This book is a Buzzfeed 80s trivia list dressed up as a Hero's Journey. Elon Musk would think this book is like, really cool and Wade is so 1337 for calling the baddie's lair "Sux0rz Central" (he really says this, out loud, to another human person. although to be fair they are on the internet when he does so). I think, in order to know everything you need to know about this book, you can look at Ernest Cline's weird poem (link) and remember a very specific time on the Internet when the incel movement was born.

Ready Player One attempts to be a very nostalgia-laden trip down memory lane, going over our favorite 80s and 90s pop culture moments, but the moment that it actually captures is edgelord culture. Wade is just so cool on the internet. He has an internet girlfriend (crush) and she's like, so hot and cool and wears combat boots and sunglasses. He knows everything there is to know about 80s and 90s nerd pop culture (except anything written by or about a woman, because obviously they are not 1337 enough to understand science fiction, they are ahem "mono-syllabic cock-hungry nymphos" according to the author in the above-mentioned weird poem). Wade is so special with all this knowledge and he figures out all the clues so fast because he is the Expert on obscure 80s video games and doesn't have to ask anyone else for help because he is The Best Gamer. Side characters are flat and their actions are inexplicable, or their actions are explicable if you think to yourself "what kind of girl would Elon Musk have been into in 2011?" or "how could someone as vain, self-involved, and insufferable as Wade Watts have a best friend without being threatened by them? OH! I know. they can live on the internet, and when he finally meets them his BFF is actually a 'fat black chick' who is also a lesbian, and the examination of why a woman would feel safer on the internet as a white man would be FAR too complicated and look too deeply at Wade's own actions or the actions of gamers like him so we'll just ignore it." The world isn't particularly well-built; it's scaffolded together by 80s movie references and thankfully we don't have to go there too often so we don't have to worry about how apparently almost all culture in the entire world stopped in 2011 (when the book was written) and we are all stuck making the same tired-ass references because nothing new has been created since then.

Every minute of reading this book was like being on the internet in 2007, surrounded by mostly men who wanted you to prove your nerdy bonafides with a pop quiz. Maybe, for some people, that's cool and fun, but I actually had to live my life in 2007 and couldn't wear nerdy t-shirts to school for fear of being cornered by a guy in a fedora and a dirty t-shirt who smelled bad and didn't think I was smart enough to wear a Power Rangers shirt because the Pink Ranger is dumb. He would lean way, way into my personal space and tell me shit I already knew about Halo or LOTR and he couldn't possibly imagine that I wouldn't like the Dresden Files. Men like Wade Watts grow up to be Elon Musk unless someone intervenes and explains to them that women are, in fact, also people. Even the cock-hungry nymphos. Really.

0/10, would not recommend.