Not Bad for an Afternoon: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Just because a lot of people like something does not mean it is good. (See: McDonalds food; Game of Thrones books; Big Bang Theory; etc.) That said, Ready Player One is a fun, easy-readying story with some cringey flat spots and occasionally horrendous dialog that will keep you entertained for the few hours it will take you to finish it. I think it will do very well as a movie, because the script writers will be able to even out the low points and punch up the weakest elements (the romantic storyline and dialog are, and I cannot overstate this, spectacularly awful) while keeping the parts of the story that make it compelling.

That the author's second novel resorts to the same first-person trope as the first suggests that he may be out of ideas. Or that he is a hack. Or both. He definitely seems like a hack in this novel, but it succeeds in spite of itself.

Highly recommended for: anyone that played a lot of atari in the 80's; anyone that spent time in front of an arcade cabinet at the local 7-11 on the way home from school in the 80's; anyone who knows the serial number for the original star trek Enterprise; anyone who owned a 20-sided die and prayed for a vorpal sword + 5; anyone who enjoys references to the classic that was the Last Starfighter.