Ready Player One by Ernest Cline! I won’t pretend this is the best written novel of last year and that the book couldn’t stand to be 50 pages shorter (although its 368 page length isn’t bad at all), but it’s definitely more fun than many books I’ll choose will be and the perfect book for Valentine’s Day.
The Plot: In the near future, the world is a not-so-great place (expiring resources + drastic overpopulation + global warming and mass poverty=not-so-rosy future) but it doesn’t seem to bother most of humanity as they escape into a vast virtual reality game called The Oasis. The story is centered around the uber-geek who designed The Oasis dying and leaving his entire 240-billion dollar fortune to whoever can find his “hidden egg” (in a nod to old-school video game cheat codes) inside The Oasis. The hero of the story is the first to find a series of “keys” that unlock challenges you must complete to get closer in the quest for the egg. If it all sounds like a virtual reality Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the tribute is intentional as are a thousand more that take place during the book as the protagonist tries to finish a series of 80’s inspired challenges (play the perfect game of Joust or Pac-Man, relive the movie War Games line by line without messing up the dialogue, etc.) before a villainous corporation that will do anything to win—-including killing the top players in the real world as well as the game itself—-can off him.
The Reason: Virtual reality game novel that rewards you for being a nerd? Non-stop 80’s and geek references? A murderous corporate villain that is a little too realistic for comfort? Now I realize that all this might seem like a poor selection for the day before Valentine’s Day, but in actuality it’s the perfect selection for the month of love. This book has love dripping off every page as the hero geeks out over a thousand pop cultural items from Blade Runner to a Rush CD cover, as well as a rival player who’s a geek dream girl. His unabashed passion for this stuff almost made me feel the 80’s were a better decade for entertainment than it truly was. As an added bonus, this is one of the few books that can claim to have a compelling plot about pop cultural obsessions, but we all share them, so why pretend they’re really just for nerds anymore? [If you’ve never seen a movie you could watch ten times, then I feel sorry for you.]
And you don’t even have to share the specific obsessions to really enjoy this book. Lord knows I don’t, as I think the 80’s are better off forgotten and don’t usually go for “the nostalgia factor,” but to me the book goes beyond nostalgia to really capture the way something you love can make life more bearable, whether it’s the hero’s favorite movie or his would-be girlfriend/rival. And if that isn’t appropriate for Valentine’s Day, I don’t know what is.
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