this book was bad and i did expect that, but i did not expect all the reasons HOW it was bad

every classic ernest cline move is here. paragraphs and paragraphs of lists of media. ten pages describing how to play a video game. constant media franchise namedrops that are fully out of place. wade being a dipshit asshole and coming SO close to some kind of self-awareness, and then immediately wholly missing the point. it is MADDENING.

but then, with that...

Spoiler

the thing that is so, so baffling about this book and the fact that it exists is that almost the entirety of the plot is based on the fact that... ernest cline read legitimate cricitism of his book. he is literally trying to engage with criticism of the original ready player one and not only that, but to listen and to try to make things better. it is JARRING.

i want to be clear: this is not praise. ernest cline is not a good enough writer to do the things he tries to do, and in many cases made things worse. but the fact that he is literally trying floored me.

the entire plot being about kira and trying to (badly) add depth to her character and acknowledge that halliday was sexist and a genuine asshole, even though kira is literally basically a damsel in distress the entire book? aech getting to be more of a character and doing more things but then ernest cline is still racist and doesn't know how not to be?? introducing a trans character who is never misgendered and gets to help save the day but was nastily revealed to be trans in a complete invasion of privacy by wade, our HERO??? wade and artemis break up for LEGITIMATE REASONS and then mainly get back together because wade knows his john hughes trivia?! the characters finally stop having true infinite encyclopedic knowledge of all media and actually don't know things, but then everyone is STILL spouting off pages and pages of unreadable media references?!

it's a lot. it's so maddening. he clearly saw takes he hated (hence his CLEARLY self-insert ideal of wade killing his hecklers online) but he saw a lot more that he was attempting, badly, to take to heart. the issue i think comes in where he wants to listen to criticism but not actually do the thinking behind it and change his thought process or worldview. hence how each change he tries to make somehow ends up worse. he wants to have his cake and eat it too!! he understands the critique but with no depth behind the understanding. his talk at the beginning on his worldview of the OASIS vs artemis's really just sums it up. it's this, and it's that. it's everything, and it's nothing. like, my god.

also wade is bisexual now i guess which was. something else. was doubting my read on that weird transphobic segment of him spying on that girl and then talking about sexuality where it seemed like it was implied, until i got to the part where aech calls him out on thinking prince is sexy and he tells her she's right. i had to stop reading because i was so thrown. weirdly kind of wish we saw more of this specifically with him talking to aech but knowing mr cline's writing it was certain to have been even more of a disaster.

the ending was not good. the ethics of ALL OF IT. my god. bro. the ethics of the oasis in general are already a huge question but by the end...........

i feel like i need to sleep for four days. sorry everyone i am co-reading books with for reading this instead of our books. this was very bad.