“My friend Kira always said that life is like an extremely difficult, horribly unbalanced videogame. When you’re born, you’re given a randomly generated character, with a randomly determined name, race, face, and social class. Your body is your avatar, and you spawn in a random geographic location, at a random moment in human history, surrounded by a random group of people, and then you have to try to survive for as long as you can. Sometimes the game might seem easy. Even fun. Other times it might be so difficult you want to give up and quit. But unfortunately, in this game you only get one life. When your body grows too hungry or thirsty or ill or injured or old, your health meter runs out and then it’s Game Over. Some people play the game for a hundred years without ever figuring out that it’s a game, or that there is a way to win it. To win the videogame of life you just have to try to make the experience of being forced to play it as pleasant as possible, for yourself, and for all of the other players you encounter in your travels. Kira says that if everyone played the game to win, it’d be a lot more fun for everyone.” – 3.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: AI technology, conscious avatars, riddles, fancy headsets, vintage video games, a few more 80’s references, the OASIS, and a new hunt.

An unexpected quest. Two worlds at stake. Are you ready?

Days after winning Oasis founder James Halliday’s contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything.

Hidden within Halliday’s vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the Oasis a thousand times more wondrous—and addictive—than even Wade dreamed possible.

With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest—a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize.

And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who’ll kill millions to get what he wants.

Wade’s life and the future of the Oasis are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.

Lovingly nostalgic and wildly original as only Ernest Cline could conceive it, Ready Player Two takes us on another imaginative, fun, action-packed adventure through his beloved virtual universe, and jolts us thrillingly into the future once again.

Oh how disappointing this was. 

I fell in love with the first book and was amazed at the world-building and creativity… but this sequel just wasn’t as good. I truly believe reading this sequel ruins what was created in the first book.

The story gets picked right after Wade wins the contest in the first book. When I first started this, I was curious to see what the author was going to create next but unfortunately, I was quickly disappointed. To be honest, this sequel was completely unnecessary and added nothing to the story. 

There was also a hunt in this book (the “Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul.”), but it felt forced and it wasn’t even close to being as good as the first one. Still, it was probably my favorite thing about the book. The pacing was very slow and I didn’t like how this book changes your view on Halliday. He went from a sweet, introverted nerd to a psychopathic stalker! As you can imagine, this revelation makes you think differently about the first book, which I did not appreciate.

Of course, I still liked the 80’s references and movies, but it wasn’t enough to take this book from a 3-star rating to a 4-star rating. It was just okay, with a few extra points for the retro references and movies – that Prince World was a little too weird for me though.

I wish I could delete this book from my mind.