Despite the rating and the everything, there are some redeeming things about Ready Player One: It immerses you in a dystopic future where humanity takes to a huge Virtual Reality to flee their problems (dwindling oil reserves mean poverty, starvation, slums everywhere).
Its flaws lie mostly within its highly predictable storyline and the incredibly, infinitely self-indulgent nerd smugness: Urgh.
Also, logical flaws: Not using proper data science and cross-referencing to solve riddles? Please, that’s what every mega-corp would do! There are some instances of less-well thought out behavior like that, sometimes breaking the immersion for me.
But apart from the boring overall plot, this book shines with creativity and a huge lot of 80s culture. Loved the references, loved the attention to detail[spoilers removed].
It’s a feel-good book: A simple, predictable plot with lots of love to detail, enough sophistication in characters so that you actually want the good guys to win[spoilers removed].
