From the Bookshelf of 2025 Reading Challenge…

Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)

Ernest Cline

Start date: January 1, 2019

Finish date: January 31, 2019

Discussion: September 2025 Group Read

Discussion leader: oshizu

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September 2025 Group Read

The House in the Cerulean Sea: Pre-Reading Discussion
By Winter , Group Reads · 7 posts · 30 views

last updated 8 hours, 14 min ago

The House in the Cerulean Sea: Reviews by 2025 Reading Challengers
By Winter , Group Reads · 4 posts · 25 views

last updated Sep 14, 2025 06:27PM

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What Members Thought

Oct 04, 2012 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy-and-sci-fi, coming-of-age, dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic, lotsa-buzz, cyberpunk

By page 2 I was irritated: according to the dust jacket, this is set in 2044. James Halliday dies at age 67. That means he was born in 1977. Then I read: "a famous eccentric, Halliday had harbored a lifelong obsession with the 1980s, the decade during which he'd been a teenager ..." That math doesn't add up. I guess it is not 2044. Maybe he died in 2034, at 67, then he would have been born in 1967 (like me!) and a teenager in the 80s. ... Reading on, I learn he was 8 in 1980, therefore born in 1 By page 2 I was irritated: according to the dust jacket, this is set in 2044. James Halliday dies at age 67. That means he was born in 1977. Then I read: "a famous eccentric, Halliday had harbored a lifelong obsession with the 1980s, the decade during which he'd been a teenager ..." That math doesn't add up. I guess it is not 2044. Maybe he died in 2034, at 67, then he would have been born in 1967 (like me!) and a teenager in the 80s. ... Reading on, I learn he was 8 in 1980, therefore born in 1972, therefore this book opens in 2039. For a book that is so full of details, I'm wondering why they didn't spell that one out.

Overall, this book felt like a slog. Too. Many. Details. The idea is fun: a puzzle solved in the future involves knowing minutiae about the past (and for some readers, this really IS the past, but for many of us it is just our youth). And the first few mentions WERE fun. I guess. Actually, the first mentions irritated me, because he was supposedly listing off favorite authors & directors from the 80s (and really, why bother listing them? what was the point??) but they weren't all big in the 80s. If you're going to go into the details like that, please get the details right (makes me wonder if other details were wrong too). Not to even mention, the details about favorite authors, directors, etc .... never play a role in the plot. Why were they included?? Plus, it was too ... too smug, I guess. Too wink-wink, heh-heh, do you know the esoteric crap that *I* know? - and I suppose my problem is, no, I do NOT know all the esoteric crap! I'm just not enough of a geek?

So, the idea is fun, and the characters were likeable enough, and I enjoy stories about solving puzzles. But this one just got bogged down in the details. I didn't really need to read about each video game Wade played (I say this as a non-gamer - perhaps all the gamers out there LOVED reading about each video game he played - that is the point, after all!)

Also, this book suffers from the Good/Evil separation: the good guys were 100% good, the bad guys were 100% bad. BORING. There were no surprise twists, (view spoiler). Plus, I think it was a mistake on the part of Mr Cline to OPEN the book by telling us that Wade is the one who wins the contest. That REALLY took away any suspense - whenever he was in a tight spot, I would think: "well, I know this works out, since he's the winner in the end!" It was really only the last 20% of this book that I found exciting, when he has to pull off the Hail Mary pass to win the game.

ETA (4/8/18): I saw the movie last night and I really enjoyed it, a lot more than I enjoyed the book! The movie (as movies do) eliminated a lot of the extraneous details that irritated me so much in the book, and it changed the story enough that I often didn't know what was going to happen next, which made it fun for me. Two thumbs up for the movie! ...more

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May 24, 2015 Jess rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-evers, 2015-reading-challenge

I freaking loved this book. I'm not sure why it took me so long to read it, other than that video games aren't my particular branch of geekdom, so I felt like I maybe wouldn't get it. But as long as you're obsessive about something, and have generally heard of the 1980s, I'm pretty sure you can get caught up in the joyful obsessiveness that animates this book.

Don't get me wrong, I had quibbles. My quibbles would be spoilers, so I'll keep them to myself, but I had them.

But for pure unadulterated ...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Ashley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Oh my how I loved this book! It had me on the edge of my seat until the very end and had me wishing that I had started it over the weekend so I could have read it straight through. It was full of adventure, geek fantabulousness, and a bit of romance. Wade, the main character, was such a well developed lead. I saw him (and his avatar) in my head perfectly and related to so much of how he felt and what he thought. And lord how loved all of the 80s facts and pop culture references. For the most par ...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Emily rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy-sci-fi

Actually listened to the audiobook read by Wil Wheaton and I think that really added to the experience. Great book.

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Mar 06, 2018 Tyson E. Dewsnup rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

One of the best books I've read in quite a while. Kept me very entertained throughout. I couldn't hardly put it down! ...more

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Jan 23, 2018 Heather Wescott rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Overall this was a very fun read - I enjoyed a lot of the references to movies/music/games from my childhood. Some parts dragged a bit, and at times Wade seemed a little too good at everything he attempted to do.

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