I chose the audio version of this and Wil Wheaton did a decent job narrating. I think I would have liked reading the book even less. I don't really care for dystopian themes, but I had already watched the movie and liked it and the audio book came highly recommended. I didn't play a lot of video games as a kid, but I did grow up in the 80's, so I got most of the references. The first half of the book dragged on for me, but the second half picked up and raised the rating for me just a bit. ( )

Clairement pas le bouquin à recommander à n'importe qui. Extremement geek, parfois cheesy, mais c'est pour ca que je l'ai apprécié. ( )

Interesting. As a child of the 80s, part of Ready Player One speaks to me. Then there's the part that loves a great story. The book spoke to that part too, but it mostly said, "go away, loser."

My review is heavily influenced by the experience of the audio book, read by Wil Wheaton (of Star Trek: The Next Generation Fame, for those of you who should probably not be reading this). The story had a disjointed narrative. Like numerous 'coming-of-age' stories, this one has a period where we suddenly go from relatively little skill to relatively great skill. Not that I mind, because in this case, it has a parallel to video game levels. But it was worth noting.

The audio:

One of my first audio books while not engaged in cross-country driving. I have to say I've been enjoying Wil Wheaton's reading--he imparts a lot of emotion to general descriptive text, and modifies his voice nicely when reading dialogue. He does a nice job with the ironic tone, too.

Writing doesn't best correspond with audio--but perhaps it would be worse listening. There's several sections with lists, including 80s movies and tv shows, and the top 10 scorers and their scores that is somewhat unsatisfying when read aloud. The text chat between the main character and Artemis was awkward as well, though I could tell Wil was doing his best: "Artemis: blah-blah," "Percival: blah, blah." Again, somewhat unsatisfying, and which makes me think about inexperienced writers.

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I've discovered a couple problems in my listening, and I welcome advice. One, while I can listen while I do things around the house (cook, clean) or physical but not strenuous (walk dogs, rake, bike), after about a hour, my mind starts to wander, and I realize I didn't hear or process anything that was just said. I think I tend to turn it into "background music" after enough time passes. ( )

3.5 ( )

4.5/5 - Dinking a 1/2 a star off of this because of the writing - might have been a full star if I was reading the text and not listening to the audiobook. Wil Wheaton's narration MADE this. It was utterly fantastic. The story was thrilling, adventurous, and fun. ( )