Ready Player One

I read a lot of kids' books, but I sometimes also take the time to read an adult book. And every once in awhile, I read one that I think our blog followers may enjoy and I just have to share. From Ernest Cline, the creator of the movie Fanboys, comes the novel Ready Player One.

It's 2044. Wade Watts (AKA Parzival) is 18 when he becomes a multi-billionaire. James Halliday, the creator of the Oasis, the virtual reality world where most people spend most of their time, died and left a will: whoever is the first to find his "Easter egg" in the Oasis will win his entire fortune. Halliday, who was born in the 1970s, had an obsessive nostalgia for everything 80s: video games, movies, music, TV, books, etc. So Wade Watts also develops this obsession. After years of searching, it finally pays off but not without an abundance of real and virtual life-threatening danger. (Don't worry, I didn't give away the ending by telling you that Wade is the winner; he tells you that at the very beginning of the book).

Between the references to all the things I loved about the 80s (and many things I never knew about), and the fast, exciting pace of the story, I could not put it down!