a lesbian because I was worried she was going to confess her love to him and then Wade would have to choose.... and there just wasn’t enough pages left in the book for all that drama. Plus I really love when books allow guys and girls to just be friends without every liking each other romantically.

The final thing, that I wouldn’t dream of ending this review/discussion without talking about is... Art3mis. Can we talk about how she started out such a strong character who was a fighter, independent blogger and full time badass who knows exactly how she plans on saving the world with the prize money from the egg. But then as time goes on she transforms more into a love interest than a fierce competitor. I think she sees this as well which is why she leaves him to focus on the competition. Though at the very end when she finally meets Wade in person she does that thing that Reese Witherspoon talks about in her Woman of the Year speech. Where Art3mis, the female, turns to Wade, the male, and pretty much says, what do we do now? This is a phrase Reese says she hates reading the most and is usually written by scripts with no female involved in the writing. She says “Now you do you know any woman in any crisis situation.. who has absolutely no idea what to do?” Reese made a good point in saying that it’s top woman stop playing the damsel in distress because we so rarely are. Art3mis went from this total badass who could carry her own to a self conscious, love interest. However, I am so glad that Art3mis gave up Wade for the hunt in some ways because if she would have given up her passions and her life long goal for a boy, I would have been more insulted. Personally, I just really like strong, female leads and am getting tired of women being accessories to males. I’m also tired of the never ending line of self conscious characters (both female and male) who find their self worth and beauty once their romantic interests informs them that it exists. So thank you to characters like Celaena Sardothien, Alaska Young, and Margo Roth Spiegelman for showing the world that it’s cool to love yourself and know you are amazing. Though I was still rooting for Art3metis because of her strong will and good intentions for the prize.

In the end everything seemed to fall perfectly in place which made me so happy. No loose threads and a beautiful, sappy, happy ever after. The character development for Wade was so great and I felt happy walking away from this book knowing that things were going well for him.

Favorite Quotes:

1.) How the protagonist, Wade, feels about video games is how I feel about books...

"Playing old video games never failed to clear my mind and set me at ease. If I was feeling depressed or frustrated about my lot in life, all I had to do was tap the Player One button, and my worries would instantly slip away as my mind focused itself on the relentless pixelated onslaught on the screen in front of me. There, inside the game's two-dimensional universe, life was simple" (pg 14)

2.) Me when I get into a good book series....

“I was obsessed. I wouldn’t quit. My grades suffered. I didn’t care.” (pg 63)

3.) “Spending time with her was intoxicating. We seemed to have everything in common. We shared the same interests. We were driven by the same goal. She got all my jokes. She made me laugh. She made me think. She changed the way I saw the world. I’d never had such a powerful, immediate connection with another human being before. Not even with Aech.” (pg 174)

4.) “I was watching a collection of vintage ‘80′s commercials when I paused to wonder why cereal manufacturers no longer included toy prizes inside every box. It was a tragedy, in my opinion. Another sign that civilization was going straight down the tubes.” (pg 176)

5.) “And then one night, like a complete idiot, I told her how I felt.” (pg 179)

6.) “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that’s beautiful.” (pg 199)

7.) “I stood outside her palace gates for two solid hours, with a boombox over my head, blasting “In Your Eyes” by Peter gabriel at full volume.” (pg 203)

8.) “Art3mis had led me to believe that she was somehow hideous but now I saw that nothing could have been further from the truth. To my eyes, the birthmark did absolutely nothing to diminish her beauty. If anything, the face I saw in the photo seemed even more beautiful to me than that of her avatar, because I knew it was this one was real.” (pg 292)

9.) “In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie has used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.” (pg 320)

10.) “We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation. (pg 321)

Discussion Questions:

1.) Would you apply for the virtual OASIS education like Wade?

When Wade talks about his classes and how he is able to travel through a human heart, visit the Louvre, Jupiter’s moons and more it makes me think that our education system could be so much better with this technology. For one, he discusses how discipline isn’t a problem, how Wade can mute out bullies, and how even the teachers liked the system so much more. It gives students the ability to do things like Wade did and go to chat rooms with his friends in his free time and hang out with people he likes and avoid / mute the ones he doesn’t. I think there are major problems like affordability and the fact that you miss out on real human interaction that scientists have proven is needed for a healthy mind, body, and soul.

2.) If you were a gunter, would you join a clan or stay solo?

In the end I think that part of the lesson Holliday was trying to teach is that you need other people to succeed. You need help and can’t do everything on your own. Why else would he have made the door only open with three keys?

3.) If you were Wade would you sell out to sponsors, movie and book people, and the Suxors? or would you risk it all on the chance of being the first to find the egg?

4.) What movie would you want to enter into like Wade did for the first gate for a “Syncflik”? Could you complete the dialogue for a whole movie?

5.) Did they fake drink at the bar at Og’s party because they hadn’t ever been able to eat or drink inside the OASIS before?

6.) Has social media become obsolete in their world or is the avatar practically their form of social media? Or instead of trying to impress people with how they went to the beach or the expensive Louis Vuittons they just bought, do they put their energy into impressing through their OASIS accounts?

7.) Doesn’t IOI trying to capitalize on OASIS sound a lot like the government trying to end net neutrality? I think this whole story is a lot more realistic than most of us would like to admit to ourselves. (pg 33)

Movie Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scj3wiIcSu0&t=115s

I really hope they keep the Rocky Horror Show scene (pg 179) in the movie because I want to see them have fun and be laid back together. Plus it would be really funny. It was super entertaining in Perks of Being A Wallflower when Charlie has to be in the show. Also, I saw the zero gravity dance floor and the revamped Delorean in the movie trailer and can’t wait to see more of that. (pg 182)

The only thing that would make me immediately hate this movie is if they don’t give Art3mis her birthmark and so far in the trailer I noticed that they have only distinctly shown one side of her face but in the clip where she is sitting in a chair across from Wade you can see most of her face and I didn’t see any scar. What a missed opportunity? Unless they are having her cover it in the first half of the movie with makeup or something. The greatest parts of this book were the lessons learned and I think him meaning that he would love her no matter what she looked like in person because he loved who she was is a crucial part of the story and the birthmark plays a large role in that. It was an opportunity to give people who had similar situations like birthmarks have someone that looked like them in a movie to relate to. I think it really could have been something special.

The other thing that is a bit of a turn off is the body form they gave Ache in the movie because it means that she won’t be able to have that moment talking about how she chose a white, male avatar because of how she felt at a disadvantage as a African American woman and wanted her avatar to be able to escape that. Also the actress they cast is thin so it is another missed opportunity.

Also the choice of the song from Willy Wonka “Pure Imagination” was genius for the trailer. It was beyond perfect!

Side Note:

Also, if you would like to watch part 2 of this book... it’s called WALL-E. There are different characters but it is definitely what Wade’s planet earth is going to look like very soon. They were all absorbed in the internet and forgot about real life and how to make connections, just like this book. I mean Wade even notices his weight gain from being overly absorbed into the game. (pg 196)

#NewSwag #Hardcover 1st Edition of #TheAmberSpyglass by #PhilipPullman (@philippullmanofficial) - book 3 of #HisDarkMaterials series Hardcover 1st Edition of #ADarklingPlain by #PhilipReeve (@thesolitarybee) - book 4 of the #MortalEngines series #Paperback 2015 Special Edition of #ReadyPlayerOne by #ErnestCline (@ernestcline) Definitely a really good day going round Charity shop/2nd hand books. A great Friday the 13th indeed! #Books #FirstEdition #1stEdition #LyraBelacqua #LyraSilvertongue #WillParry #MaryMalone #WrenNatsworthy #TomNatsworthy #TheoNgoni #StalkerFang #HesterShaw #WadeWatts #Parzival #Art3mis #Aech #OASIS https://www.instagram.com/p/B2XdUFTAb-6/?igshid=iywq04dp4qqh