Ready Player One
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 
Blurb: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. For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved — that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt — among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life — and love — in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape. A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?Okay, so this book has been on my TBR list for a couple of years, but it was the news that it's being made into a movie that spurred me on to buy and read it - not necessarily because I wanted to watch the movie (though after reading the book I can't wait to see it!) but because I didn't want to end up with a copy that had a 'movie' cover, instead of this cool cover! Reasons for reading it aside, I ended up loving this book.I found the beginning a little slow and wondered if I'd enjoy it - hence 4.5 stars instead of a solid 5 - but once Wade/Parzival found the Copper Key, I was hooked and couldn't read fast enough! The only other downside (and this is a small one) is that there are massive info-dumps throughout the book. Sometimes it felt like I was reading a passage from a history book - if this were real, that is!However, it was action packed and interesting and I loved the characters and the dynamics between them even though they have never met in person until the end. I also found the virtual reality interesting and I thought the author did an amazing job of building worlds with the virtual reality, it was often hard to remember it was just a game; I swear I got as obsessed as the characters! Also, I liked that it wasn't all played out in OASIS; the real-world gets a look in, thanks to the physical threat of the Sixers, which just added another dimension to the story. Finally, confession time... I'm not a video game fan... actually, the only one I've ever played is Mario Carts but (as you can probably tell) I'm a bit of a book addict and I've always thought they were kind of the same; we enjoy getting lost in fantasy world, often to escape reality and become someone else for a while. This book, namely a passage on page 198, made the mentality of some video-gamers so much clearer. Also, I wasn't even born in the 80's and know little about it, but since everything is explained (almost obsessively so) in great detail, this had little impact on my enjoyment of the story and didn't hinder the experience at all.All in all, a great book that is easy to immerse yourself in! 
My favourite quotes from 'Ready Player One':' "Jim always wanted everyone to share his obsessions, to love the same things he loved. I think this contest is his way of giving the entire world an incentive to do just that." ' 'I didn't matter who was in charge. Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it.'
Blurb: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. For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved — that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt — among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life — and love — in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape. A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?Okay, so this book has been on my TBR list for a couple of years, but it was the news that it's being made into a movie that spurred me on to buy and read it - not necessarily because I wanted to watch the movie (though after reading the book I can't wait to see it!) but because I didn't want to end up with a copy that had a 'movie' cover, instead of this cool cover! Reasons for reading it aside, I ended up loving this book.I found the beginning a little slow and wondered if I'd enjoy it - hence 4.5 stars instead of a solid 5 - but once Wade/Parzival found the Copper Key, I was hooked and couldn't read fast enough! The only other downside (and this is a small one) is that there are massive info-dumps throughout the book. Sometimes it felt like I was reading a passage from a history book - if this were real, that is!However, it was action packed and interesting and I loved the characters and the dynamics between them even though they have never met in person until the end. I also found the virtual reality interesting and I thought the author did an amazing job of building worlds with the virtual reality, it was often hard to remember it was just a game; I swear I got as obsessed as the characters! Also, I liked that it wasn't all played out in OASIS; the real-world gets a look in, thanks to the physical threat of the Sixers, which just added another dimension to the story. Finally, confession time... I'm not a video game fan... actually, the only one I've ever played is Mario Carts but (as you can probably tell) I'm a bit of a book addict and I've always thought they were kind of the same; we enjoy getting lost in fantasy world, often to escape reality and become someone else for a while. This book, namely a passage on page 198, made the mentality of some video-gamers so much clearer. Also, I wasn't even born in the 80's and know little about it, but since everything is explained (almost obsessively so) in great detail, this had little impact on my enjoyment of the story and didn't hinder the experience at all.All in all, a great book that is easy to immerse yourself in! My favourite quotes from 'Ready Player One':' "Jim always wanted everyone to share his obsessions, to love the same things he loved. I think this contest is his way of giving the entire world an incentive to do just that." ' 'I didn't matter who was in charge. Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it.'
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