My friend asked me to read Ready Player One and I don’t have the heart to tell them it’s one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

EDIT: This needs to be said so I don’t get another pissy comment from some butt-hurt child. It’s okay to like this book. I don’t care. People can like what they like, but let people dislike what they dislike. I’m sure my favorite book is on someone’s shit-list and I think that a-okay.

Also, you can read this comment to see how I actually discussed it with my friend. Too many relationship counselors offering their services for free tonight when their generosity is not actually needed. —————————————————————————————

So, I’m going to gripe about it here.

First off, who is this book even for? It reads like it’s written for middle schoolers, but everything revolves around 80’s references that they wouldn’t understand. I feel like I’m too old to for the book yet I’m a 90’s kid.

Second, let me talk more about the terrible writing. Nothing is implied in this book and the reader discovers nothing. Aunt and aunt’s boyfriend = bad people 🙁Wade = super clever and righteous 😊 Samantha = sassy and smart 😉 and Sorrento = EVIL! The characters have no nuances whatsoever. The only interesting character development was Aech actually being a chubby black girl, but from I hear about Ready Player Two (more on that later), it just doesn’t go anywhere. Overall, it reads like a book for 13-year-olds, but I just don’t feel like it was intended to be directed at 13-year-olds...?

Third, the “love” story between Wade and Samantha is cheesy, forced, and kind of misogynistic. Like, I thought that he’d realize that he doesn’t actually love her, he’s just crushing really hard. Maybe she’d help him understand that by saying how they haven’t even met and he doesn’t actually know her. To be fair, she tried a little bit, but her main argument was, “you don’t love me because you don’t know that I’m actually ugly!” What the fuck? The author can tell me that Wade loves her for who she really is and doesn’t care about her looks, but everything always ends up coming back around to her looks anyway. And she falls for him in the end! Why? This relationship makes no goddamn sense. It especially makes no sense because even though she’s way better at the Hunt than he is (sans playing playing a few classic arcade games), Wade still somehow becomes her white knight in shining armor. It’s gross and I hate it, and I’m a dude. Also, I can’t even begin to process how ridiculous a lot of the plot points are, like IOI not being able to beat 4 kids with their team of scholars. Wade even discovers how much info they have on Halliday, and not one person on their team, who have more information than Wade, could figure out the stuff he did?

I’m here to rant and say what I can’t to my friend so I’ll be done now, but I’ll make one comment on Ready Player Two. I just got it from the library, read the prologue and immediately returned it after spending a minute reading about Wade eating fruit.

Edit: Did the kid even give one solitary fuck that his home was blown up and his family murdered? I mean, he almost got killed as well.