Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

60 reviews

a_novi's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

For the first time in my life I was actually glad I watched the movie before I read the book. The move adaptation absolutely changed EVERYTHING about the challenges and so many huge details of the story. If I had read this book before the movie came out I would have been FURIOUS in the theater. This book is awesome. The futuristic dystopian concept is fascinating and scarily metaphorical for reality at times. There’s mysteries, puzzles, romance, suspense, and emotion. This is a book that I would read over again to catch even more detail the second time around. Good movie. Even better book. 

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blueacorn1991's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.5


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theaceofpages's review against another edition

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

2.5

Honestly, this book was okay. It was a quick read and although the experience wasn't a bad one, I felt very meh about it. The world was the strongest point by far. With the way the world is crumbling around us it makes a lot of sense that people want to escape into into a virtual one and surround themselves with nostalgia. The concept of the OASIS is a cool one as well. The plot was okay although it didn't always make sense
so much happened because Wade is the main character and main characters are special even when they shouldn't succeed
- it was interesting enough. But I didn't like the characters. Wade was annoying and uninteresting and everyone else existed to serve him. Art3mis was so much better (major spoiler:
And deserved to win so much more
) but ended up being reduced to being an object of Wade's affection.
And as a somewhat related note?: I really don't like how that gotcha  moment about Aech was handled. Very much felt like tokenism since it was revealed and then immediately pushed aside so Wade could keep doing his thing - if you want to do something like this you should ay least deal with it properly


While the reading experience was pleasant enough I didn't actually like this book. I would love to see something more nuanced done with this idea, but I do get why others love it so much.

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jadeyfish's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.0


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icarusandthesun's review against another edition

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adventurous funny 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? It's complicated

5.0

excellent! i haven't had that much fun in a while.
even though i'm a little too young (or too little of a game nerd) to understand most of the niche 80s game references, i still enjoyed them all.
the world—the stacks, the OASIS, etc.—is so incredibly interesting and made my video-game (and reality-hating) heart do flips of joy.

10/10, so much better than the movie.

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lionheart4422's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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giuliana_ferrari's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Ready Player One is the ultimate gamer / geek fantasy. Mix it with the underlying dystopian plot of an dying Earth, a megaevil corporation and the dangers of capitalism, and you would have a great combo that could be amazing. And in its good side, it's a book that is easy to read, and for the people that grew up in the US-based 80s or immersed in its culture after, it is probably a delightful read engineered to light up those dopamine receptacles in your brain that go "I understood that reference!". 

But the book falls short in some major ways. The same audience it is trying to captivate it also entails into a complicated narrative of the importance and overall superiority of white, all-American males, teenage boys that would be bullied for knowing all the dialogues to any nerdy TV show or movie, but in this universe, they become Gods. Any point of contention that could be used to argue important issues - the lack of proper representation of different cultures (except the classic Japanese 'samurais', which is kind of cringy) and races, and discrimination against women gamers - gets lost in the ever increasing list of game, TV shows and movies referenced in the book. 

In the end, Ready Player One tried to be many things at once and it failed in less or higher degrees to several of them. It was still a compelling read, but I feel like this book will be quickly erased from my hard drive - see what I did there? - in the near future. 

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shirarweiss's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had more knowledge and/or excitement about video game history and 80s culture. It took a long time for anything to really happen; there was so much world building- which was necessary to understand this highly detailed world- but it felt like sometimes the plot stopped entirely in favor of a long explanation of the world and its history or a cultural reference. Sometimes time just suddenly jumped in a confusing way. The way Wade talked about women and gender was… uncomfortable. And strange. The book did make me think about the blurred lines between reality and technology, which is fascinating and frightening. 

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rafacolog's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0


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jayjayre's review against another edition

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No
I read this book when the hype first started and it was popular in the sci fi / fantasy recommendations, and I absolutely detested it.

I hate the main character, the plot was horrible, predictable, repetitive. It's not because it's gamified,  I've read litrpg that was enjoyable. This is like a smarmy nerd playing through a game they've mastered while ranting about how great they are and winning despite being the most unlikeable mess of a person. I want to throw tomatoes at the main character while he slips on banana peels every day.

I cannot imagine anyone but young boys who want to read a messy power-fantasy enjoying this, the misogyny and other forms of bigotry baked in by the author's awful views gives this a hateful undercurrent that repeatedly pulled me out of the story, even when I tried to go along with it just to finish the book.

This is the type of main character and story I will dislike to my dying days. I sincerely regret spending time reading this book.

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