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Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)

Ernest Cline

Start date: April 1, 2013

Finish date: April 30, 2013

Discussion: MONTHLY BOOK READS

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MONTHLY BOOK READS

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What Members Thought

May 29, 2012 Tish rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks

What fun!

So many people have said they loved the 80s nostalgia the book brought out and all the references to video games, music, etc. that they had loved from those years. Not me. Not what you'd call a gamer, then or now. Thought 80s music mostly stunk. The movies mentioned were not among my favorites if I had even seen them at all.

What did I like? The plot and the characters, of course! In some ways this book wasn't all that original: dystopian world, teenagers battling evil corporation. In ot ...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Amrita Poptani rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi, amazing-world-building, dystopia, science-e-part-seemed-realistic, favourites, great-ending, now-thats-action, not-1-not-2-but-so-many-awesome-cha, creepy-stuff, stays-with-you-forever

This was an ahMAHZING read \(O.O)/ I whipped through it, sleeping for only a few hours in between and you know, dealing with reality and all that- "going outside is highly overrated." -Anorak's Almanac

^ I couldn't have agreed more while reading Ready Player One.

So here's the thing.. I'm a 90s kid. I got some of those hidden jokes and references thanks to my upbringing and my love for anything pop culture but it kills me knowing that I must've missed out sooooh many more! I want to be in Halliday ...more

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Jan 22, 2014 Wendy rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobook

It took me a while to get into this book. The beginning part read partly like a history book, and partly like list after list of common to obscure 80s pop culture references. Some points seemed a little pandering ((view spoiler)), and sometimes it just seemed to want to give a nod to each major nerd fandom, regardless of decade ((view spoiler)).

I though It took me a while to get into this book. The beginning part read partly like a history book, and partly like list after list of common to obscure 80s pop culture references. Some points seemed a little pandering ((view spoiler)), and sometimes it just seemed to want to give a nod to each major nerd fandom, regardless of decade ((view spoiler)).

I thought the beginning part dragged a little, but once the competition started in earnest, it became more of a page turner. The writing itself wasn't spectacular, but did a pretty good job of portraying a nerdy kid with an obsessive knowledge base. I liked all of the side characters, and the big bad corporation was written well. I do have to give respect to the author for the immense amount of prior knowledge and/or research he did about the 80s, but some of the parts of the dystopian future didn't seem to fit in that well (e.g., still uploading things to YouTube, money seeming to be worth about the same as it is today, kids using slang and hand gestures that they would arguably use these days, rather than in the 80s or the 2040s (suxxorz, etc.)).

The narration was fairly good, but the teen inflections got a bit annoying after a while and I ended up reading at least 1/3 of the book instead. I would recommend reading first, as it's easier to get through things like chat logs in print rather than audio. You miss the layout and formatting of the print version if you listen to the audio as well.

Overall, I can't work out whether or not gamers and other nerds would like this book or not. Sometimes it felt it was trying too hard, and some parts were much more YA romancey than I expected, but I would definitely still recommend it to others, at least just to try.

Feb 2018 relisten: Oh hey, I pretty much still agree with what I wrote the first time around. Well done, past me. I struggled through a few parts but don't regret the relisten. I'm not sure if it's already dated (there have been even more Star Wars movies since then!) or if I just have a little less patience for the teen and gamer speak, but some parts did drag and/or make my eyes roll (especially some of the dialogue and the real-life bits with Art3mis and Aech). I am downgrading from 4 to 3 stars and probably wouldn't recommend it to that many people. Future me: if you go here again, read the whole book. But probably don't bother. ...more

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