Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One

by Ernest Cline 

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?

(summary from goodreads.com)

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Proof that I occasionally read adult books. Yes, it was for my sibling book group. But it was an adult book! and I read it! Yay me!

And I LOVED it. Seriously loved it. It was like dipping my brain into the 80s of my childhood. Zork! Oh how I loved you! Almost every page I was all "Yes! I remember that! Awesome!" It was so much fun. All it needed was Legends of Zelda and Oregon Trail to make my childhood complete. It took me about 50 pages to get into it, but then I couldn't put it down. Fun world, great characters, awesome story. A place I would love to visit. Long live Zork.

Mom note: As a mother of readers, I also want to make a note to myself (and others if they care) why I would or would not have my children read this book, because honestly, sometimes I forget. This is an ADULT book, so no YA strictures. Violence: a lot of video game violence; Profanity: yes; Sex: brief mention of adult topics, nothing graphic