Ready Player Two by Ernest ClineMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Well, I will give Ernest Cline this—he has one hell of an imagination. And while I’ve now read Ready Player One and Ready Player Two, I am still not fully onboard the Cline fan club train. Yes, his references to 80s pop culture, particularly the obscure ones, did make me feel like I was part of the “cool-kid” crowd, but equally his video game references made me feel very, very old. Therein lies the problem folks—I have no idea who the target audience for this book might be. It reads too mature to be considered adolescent lit, and I have a difficult time believing Cline would write for readers on whom so much meaning would be lost anyway. By that same token, I believe the more intellectual crowd, regardless of age, would feel that much of the content (seriously, Queen Itsalot?) is just plain silly. Perhaps, then, the target reader would be a 50-60 year old single virgin (male or female), living out their days with both hands on a video controller and a VR headset strapped over their eyes, emerging only to read a few mindless paragraphs, order pizza and piss before returning to their own world of make-believe. For me, now that Cline has ruined my memories of Prince and the Breakfast Club, I’m swearing off any more of his books. I prefer my recollections of the 80s to remain colored by the drug and alcohol haze in which they were created instead of bleached and sanitized by the spotlights of Cline’s books.
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