Ready Player One: A Book Review

Ready Player One: A Book Review

AUTHOR: Ernest Cline

RELEASED DATE: August 16, 2011

SERIES: Stand-alone

PAGES: Approx. 374 pages

RATING: 5/5 STARS

Ready Player One is – without a doubt – every geek/fangirl’s dream come true.

I first heard about this novel on YouTube, from several book reviewers that couldn’t stop talking about how fantastic this novel was and how everyone (EVERYONE) needed to read it. This was several years ago, when the novel first debuted.

Now, almost 4 years after its release, I finally got the chance to sit down and read my paperback copy.

Long story short:

HOLY-CRAP-THIS-IS-AMAZING-WHY-WAS-I-NOT-AWARE-THAT-THIS-BOOK-EXISTED-AND-WHY-WASN’T-I-TOLD-TO-READ-THIS-AS-SOON-AS-IT-CAME-OUT-BECAUSE-DEAR-GOD-I-LOVE-THIS-BOOK.

Ernest Cline takes us to the future, to the year 2044. There’s an energy crisis encircling the globe. Overpopulation has forced humanity to find new ways to live and coexist on the remaining space the Earth has; schools are crowded, understaffed, underfunded; food shortages are common, as are blackouts; the whole of society and government has collapsed on itself, rendered useless. It’s everyman for himself when it comes to jobs, money, food, shelter and other necessities.

To escape this ugly reality, people turn to the OASIS, a virtual utopia that started out as – of all things – a video game, more specifically an MMO.

In OASIS, you can be anything and everything you ever wanted to be: a wizard, a warrior, a king, a magical creature, a fighter from your favorite video game, a famous TV character, male, female, White, Hispanic, an alien, a cowboy – there are literally no limitations to the possibilities. In OASIS, people can even build lives for themselves, by setting up a store, posting popular blogs and/or videos, living out a fantasy of role-playing in their favorite video games and/or TV shows and movies, and there are thousands of worlds and planets and galaxies where technology and magic can function, where the worlds of Star Trek and Star Wars are next door to each other, where people can meet and befriend others of like-minded interests, where people can fall in love and marry – all without having to ever meet in person or leave your home. The best part? It’s completely free.

The 5th Wave Book Review (Spoilers)

The 5^th Wave Book Review 

(SPOILERS ALERT!)

AUTHOR: Rick Yancey

RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2013

SERIES: The 5^th Wave Series (Book 1)

PAGES: Approx. 496 pages

RATING: 5/5 STARS

I’ve never been much of a science-fiction/adventure fan when it came to novels. Possibly because there are few books in the YA section that actually take place in outer space or feature extraterrestrial creatures and unknown planets. If there were any novels in the past 3 years that featured any of it, I wouldn’t know, because science-fiction novels rarely achieve mainstream popularity, especially when most readers are prone to fantasy, horror, action/adventure and romance. It’s kind of depressing because science-fiction/adventure is one of my favorite TV and movie genres to watch: I love seeing all kinds of aliens, planets, spaceships and how ordinary people react to the extraordinary, seeing their reactions when they face a variety of aliens that they never would’ve thought existed and most certainly weren’t like E.T the Extraterrestrial.

That being said, when I received a paperback version of The 5^th Wave as a Christmas gift, my happiness would’ve registered a 10 on the Richter scale because I have been dying to read this novel since I’ve first learned about it on YouTube and seen the movie trailers. In fact, once the Christmas season was over and I no longer fretted over wrapping overdue presents or spending time with friends and family, I sat down with a hot mug of cocoa and started reading.