Oh my gosh, maybe it was the fact that I was listening to Ready Player One on audiobook and the narrator was actually talking in my ear, but the main character really, really gets on my nerves. Which is really disappointing, because this is a book I've been wanting to read for a really, really long time. A not-so-distant future where human civilization has used up most of it's resources and has left the earth ravished, where life basically sucks for everyone and the only highlight is the fact that the Oasis, a free-to-play virtual reality game, exists. Of course, with the real world being so terrible (as the narrator clearly states), the Oasis becomes an escape from real life. To call it wildly popular would be a gross understatement. Everyone is on Oasis, you can even go to school with the virtual reality system. The author spends time creating the world, which is refreshing in the sense that... it's kind of plausible for it to exist. Cline talks about the energy crisis and global poverty and a whole mess of other problems that don't seem like the fantastically futuristic elements of science fiction. Instead, they feel real, and right around the corner. So, kudos for world-building. The heart of the plot is the fact that the eccentric billionaire who built the Oasis has died, and has bequeathed all of his wealth and shares in his software/video game company to whoever finds the Easter Egg he has hidden within the game. The main character is an orphan being raised by his aunt, incredibly poor and unloved. The Oasis becomes his escape, something he needs to survive. He plunges into the hunt, seeing it as his only ticket out of his desolate life. 
 The setup is great. The execution is where things start to get iffy. See, the main character is a monologuer in the extreme sense. There's a ton of narration, and after a while it gets to be excessive. The second problem is--I'm just gonna say it--the Oasis developer is obsessed with 80's culture. What does that mean? Well, it means that instead of being a look into the desolate future with all that it doesn't have to offer, we take a trip down memory lane via the main character's pages and pages of rambling about how he knows soooo many different old video games and comic books and whatever else. He thinks he's superior to everyone, and with his vast knowledge, he may not be wrong, but that doesn't mean that it's fun to read. 
 And also, at one point he does this whole build up to how he wished he had been "told the truth sooner" instead of being lied to by adults, but he won't tell you what the "truth" he's referring to is. He goes on for pages. I thought it was going to be that he thought the Oasis was real, and that he's crushed when he realized he can't actually go there. Because, seriously, with augmented reality, what three year old is going to figure out that this stuff that looks like it's right there is fake, all a created world. Wouldn't that make him even angrier at the current state of things, knowing that the world he's been born into is so terrible, and an escape is at his fingertips and yet it's not even real, it's just simulated? What a complex relationship he would form with the game, loving it to the point of resentment, the wish that it were real becoming a painful twist in his gut. But nope, the truth is that God isn't real, and anyone who believes in religion is a big ol' idiot who's lying to themselves. And obviously since he figured it out, he's sooo much smarter than everyone who still deludes themselves. Which, I mean I get why some people don't like religion and don't understand why people believe in God. But whenever someone is this much of a jerk about it, it kinda sets alarm bells off in my head that, wait a minute, they just might be a jerk in general. Which, surprise, he was. Also he may think people who believe in God are idiots, but he came off pretty hypocritical since he basically admits that his own form of religion was the hunt for Halliday's easter egg. 
 [God/religion] was a pleasant fantasy that gave her hope and kept her going. Which was exactly what the hunt was for me. 
 In conclusion, since I wasn't alive in the 80's this book felt like less of a nostalgic trip down memory lane seamlessly blending the old and new, and more like a chauvinistic asshole talking down his nose at me. So yeah, I won't be continuing this.