Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: January 1, 2011

Summary from Goodreads:

In the year 2044, 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. 

But 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.

Review

The word obsessed does not even begin to describe how I feel about this book. From the moment I started listening, I didn’t want to stop. No, better yet, I couldn’t stop. I was hooked. GOSH, it was just SO MUCH FUN. I am getting an adrenaline high just writing this review.

Ready Player One takes place not too far into the future. The world is fraught with problems and most of humanity finds their escape through a virtual reality net called the Oasis. The book begins with the death of the Oasis’s creator, James Halliday, who leaves his fortune and control of the Oasis to the first person who can collect 3 keys and pass through the matching gates to find the hidden egg. GAME ON. Anyone who is hunting for the egg is known as a ‘Gunter’ but a divide quickly forms between your everyday gamers and the evil IOI employees who want to win to monetize the Oasis. These ‘Sixers’ made for great villains and scary advisories considering they had limitless resources and no morals.

Wade is the first Gunter to find the first key and pass through the first of gate but other Gunters are not far behind him. But even though they are competitors, a friendship of sorts begins to form between the ‘High Five’, even a budding romance between Wade and Art3mis. I loved this gang of characters and their easy banter with each other. And I loved them even more later in the story as certain truths are revealed (this is me being coy). They were all honorable, intelligent, totally nerdy people aka MY KIND OF PEOPLE.

I seriously loved everything about this book – from discovering new parts of the Oasis, to the hunt for the egg, to all of the late 20th century pop culture references even though I didn’t get half of them. I already love quest/test/riddle-based stories and this book was a quest/test/riddle-based story on crack. I mean, ANYTHING is possible in a virtual net and Cline made sure to take advantage of that. There were epic jousting games and giant robot battles and high stake video game marathons. The avatars had crazy weapons, abilities and magic. I honestly could not get enough. Everything spoke to my inner geek/gamer/kid.

I honestly don’t know if I’ve said anything of actual value in this review but I could never do it justice anyway. Just know that this book gave me all the feels and is now one of my all-time favorites ever ever ever. YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK. And buy this book. And hug this book. And love this book.

Now excuse me while I go read it AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.