Ready Player One

2.5 stars, rounded down to 2.

This book might have fallen prey to misaligned expectations, as I thought it was a standard sci-fi novel – yet it felt so much more like a mediocre (if not, slightly bad) YA novel.

There's a lot to be said about my gripes with the book, so I'll start with the good. The plot was fast paced, and the content was fun enough that I finished the book fairly quickly. If you expect “standard YA novel with some kitschy 80's references”, then you'll probably have a good time.

Now for the bad – I'll keep this spoiler free. This book suffered dramatically from the “single voice curse”. Every character's dialogue sounded the exact same, regardless of who they are supposed to represent. There are a few outliers, but those characters have barely any dialogue. The plot is painfully unrealistic at times, making it difficult to buy into some ideas the author is trying to sell. Similarly, the novel suffers from the failure of “show, don't tell” time and time again – where sections of the plot are brushed by or skipped over in a way that feels disappointing.

There's more to get into about the characters, plot, some borderline racist portrayals, but I'd like to avoid spoilers. I'm not sure how anyone reading this book would be completely enamored, unless their eyes are covered by the rose colored glasses of “hey! I know that thing!... and I know that thing!!”