Summary
Set in 2044, Read Player One introduces a world that brings gaming to the next level. While the real world may be a bummer, everyone knows that the OASIS is the only world worth living in. Why would people want to live a poor life in a miserable world when they can be anything in a happy, virtual one?
When James Halliday, the creator of the OASIS, died, he set up a grand contest for all of his wealth and the ownership of his gaming company. All a player had to do was to find all three of the hidden keys. Halliday set up his whole contest with puzzles and riddles having to do with his life and various 80's pop culture references! Now, five years after his death, only serious gunters (the gamers attempting to win the contest) and the merciless corporation, Innovative Online Industries (IOI) are still trying to get the wealth that lies at the end of the ambitious contest.
Wade (Parzival) Watts is what you may call someone who's fortune wasn't kind to them. But, then again, no in the world in the year of 2044 had good fortune. Between wars, famine, and an energy crisis, society's only escape is in the OASIS. Wade was raised in the virtual world and has come to think of it as his entire life. Then, when he happens to be the one person to complete the first challenge in 5 years, his entire life seems to change.
Wade now faces change in all aspects of his life. When it comes to friends, personal struggles, and a grasp on reality, he has to learn how to figure it, all out while still trying to achieve his own dream of winning his hero's contest.
Opinion
Scale of 1-10:
9
I just want to point out that I watched the movie before reading the book. I REALLY like the movie but I always felt that there was stuff that I was missing. And then I read the book. Ernest Cline filled this book with such a rich and vivid world that had SUCH an amazing backstory. Even when it was just the world and the history being explained, somehow this book still kept my interest and I was just so enthralled in learning about James Halliday's life and the game he created.
Compared to the movie, I really enjoyed how they set up the characters. They all made them grow in ways the movie just didn't accurately portray. And I was also really fond of how the relationships between Wade Watts and other characters grew. Like I said before, I always felt I was missing something in the plot of the movie and one of those things was the relationship between Parzival (Wade's avatar) and Art3mis. I'm not going to share her name because that's part of the ending ;-). The humor in this book was also really good. This obviously isn't categorized as a comedy but there are moments that made me laugh a little bit.
I also want to point out how different even the story was in the movie vs the book. It's definitely not a bad thing; I just want to say that I soon had to start thinking of the book and the movie as separate things when it came to most of the scenes and elements of the story. Again, I'm still a huge fan of both and this is definitely worth the read!
Age Rating
15-16+
I'm just going to say this right off the bat that this book is definitely more mature than the movie. I think the goal they had with the movie was to make it more lighthearted. In the book, it's more realistic about how bad the world is in 2044. Drugs are a common theme with many of Wade Watt's family members. It's also mentioned in the book that Wade's mother, before she died, was an online escort. There are quite a bit of sexual references. Nothing is ever graphic but there are jokes and comments about various things in that category.
Language is another element that is all throughout the book. These curse words include:
The F word (different variations throughout)
hell
piss
ass
B**ch
d**k
bastard
Other than these things, there is just more of a dark element to it. Like I said, it's a realistic darkness that you would expect in a world like the world Wade lives in. I definitely had to get used to it after watching the lighthearted movie!
Here's the link to the book on Goodreads:
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