The world in 2045 is a dystopian hell. But the virtual OASIS created by Halliday and his estranged bestfriend Morrow is a wonderful utopia. You can pretend to be whoever you want to be, you don’t even have to look like yourself, sound like yourself and you can get married and never even be on the same continent with your significant other. In the real world, Wade Watts is living in complete poverty, he sleeps in his aunts trailer after his mother OD’d and died. His only real-life friend is a 70-yo lady who lives below him. Mind you, they live in the “Stacks” which is basically trailers stacked upon each other rising into the sky. But in the OASIS, he’s Parzival who is basically a low level “wimpazoid” that skyrockets to fame after he finds the 1st key and enters the 1st gate of the massive contest to win $240 billion left by one of the creators after his death.

Competition against the antagonists in the book gets fierce and downright dirty and it’s a race to survive. Wade meets some friends along the way although they were all competing against each other. Wade has so much integrity, bravery and compassion for others despite his own traumatic upbringing. He can be cunning, intelligence and perseverance as well. This character is so very relatable and likeable even if you couldn’t imagine plugging in 24/7 to a virtual world. I just absolutely adored him and his friends.

The cons of the book: the boring first 5 chapter of straight technology dumping and pacing can sometimes be really fast while other times slow. But when the action is going, it’s fast paced with many twists making it difficult to put the book down. The ending was undeniably satisfying. I am not a big 80s fan so knew nothing but that didn’t stop me from loving this book! Cline always loops back around and answers all of my questions. What a fun and exciting book!