{"id":4336,"date":"2025-08-06T15:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4336"},"modified":"2025-09-10T20:36:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T02:36:54","slug":"book-ready-player-one-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/06\/book-ready-player-one-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Ready Player One (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ready<\/p>\n

Ready Player One
<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2011
Author: Ernest Cline
Length: 480 pages<\/p>\n

When Ready Player One<\/i> came out over a decade ago, I couldn\u2019t wait to read it. A book full of pop culture references was right up my alley, and I enjoyed the connections and clues that fueled the Willy Wonka<\/i>-style Easter egg hunt. I didn\u2019t think they\u2019d ever be able to make a movie out of it because of all the licenses they\u2019d have to work with, but Steven Spielberg pulled it off in 2018<\/a>. I\u2019ve long held that this is one of my favorite books, so I decided to re-read it so I\u2019d have a better memory of its events when I jumped into its sequel.<\/p>\n

My only qualm that arose with this read-through was with the main character. There is some empathy for Wade\u2019s situation, but he often comes across as arrogant and obnoxious. When the consequences of his actions come around to affect his life, it\u2019s difficult to feel sorry for him when his sexism and other social awkwardness faults got him in this situation. Sure, he takes the self-sacrifice route to redeem himself, but there doesn\u2019t seem to be a lot of character growth other than to admit that he is wrong and others are right.<\/p>\n

For the most part, I think Ready Player One<\/i> still holds up. I had forgotten the specifics for some of the keys and gates, so re-reading the eureka moments felt fresh. Even remembering some twists made the foreshadowing pop even more than it had when I read it the first time. It\u2019s a fun book and still has something to say about maintaining a free and open online space\u2014something that hasn\u2019t aged as well in the years since it was originally written.<\/p>\n

A fun pop culture mash-up with a slightly annoying main character, I give Ready Player One<\/i> 4.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ready Player OneYear: 2011Author: Ernest ClineLength: 480 pages When Ready Player One came out over a decade ago, I couldn\u2019t wait to read it. A book full of pop culture references was right up my alley, and I enjoyed the connections and clues that fueled the Willy Wonka-style Easter egg hunt. I didn\u2019t think they\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,54],"tags":[50,55,57,4173,566,58,2018,8,1372,3758],"class_list":["post-4336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-5-stars","category-book","tag-50","tag-book","tag-ernest-cline","tag-nerdy","tag-pop-culture","tag-ready-player-one","tag-references","tag-review","tag-video-games","tag-willy-wonka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4471,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4336\/revisions\/4471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}