REVIEW: Ready Player One

Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline

OMG.....as a child of the 80s, this book.....I can't even describe how happy this book made me. It brought back so many memories.

.....the six months I was The Coolest Kid in the neighborhood because I was the only one with the newest thing....an Atari gaming system. We called it "TV Game'' because the console hooked into the back of my family's television with prongs. Some of the games we all played together during those early years of video games are still some of my favorites -- Centipede, PacMan, Space Invaders, Asteroids.....   I even had the infamous ET game (and I can understand why they buried thousands of copies in the desert....it really was a horrible game ha ha)

.....The day I played Asteroids all day and beat the game. All the way to the credits at the end....which had a screen that told me to take a photo of the credits screen and send it in for a prize. I grabbed my camera and took several photos. When I took the film in to be developed, none of the photos came out. The flicker of the TV made them all fuzzy and horrible....so I never found out what you got if you mailed in the photo. Did anybody actually do this?? I'm still curious all these decades later.

.....Saturday afternoons laying down on my parents horrid 1970s puke green shag rug watching Johnny Sokko on television. Or hurrying home from school so I could watch G-force at 4 pm.

.....and reminders of video game titles, television shows, movies and other parts of my childhood that I haven't heard mentioned in decades.

I loved every moment of this book!

I listened to the audio book version of this story, enjoying the ending fight sequences while cooking Thanksgiving dinner. It was the perfect accompaniment to my holiday prep. Read by Wil Wheaton, the audio from Penguin Random House is almost 16 hours long. Wheaton was the perfect choice for narrator. He gave an outstanding performance.

And now that I've enjoyed the book....I can finally watch the movie! :)

Anybody who grew up in the 80s or who loves classic video and arcade games, manga, comic books, etc....will love this story. The author is currently writing a sequel....I will definitely be reading it! He also has another similar book called Armada (published in 2015) that mixes video game adventures with an alien invasion. I'm waiting in the queue for the audio book on my local library's digital site. :)

I read a lot of books....and I can honestly say that this story was the most enjoyable adventure I've come across in years. Definitely earned full stars from me. I own the print book.....it's going on my keeper shelf. :)