Imagine that it's the end of the world and video games are your only hope. Now you’re in the world of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline! The story follows Wade, a regular kid who partially lives in a virtual reality video game tournament, called The Oasis, which he wants to eventually win ownership of. In order to do so, he has to pass challenging puzzles and riddles and defeat a cheating villain. This book is fun because it includes video games that we play in the real world. For example, Minecraft, Pac Man, text adventure worlds, Overwatch, Adventure, Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac-Man, The Empire Strikes Back, Table Tennis for Two, Q*bert, Tempest, Galaga, Centipede, the infamous E.T. game, Space Invaders, and Defender. The best part is that you can be any character from these movies, like The Shining, Back to the Future, The Iron Giant, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park, Adventures of Tintin, Alien, Star Wars, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You can become anything in The Oasis.

Ready Player One makes deep commentary about the world. First of all, it is a fact that as more people are born in the world, the more resources we need to stay alive. Second of all, we don't have an infinite amount of resources, as is the case in Ready Player One where many have given up because of the scarce resources. Eventually, we could run out of resources here on earth and will have to live in virtual worlds where the resources are infinite, just as in the virtual world of Cline’s book. Furthermore, the book also deals with the problem of poverty. Cline shows us people that have to live in trailers. These are stacked on top of each other which gets the name for the specific area “stacks”.

The book relates to all sorts of books, movies, TV shows, and music, especially the ones within the story that I mentioned above. For example, when a character finishes a challenge they are given a hint about where the next challenge might be, and the references in the book help the reader become part of the guessing game of what challenge awaits Wade. They aren’t just random references because they tie into Wade’s story and the themes that the book explores. These themes are adventure, puzzles, and history.

Moreover, this book also has depth. Cline teaches the readers that if they take care of our planet, then we will all succeed in saving not just the planet but each other as well. Cline writes, “After all, the people of planet Earth had other concerns. The ongoing energy crisis. Catastrophic climate change. Widespread famine, poverty, and disease. Half a dozen wars. All these problems stem from our planet’s limited resources, which we could fix if we all worked together. This is the ultimate lesson of this amazing book.”

Lastly, Ready Player One has more strengths than it has weaknesses, and so I recommend this book. What’s great about the book is that it has action and suspense. I recommend this book to people who enjoy reading books by Ernest Cline. And, people who are nerds and gamers. Overall, reading this book was fun to read. I could read this book non-stop.

I rate this book ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐★★★ out of 8 IB Stars