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theespressoedition's review
adventurous
hopeful
fast-paced
- 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
This was so much fun!
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!
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!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture, Death, and Violence
Minor: Racism and Homophobia
aqtbenz's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
fast-paced
- 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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Murder
theleppy's review
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- 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
** spoiler alert ** Warning: I'm going to flirt the spoiler line here but it's mostly without spoilers.
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
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
Content Warnings
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
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
- 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
Wow I did not like this. I feel like waaaay too much was stuffed into such a short books. This book had 7 quests, all of which were solved without a lot of actual puzzle solving as people just magically knew the answer. The characters didn't really grow either, and Aech and Shoto were didn't develop at all. My biggest problem with this one was just how much this book relied on nostalgia. I do not know much about 80s tv and video games, but I still really enjoyed the first book because the quests and characters were so interesting. This one spent a lot of time on the nostalgia factor and I was just bored and confused.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Car accident, Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, and Medical content
nytephoenyx's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
tense
medium-paced
- 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
Hey y’all. This review is going to be a spoilers haven. There are so many things that are specific and spoilers that disappointed me and I want to talk about… so this is your warning. If you haven’t already read Ready Player Two and especially if you haven’t read Ready Player One…. this is your last chance. Stay clear of this review if you don’t want spoilers!!!
…
And maybe, maybe this makes the book more palatable for non-gamers, non-nerds, non-pop-culture-aficionados. But in doing this, Cline has ostracized his original target audience, including me. This grandstanding of information is painfully boring to read, and in my opinion, only served as a platform for the author to prove exactly how clever he is. And I am not impressed. Especially as Wade seems have lost most of his pop culture knowledge when it really matters. In my opinion, Wade Watts is no longer a hero worth rooting for. And the book got boring from there.
For the rest of the book, I think it would be easiest if I just made a bullet list of the various things that I was disappointed by, didn’t believe, or just plain disliked.
- 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?
Okay okay.
There were some cool concepts in this book as well. Cline introduced a lot of things that I hoped would become significant. The Low Five! VR Tech! Digital Afterlife! The dying earth! All these things were substantial and interesting. They were also all used as tools to drive Samantha and Wade’s love story, and the quest in the game. Side thoughts. Throwaways. And considering all the time Cline spent overexplaining Wade’s motivations, certain popular culture references (I really did not need to know what 42 was significant. I know. And not knowing wouldn’t’ve hurt the readers), and how the tech works… he had room that could have been used for better character or world development.
I’m going to recommend a hard pass on Ready Player Two… and generally Cline’s properties other than Ready Player One itself. The minority rep was nice, the trans rep was nice, but it was not used particularly well (pushing the white man’s agenda, yay!). Even though the first book was flawed, it made up for it by being creative, immersive, and having a generally well-rounded underdog hero. There are not redeeming factors like this in Ready Player Two.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, and Stalking
Moderate: Grief and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Cancer, Death of parent, and Sexual content
hillarydanielle's review
adventurous
emotional
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
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, and Stalking
Moderate: Death, Sexism, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Drug abuse and Drug use
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