If you love any of the following, you need to read this book: 
 - Video games 
 - Science Fiction, particularly classic sci-fi movies/books 
 - The 80s, especially the parts of the 80s that involve video games and sci-fi 
 Also you could add to the list: well-fleshed-out characters which experience real moments of love, joy, death and loss, and the insecurities of adolescence. I'm of the opinion that if you don't care about the characters in a story, no matter how exciting the events may be, it's not really a great book. I cared about these characters. Don't get me wrong, the plot is engaging and the action is exciting, but the characters make or break a story. 
 The interesting thing about this book is that in one sense it treads very familiar ground. Most of this has been done before by The Last Starfighter, Ender's Game, The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, and on and on. The clever thing about this book is that it embraces all of those things as part of the story! In the book, all of those pieces of entertainment exist, and were created as a reaction to the events unfolding in the narrative. It's very meta. 
 For the entire book I was expecting a huge twist at the end. And there is a twist at the end, but it's not what I expected... it kind of replaces the expected standard sci-fi "we beat up the aliens" ending with a slightly different, but still quite familiar, standard sci-fi ending. I found the ending satisfying, if not shocking like I expected. But it is clear that this book was intentionally left WIDE OPEN for a sequel or three. There are characters introduced that are never used to full potential, and the mystery is never really solved to the protagonist's satisfaction. 
 There are more questions left to answer, and I can't help but think that in a year or two we're going to see the book that will take us just enough closer to the real truth that we'll be primed to read a third book in the series. 
 And we will read it! Because this one is just that good.