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theespressoedition's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Ready Player One was unlike any other book I'd ever read. It seamlessly meshed together adventure and pop culture in a way that just had me coming back for more. My husband and I listened to the audiobook narrated by Wil Wheaton on a road trip and it made the time fly!
When I heard there would be a sequel, I didn't know what to expect. It felt as if the story had ended. I wondered if there would be another cast of characters or a completely different world or what?! If we're being really honest, I didn't go into this one with high expectations because I didn't think anything could capture my attention as the first book had.
I was wrong. This is how you write a sequel, people! Once again, I chose to listen to the audiobook (because no one narrates quite like Wil) and it was phenomenal from beginning to end. Action-packed and quick-paced, never a boring moment!
There were two tiny elements that I didn't adore and those were: the back-and-forth between avatar names and character names. It got confusing when the narration didn't stick with just one of them so at first, I couldn't even remember who "Samantha" was and it wasn't until she was titled "Artemis" that I was able to recall who they were speaking of. In addition, I didn't like Wade and Samantha's relationship. It was all so dramatic and chaotic. I realize that it was fundamental to the plot, but for most of the story, it didn't feel like that was the case and I kept getting frustrated with their immature tendencies.
I really loved the ending. It was not at all what I expected, but it was super cool and the epilogue really fascinated me. It felt like it was totally wrapped up and there couldn't be any more story... but maybe there could be? Could we have a story for just the Low Five in the future? We'll see, I guess!
Moderate: Torture, Death, and Violence
Minor: Racism and Homophobia
aqtbenz's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Murder
theleppy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Off the top I did a combination of listening to the audio book version and reading the physical copy. I mention this mostly because Wil Wheaton is fantastic. This is the 3rd book read by him that I have experienced and he lends a lot to it. He's enthusiastic or earnest when appropriate which adds a layer of depth. I have a lot of respect (and some fangirl like) for him and he helped me read through some of the more...difficult/ frustrating sections of this book.
This book has a lot of problems that I find frustrating. I loved the first book enough to listen to/read it 4 times. It's an interesting alternate future with a lot of interesting ideas it explores and that carries over here. The first book's ending was pretty perfect though so this book wasn't necessary imo.
The first problem this book has is that it's front loaded with way too much information dumped on the reader. Half of which seems unnecessary and/or obviously setup to be broken rules. Most of this could have been shortened, broken to small pieces and placed later in the book for better effect and pacing.
In the first book I found the nerd-out tangents were largely interesting and fairly controlled. Here they go on and on and on and become boring and lose meaning. This makes me sad honestly because if they ended a sentence or paragraph sooner I would have enjoyed these parts!
The "formula" of the quest being repeated isn't an issue in my opinion. It works and I'm not going to knock it but I would have liked to have time to mull over the clues more like in the 1st novel. Part of the excitement was trying to unravel it along with Wade. There is a time crunch that stops this from happening which is a shame.
Wade crosses a few lines that made me pretty mad at him and he admits he's wrong but I think the line crossing wasn't necessary and only harmed my opinion of him. He doesn't face enough consequences for it either. He invades people's privacy in order to...do nothing that couldn't have been figured out in a better way.
I was disappointed most of the other characters barely get time to shine this time around. Shoto is probably done the most dirty. He's shunted to the background like the author didn't know what to do with him. Aech and Art3mis get some characterization but I wish there was more. Art3mis is part of the heart of this story and I find her the most likable alongside Og and Kira who we do get to learn more about.
I feel like this book is trying to juggle too many big topics and the author should have dropped a few of them. Sexual experimentation, racisim, and transgender being least important to the plot and the mentions felt liked they were a bit forced and hindered the flow of the book. Aech complaining about how white 80s movies are when a literal clock is ticking is frustrating and isn't helping that discussion (it's a valid argument but there isn't room for it to be explored here). Additionally Wade invading the transgender character's privacy to go "we are inclusive!! Here is a cool Trans chara!!" Is gross. Let them exist and elude to it instead. The impact of Aech's reveal in the first book was so good and makes this all that much worse here. I don't think the author intended to be gross about it and he tried at least. Especially since I feel he did right by Kira and Art3mis. There is a running theme carried from the first book about sexism causing women's roles in history to be down played or even erased. They should have hammered it home a smidge more at the end though but again, too many big topics are covered to go deeper on nearly all of them.
Honestly though I think the ending redeemed this book (mostly). I got misty eyed over parts of the ending. I didn't expect all of what happened and was pleasantly surprised by a few things. The book has good parts it's just clunky. After I struggled through the first 100ish pages tit gained enough momentum that I burned through the rest in less than 2 days.
For fans of the first book hungry for more (even though it had a perfect ending) and willing to hold out for the ending.
3.5 stars
Moderate: Confinement, Death of parent, Cursing, Death, Grief, and Violence
Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, and Toxic relationship
sunsetcity's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Graphic: Addiction, Car accident, Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, and Medical content
nytephoenyx's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
- Wade is an absolute freaking creep and I am super not okay that everyone just seemed to conveniently forget about it.
- Aech and Shoto were both very much throwaway characters in this book. This is annoying one one level because Aech was a great character in book one, but on the second level Cline killed off his minorities and WTF.
- The writing, as a whole, is just terrible. It’s flat and pretentious and over-explains itself.
- The entire freaking epilogue is utter bull. Very pandering, plus explained character arcs that just didn’t make sense, and just a ridiculous level of happily ever after.
- Halliday was also given redemption even though he absolutely did not deserve it.
- For a book that was supposed to be about Kira I feel like we learned nothing new about Kira.
- Samantha’s choices made absolutely no sense to her character as it was set up in Ready Player One. On top of that, she made a heavy 180-degree pivot mid-book that also made no sense. Gotta love it when the strong female character is really only there for the love story. Not.
- The Low Five was grotesquely under-used. Their whole story was far more interesting and promising than Wade’s, frankly.
- Where the Oasis felt well thought out and promising in Ready Player One, the worlds we visit in Ready Player Two are crowded and somehow manage to be over-explained while not being immersive at all.
- The pop culture base was too scattered and too broad. One reason why all the pop culture in Ready Player One worked was because it kept to a single subset – the 80s – and one running theme – video games. In Ready Player Two we span multiple decades and genres. I think this hurt the world building in a big way – it’s too broad and it felt clear to me that Cline was not as comfortable in the topics he chose for the shards as he was for the keys/gates. Shermer, Afterworld, and the First Age planet of Middle Earth suffer in particular.
- Probably just me, but how did we get through two books in this universe with only a couple Star Wars and Back to the Future references? Copyright issues?
- Cline started strong with climate concerns coming from Art3mis, but dropped it all mid-book with a doomsday feel. Do they continue to care about the real world? I don’t know!!!
- Listen, I think the idea of a digital afterlife is as cool as the next person, but Cline was super casual about it all. There should have been way more committees and probably lawyers involved in the decision about the Rod of Resurrection and the ONI headsets. These are life changing things. Doesn’t GSS have shareholders? Maybe they’re privately owned. :/
- Also, missed opportunity on the name “Rod of Resurrection”. There’s a “Wand of Resurrection” in Runescape that even looks similar to how the Rod is described.
- The timeline was incredibly tight considering the months Wade spent on Hallday’s original challenge. But the looming deadline did not seem to be on the characters’ mind most the time. Why set such a tight deadline if you’re barely going to use it to raise tension?
Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, and Stalking
Moderate: Grief and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Cancer, Death of parent, and Sexual content
hillarydanielle's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, and Stalking
Moderate: Death, Sexism, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Drug abuse and Drug use