Ready Player Two: A Huge Disappointment Of A Sequel

As you may know I am attempting to read 52 books this year, one for every week. I am still a bit behind, but slowly catching up! Today I want to share with you book 15 of 52: Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline.

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Now for those of you who are not aware, Ready Player Two is the sequel to, you guessed it: Ready Player One. Now part one was amazing, one of the best books I have ever read. And that always makes me nervous to read part two: will it live up to the first part? Can it hold my interest?

The Story

Now if you haven't read Ready Player One (or seen the movie) then in short there is a virtual game world called the Oasis. Our protagonist Wade Watts is a disadvantaged child living in the slums in a world that is dealing with the consequences of climate change and overpopulation. To get away from his worries he spends a lot of time in the virtual world of Oasis, just like many others. In the first book Watts manages to finish a quest set by the owner of Oasis who passed away. Watts becomes the new owner with his 4 friends.

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Now this is where we enter the story for Ready Player Two. Wade Watts has become a multi bilionnaire and owner of Oasis, but his personal life is falling apart. His girlfriend Samantha dumps him when she finds out he has been using and promoting a new sort of gaming headset: one that will take over the brain of those using it. He also doesn't really have friends and spends most of his time totally immersed in Oasis with his new ONI headset.

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Then comes the plot twist: a new quest is opened up and one with far fetching consequences as millions of people logged into the Oasis could lose their life if Wade does not succeed in his quest. What follows in a reunion of the original five friends (including the ex girlfriend), immense time pressure and quests that are bursting at the seams with references to popular culture. How about an entire virtual planet dedicated to Prince?

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The Review

I don't think I can express enough what a disappointment this book was after the amazing first part. Everything that the first part had: suspense, super well made characters, a suprising story line etc. Well all those things are not there for part two. First of all the characters are pretty flat. I actually grew pretty annoyed with Wade in this book. But the main issue for me was with the storyline, as it seemed very forced at times and got lost in so many references to obscure popular culture references I got lost quite regularly.

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So my advice? If you haven't done so: read Ready Player One and watch the movie. It is one of those few times where the movie is as good as the book. And stay far, far away from Ready Player Two. Now let's just hope the writer never turns to a part three....