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A review by ninetalevixen
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
3.0
Buddy read with Sierra, Raghdad & Eva Luna! ❤
3.5 stars.
This is another book that had such a promising premise and beginning, but ultimately fell short — I'd place the slump around the time (very heterosexual and tropey) romance enters into the story. In the beginning I was enjoying the adventure-y and game-y and friendship parts, but then I started rolling my eyes a lot.
I know this was published in 2011 and it was pretty much the first of its kind (LitRPG), but I quickly got tired of the constant dumbing-down of technological jargon (I'm pretty sure most people can guess what "XP points" are) and over-explanation of pop culture references; it seemed to talk down to the readers, and I didn't like that. And I'm really not impressed with the ableist and transphobic jokes — when he's verifying that Art3mis is a woman, Wade specifically asks if she's "a human female who has never had a sex-change operation"; in another scene he literally assumes a person's gender even though all he can see is that they're "morbidly obese" — and the exotification of Japanese culture, especially considering how much Japan has contributed to gamer and geek culture.
Ultimately the story is an interesting one, with great pacing and progression, but there were too many problematic aspects for me to just enjoy it.
3.5 stars.
This is another book that had such a promising premise and beginning, but ultimately fell short — I'd place the slump around the time (very heterosexual and tropey) romance enters into the story. In the beginning I was enjoying the adventure-y and game-y and friendship parts, but then I started rolling my eyes a lot.
I know this was published in 2011 and it was pretty much the first of its kind (LitRPG), but I quickly got tired of the constant dumbing-down of technological jargon (I'm pretty sure most people can guess what "XP points" are) and over-explanation of pop culture references; it seemed to talk down to the readers, and I didn't like that. And I'm really not impressed with the ableist and transphobic jokes — when he's verifying that Art3mis is a woman, Wade specifically asks if she's "a human female who has never had a sex-change operation"; in another scene he literally assumes a person's gender even though all he can see is that they're "morbidly obese" — and the exotification of Japanese culture, especially considering how much Japan has contributed to gamer and geek culture.
Ultimately the story is an interesting one, with great pacing and progression, but there were too many problematic aspects for me to just enjoy it.