Books and Jams Readalong discussion

Now that you're into the book a bit, what do you think of the main character(s)? Are you connecting with the plot? the writing? the characters?

I have just started to Chapter 9 and have found it a really accessible book so far. When I do pick it up the chapters do seem to fly by rather quickly, but without me necessarily engaging too deeply with either the characters and the setting.

The setting feels like Cline has just done a mishmash of his favourite near future dystopian themes. Sadly, the 80's pop culture and nerd references go largely over my head as I was born in the nineties. Do those of you that do get them feel it adds anything to the narrative other than some twinges of nostalgia?

Finally, did anyone else think that Wade found the Copper Key too easily? I felt that in the obsessive culture of the gunters that someone would have surely made that connection before now, particularly the Sixers with corporate resources behind them.

I am hoping we see some development of our main character now and will be interested to see if Cline does anything with the concept of escapism to the detriment of real world issues (or as a response to them).

I definitely get nostalgic with some of the references, but I was just a kid in the 80s so a lot of it is going over my head as well. I think at the beginning especially it felt like I was being doused with pop culture and it seemed to take a while to get into the action. I get that the world of the OASIS needed to be set up a bit, but after being drawn in by the first chapter the next section seemed to take longer for me to connect with.

It did take Wade 5 years to figure out the riddle before actually finding the key. And it did say over and over that he had spent all his time watching all sorts of 80s movies and playing the games until he beat them. I didn't feel like it was too easy for him. I was excited it was him who figured it out.

I do find his "real life" so lonely. Not just Wade, but this whole culture. I see it so often even now with the younger generation who grew up with cell phones and tablets. My youngest sister is attached to hers and has a harder time connecting with people in real life. She gets mad if people don't respond to her texts right away. So many are even now starting to be more comfortable "living" in an online world. Scary in a lot of ways.

I am enjoying the book a lot so far. I always find "adventure" type books like this one a lot of fun.

I do understand many of the 80s references as I was born just two years after Halliday was supposedly born. However, I never played D&D and my parents didn't buy us a lot of the games referenced in this book nor let us watch a lot of the movies mentioned so the references aren't particularly nostalgic for me.

I am enjoying Wade as a character so far. I was actually a little disappointed when Art3mis showed up in the first puzzle. I am already rooting for Wade to succeed. But it would probably be a boring book without some competition!

I agree that the "real world" culture seems really depressing. Wade has mentioned a couple times that people started using the OASIS as a way to escape the problems that had developed in society. But I wonder whether the opposite was actually true -- that society developed problems because so many people were using the OASIS instead of trying to solve the energy crisis, etc. in the real world.