Book Review: Ready Player One

 

Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Category: Science Fiction; Dystopia; Young Adult
Length: 374 pages
My Rating: 6 – Good, recommend with reservations

From Goodreads.com: It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune--and remarkable power--to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved--that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt--among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life--and love--in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?

My Thoughts

A fellow book enthusiast who I know only through an online message board recommended this book. She loved it, and claimed all of the people she has recommended it to have raved about it, as well. I do not think it is quite rave-worthy, but do think it was fun-reading.

This book is like Twilight for gamers. The writing isn't particularly good, and the character development isn't very good either. Like with Bella, the reader can easily pretend they are Wade because there is really nothing to him. Despite the shallow character development, I was rooting for Wade throughout the entire novel, even though the reader is told he wins.

I think it was a really interesting idea to write a book around 80s and 90s pop culture using a video game. And I thought the worlds, both real and virtual, that Mr. Cline created were interesting, too. I thought the stereotypical gamer was over-presented, though, and, at times, Mr. Cline detailed too much for an audience that is supposed to be somewhat knowledgeable about the history of gaming. 

I didn't particularly care for Art3mis. I liked her in the beginning, but could take or leave her by the end. And Wade's obsession with her from the very beginning of the novel seemed forced, like Mr. Cline decided their had to be a romance. It was not natural for me, and I didn't care whether or not they got together in the end.

All in all, I had fun reading this book, and am glad I did.

Book Review: Insurgent

 

Title: Insurgent
Author: Veronica Roth
Category: Young Adult; Dystopia
Length: 525 pages
My Rating: 6 – Good, recommend with reservations

From Goodreads.com: One choice can transform you--or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves--and herself--while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable--and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

"New York Times" bestselling author Veronica Roth's much-anticipated second book of the dystopian "Divergent" series is another intoxicating thrill ride of a story, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreaks, romance, and powerful insights about human nature.

My Thoughts

I read Divergent (the first in the series) last  year, only to be reminded that I hate starting an incomplete series—I made this mistake with The Hunger Games as well. So I told myself that I wouldn't read the next book until right before the final book was going to be published (October 2013). I wasn't very successful with the waiting. Oh, well.

So far, both Divergent and Insurgent have been easy, quick, and entertaining reads. This is all I hoped for when I picked them up so, from that aspect, I have not been disappointed. I do not think Insurgent was written quite as well as Divergent, and I might even consider going so far as to accuse Ms. Roth of writing it with a screenplay in mind. Nevertheless, the book was quick-paced and I did want to finish it.

This may seem silly, but my favorite thing about this series is that there is no love triangle. I love that. Yes, the two lovebirds frustrated the hell out of me at times, but I am glad there is no third love interest in the mix.  

Tris annoys me a lot. Her pig-headed, impulsiveness had me rolling my eyes more than once. Her type of courage—the "I think I can save everyone by doing something completely stupid" kind—is not admirable to me. A lot of the time I just felt like she was trying too hard to be tough, and it got old.

I was really unimpressed by the ending. It was not a big reveal, nor was it shocking. Actually, it was very anti-climactic for me. And, while I will be reading the third book, I am not anxious about its publication like I was when I finished Divergent.

Book Review: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

Title: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
Author: Louise Murphy
Category: Fairytales/Retellings; Holocaust; Historical Fiction
Length: 320 pages
My Rating:  8 – Excellent

From Goodreads: In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel." They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called "witch" by the nearby villagers. Magda is determined to save them, even as a German officer arrives in the village with his own plans for the children.

Combining classic themes of fairy tales and war literature, Louise Murphy’s haunting novel of journey and survival, of redemption and memory, powerfully depicts how war is experienced by families and especially by children. The True Story of Hansel and Gretal tells a resonant, riveting story.

My Thoughts

I'm starting my journal late but want to include all of my 2013 reading and onwards, so I am going back to the books I read at the beginning of the year. As it is the middle of February now, it will be difficult for me to recall all that I felt while reading this book in the beginning of January, but I'm going to give it a go.

I gave this book an eight rating ("Excellent"), which means that I really enjoyed reading it but I'm not intent on re-reading it again in the future. I am a huge fan of non-fiction Holocaust literature, but The True Story of Hansel and Gretel is one of the best fictional Holocaust books (along with Mila 18 by Leon Uris) I have ever read. Louise Murphy held nothing back, something many fictional Holocaust writers tend to do, and I admire and appreciate her for writing candidly about the hard stuff.

I read this book with The Cackling Hens—my in real life book club. The book gave us plenty to discuss and all members enjoyed reading it.

I really enjoyed Murphy's re-telling of Hansel and Gretel and thought she did an effective job overall. I do feel she was stretching a couple of times while trying to fit in all of the elements of the fairy tale, but nothing that turned me off of the book.

I was really hoping the children's real names would be revealed at the end of this book and, at the time of finishing, remember being disappointed that they weren't. Now, though, I'm okay with it and think it sweetens the new beginning the children and their father were starting together. It almost makes them real and that this was an intimate moment where they could begin their lives again privately.