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A review by paperbackparker
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
3.0
3/5 stars from me!
i LOVED the world building in this book, and i loved when we were inside wade’s head. but i feel like this book lacked a lot in regards to characterization, pacing, and diversity.
1) all of the characters fell flat for me. they were all very one-dimensional. the dialogue seemed very forced and unrealistic to me, but that just may also be for personal reasons. i could not stand how artemis was written. she seemed a lot like a prop in wade’s story rather than an actual person.
2) the pacing was very confusing for me at times. i feel like at some points, we would follow wade for every minute of the day, and then we would see him a couple days later with only a sentence to describe what had happened. of course, it may have been written like this for a reason, i just don’t know what that reason is and it really affected how the story impacted me.
3) HOLY CRAP THE DIVERSITY, OR LACK THEREOF, IN THIS BOOK SUCKED. i feel like we go through the whole story knowing it’s not diverse at all and then last minute, the author’s like “oh shit i should make this appealing to people who aren’t white and straight and don’t fit societies standards of beauty!!!!!!!!!!” and he shoved every possible diverse characteristic into one character near the end to save it all. it was incredibly forced and fake and extremely disappointing. i would have much rather had the whole story not be diverse than feel like having diverse identities was a box that needed to be checked off.
overall, i had fun reading this book, but mostly just because of the world it was set in, and its politics. this is definitely not my most favourite book in the world, but i might recommend it for a fun read. now that i’ve read it, i’m excited to go and see what they’ve done w the movie.
i LOVED the world building in this book, and i loved when we were inside wade’s head. but i feel like this book lacked a lot in regards to characterization, pacing, and diversity.
1) all of the characters fell flat for me. they were all very one-dimensional. the dialogue seemed very forced and unrealistic to me, but that just may also be for personal reasons. i could not stand how artemis was written. she seemed a lot like a prop in wade’s story rather than an actual person.
2) the pacing was very confusing for me at times. i feel like at some points, we would follow wade for every minute of the day, and then we would see him a couple days later with only a sentence to describe what had happened. of course, it may have been written like this for a reason, i just don’t know what that reason is and it really affected how the story impacted me.
3) HOLY CRAP THE DIVERSITY, OR LACK THEREOF, IN THIS BOOK SUCKED. i feel like we go through the whole story knowing it’s not diverse at all and then last minute, the author’s like “oh shit i should make this appealing to people who aren’t white and straight and don’t fit societies standards of beauty!!!!!!!!!!” and he shoved every possible diverse characteristic into one character near the end to save it all. it was incredibly forced and fake and extremely disappointing. i would have much rather had the whole story not be diverse than feel like having diverse identities was a box that needed to be checked off.
overall, i had fun reading this book, but mostly just because of the world it was set in, and its politics. this is definitely not my most favourite book in the world, but i might recommend it for a fun read. now that i’ve read it, i’m excited to go and see what they’ve done w the movie.