Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Ready Player One

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

13 reviews

abicaro17's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

HOLY SHIT. Well gooddamm. So this is probably one of the best books I have ever read (well listened too but same difference). Wade Watts is a socially awkward poor 18 year old boy living in the year 2045. In this not so distant future, a immersive reality video game has taken over most of the planet. The Oasis was invented by James Haliday and Oggden Morrow. When Haliday died, his will revealed that he will leave all of his fortune and the entire Oasis game in the hands of the player who can find the egg he hid. Wade, and most of the Oasis population, has been searching for the first key for 5 years and when he accidentally stumbles upon the answer everything changes. This is a beautiful tale of love, friendship, perseverance, and ambition along with the message that reality is better than even the best recreations. I definitely thought this would be a boy book, based on the movie (which I have seen and can safely say this is almost nothing like it), but it pleasantly surprised me with how entertaining and emotionally deep Cline goes. This is a fantastic read/listen and I will be rereading this soon.

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caitlaird's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Before I get into this I should state I did actually enjoy this book a lot. The word building is amazing and so well done. I can truly see how realistic of a possibility this world could be. It’s an amazing take on how media and video games can take over and rule society, especially in a world ruined by capitalism, overconsumption, and environmental destruction; and how much easier it is to try and escape from it all rather than facing it.

The use of 80’s media was truly the best part of it all, made for such a cool and fun world.

That being said (possible small spoilers ahead but warnings any moral person might want).

This book is an incels wet dream of a y/n - self insert action hero whatever, complete with casual usage of transphobia and homophobia to really finish it off. Specifically the phrase “twinked out” when talking about people who are just dancing at a club (that he’s at no less!!) and multiple instances of blatant transphobia that you’d hope and think wouldn’t exist in 2045. Also every inspiration listed in this book is a male creator. Science fiction wouldn’t be what it is without women, Mary Shelly, Ursula Le Guin, I could go on. Do men just not think of women? Honestly curious.

I would put this book at the top of my list “so obvious it was written by a man it’s actually physically painful”.

The character Artemis is a queen amongst men. She is however a victim of the manic pixie dream girl ideal but that’s NOT her fault. She is the one voice of reason in this whole book and it feels like that might be the only reason she’s there, other than to be something to lust after and prove that the “nerd” boy can actually get the girl.

That being said Wade is obsessed with her and is totally in love with her so at least he gets one thing right. (This isn’t a spoiler he says it like in the first chapter okay).

And shoutout to Aech, who is just the coolest best friend of all friends.

I kept waiting for Wade to learn the lesson that was the real world is essential to truly living , something you don’t need to read the book to know I think. But he might actually just be the most dense man that’s ever existed ever. At one point, he admitted that he’s an agoraphobic geek and hates it but then changes absolutely nothing about his life. Also why does he have to make such a point that he’s not a fatty. Like realistically he’d be fat. That’s okay. What’s with the fat phobia my guys?

This feels like an Incel boys Bible of what you should do to be the main character. He is a very bad friend to his best friend and he doesn’t even get better. It’s very much a scary look into the mind of a man.

I originally rated the book 4 stars so it’s not that bad I guess, but zoo wee mama it’s like a punch in the gut sometimes. I really have to pause sometimes and go “huh, I know you didn’t just say what I think you did”, but of course he did.
And after a few days processing what I read I actually decided this book deserves 2.75 stars. How can a book be 4 stars when the protagonist is literally the worst person in the world.
Like any other character would’ve been a more interesting protagonist, especially Artemis, not that I want Ernest Cline to write a book from a woman’s pov. The only thing worse than wades pov would be a woman’s pov written by Cline. I think he would really benefit from reading some books written by women with female protagonists.

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pomegranate_muse's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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theaceofpages's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Honestly, this book was okay. It was a quick read and although the experience wasn't a bad one, I felt very meh about it. The world was the strongest point by far. With the way the world is crumbling around us it makes a lot of sense that people want to escape into into a virtual one and surround themselves with nostalgia. The concept of the OASIS is a cool one as well. The plot was okay although it didn't always make sense

so much happened because Wade is the main character and main characters are special even when they shouldn't succeed

- it was interesting enough. But I didn't like the characters. Wade was annoying and uninteresting and everyone else existed to serve him. Art3mis was so much better (major spoiler:

And deserved to win so much more

) but ended up being reduced to being an object of Wade's affection.

And as a somewhat related note?: I really don't like how that gotcha moment about Aech was handled. Very much felt like tokenism since it was revealed and then immediately pushed aside so Wade could keep doing his thing - if you want to do something like this you should ay least deal with it properly

While the reading experience was pleasant enough I didn't actually like this book. I would love to see something more nuanced done with this idea, but I do get why others love it so much.

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giuliana_ferrari's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Ready Player One is the ultimate gamer / geek fantasy. Mix it with the underlying dystopian plot of an dying Earth, a megaevil corporation and the dangers of capitalism, and you would have a great combo that could be amazing. And in its good side, it's a book that is easy to read, and for the people that grew up in the US-based 80s or immersed in its culture after, it is probably a delightful read engineered to light up those dopamine receptacles in your brain that go "I understood that reference!".

But the book falls short in some major ways. The same audience it is trying to captivate it also entails into a complicated narrative of the importance and overall superiority of white, all-American males, teenage boys that would be bullied for knowing all the dialogues to any nerdy TV show or movie, but in this universe, they become Gods. Any point of contention that could be used to argue important issues - the lack of proper representation of different cultures (except the classic Japanese 'samurais', which is kind of cringy) and races, and discrimination against women gamers - gets lost in the ever increasing list of game, TV shows and movies referenced in the book.

In the end, Ready Player One tried to be many things at once and it failed in less or higher degrees to several of them. It was still a compelling read, but I feel like this book will be quickly erased from my hard drive - see what I did there? - in the near future.

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shirarweiss's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had more knowledge and/or excitement about video game history and 80s culture. It took a long time for anything to really happen; there was so much world building- which was necessary to understand this highly detailed world- but it felt like sometimes the plot stopped entirely in favor of a long explanation of the world and its history or a cultural reference. Sometimes time just suddenly jumped in a confusing way. The way Wade talked about women and gender was… uncomfortable. And strange. The book did make me think about the blurred lines between reality and technology, which is fascinating and frightening.

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balamaqab's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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naychapman's review against another edition

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adventurous funny informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Set in a dystopian future, technology has evolved to the point where no one really needs to set foot outside in the real world anymore with the brilliant invention of the OASIS - a fully immersive, multidimensional virtual reality experience that allows users to escape their dull, often poverty-stricken existence and become whoever they want to be. Every introvert's paradise.

Very cleverly written, this book is akin to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - if Indy were a teenage computer hacker. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS (James Halliday) dies, he bequeaths his multi-billion dollar ownership of the OASIS to whoever can solve his riddles to find a hidden Easter egg within the system. This sparks a major hunt and 17-year-old Wade, aka Parzival, joins the heated competition. As a fan of all things 80s, all of Halliday's references in the clues are to past video games, movies, songs, and TV shows from that decade. Making this book a fantastic trip down memory lane!

The book, in my opinion, is MUCH better than the recently produced movie adaptation. Although also very entertaining, there are major scene and sequencing changes to the movie, and a lot of great content was left out. My guess is due to copyright issues!

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jasminrain's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I really enjoyed this book. I think it's a very beautiful portrayal of the gaming community and an ode to pop culture. It was researched really well and it was just an absolute joy to immerse myself to the story even though I have little to no connection to the world.

I was a bit hesitant to read the book having seen the film, but the storyline was actually quite different to the film adaptation and brought more layers to the story. I listened to the audiobook read by Wil Wheaton and it just really brought the story to life in all the best ways possible.

All this being said, there was some problematic language and transphobia that were left completely unaddressed, which I found really problematic considering the target age and audience of this book. So not a five star but really good read.

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ruthieelisa's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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