Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - Ready Player One

Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

51 reviews

random19379's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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karlybug's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

i'm not saying if you liked this i question your judgment but...

honestly, where to begin with this horrific ordeal? Cline took a fairly interesting premise (the one star is for the idea and the half is for the sheer amount of garbage he wrote; this book is nightmarishly long) and threw it away on gatekeeping nonsense, repetitive, awful writing, very little worldbuilding, weak characters, and page after page of "look what I know" '80s trivia. anytime the action starts up, he has to pause so Wade can explain to us in great unnecessary detail exactly what obscure '80s thing he's studied in order to solve the problem in front of him. also, trigger warnings: transphobia, racial stereotyping, and an endless amount of white men yelling about gatekeeping nerd stuff.

i am genuinely shocked at the lack of reviews mentioning how incredibly monotonous and redundant his writing style is. he literally lists 20 sci-fi authors in a row and every single one of them is a white man. i never read science fiction and even i can name Ursula K. LeGuin! our grand mystical "hero" is an emotionally stunted manbaby who fired people for not knowing obscure references and who stopped speaking to literally his only friend in the world and became a hermit bc he couldn't have the only girl he wanted even though he wouldn't even speak to her. setting it in the future should mean that he has to create his own world even a little bit, but instead, he focuses it so tightly on the '80s that it means he does almost NO worldbuilding. the stacks are honestly the only part of the future landscape that made sense to me and/or required any kind of creativity on Cline's part.

Wade is insufferable as well--he's rude and mouthy (not in a fun way) and insensitive and wildly clueless for someone who supposedly grew up in poverty.

I mean he literally just stands by while his aunt and the other, what, 50 people in his stack are straight-up murdered! after which he shows barely a speck of remorse or guilt?

the final lesson/message is both hit-you-over-the-head heavy-handed and also kind of just like... nonsense speak? honestly, the worst bit is that he managed to create a somewhat interesting character with Art3mis & he threw that away by making her entire arc "but will the boy like me in real life???"

in case you for some reason refuse to believe me, here are some ACTUAL QUOTES:

[Halliday] also had an extreme fixation on the 1980s, the decade during which he'd been a teenager. (3)
A famous eccentric, Halliday had harbored a lifelong obsession with the 1980s, the decade during which he'd been a teenager... (85)

~~see what i mean about repetitive?~~

The 80s was a long decade (ten whole years) . . .

THIS MAN GOT PAID FOR THIS BOOK

"It looks just like Rivendell," [she] said, taking the words right out of my mouth.
I nodded. "It looks exactly like Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings movies," I said, still staring up in awe.

Mansplaining and redundancy, all for the price of poorly-written dialogue!

you can't make this stuff up. i want the last five days of my life back.

also, can you imagine stealing the finale of your 500+ page novel word-for-word from a movie somebody else wrote thirty years ago? Cline & Halliday are basically two of a kind--two old white guys who made their huge amounts of money creating an "adventure" almost entirely by piecing together other people's work. super cool. new york times bestseller. awesome.

i'm furious.

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smallwonders's review against another edition

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adventurous funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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merit_willa's review against another edition

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transphobia

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cryogenic's review against another edition

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Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

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saphirabloom's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

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lexyo0o's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

this is the most 2011 book written by a white man. there’s lots i hate about it like the main character and the way the female characters are written and much more - but i really appreciate that he didn’t demonise the OASIS. it felt like he understood how our (gen z) generation feels about the internet - it’s not about whether it’s evil or not, it’s where we’ve lived and spend so much of our life and we have memories on it. it’s something that people who did not grow up on/with the internet don’t understand . i really was prepared for Halliday to be found out to be evil and that the OASIS turned out to be evil all along or something, but that didn’t happen, which really stood out for me. rest of it is not great tho.

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rachellrinehart's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

5.0

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bebereads's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

i’m only glad i read this book so i can now know how bad it is? it’s not a crime to like this book, i even found it ironically enjoyable in a way, but if you find yourself uneasy with it just know YOU ARE NOT ALONE, THIS IS BECAUSE IT IS A BAD BOOK. it’s not only so poorly written, it is deeply problematic and unfortunately not aware of itself in any type of way, where that could have been insightful. books like these are often framed as “but it’s just lots of fun!” or “escapism” and etc. but my issue with that is don’t introduce themes into your book unless you are going to address them properly and it’s not like i would trust Ernest Cline to address anything properly (he wrote this book about as well as he could have) but regardless. i don’t even feel like going into all the problems with this story, there’s enough critical analysis about it out there as is, and also i exhausted even thinking about it more than i already have. moving on!

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sp4ceprince's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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