emma's Reviews > Ready Player Two

Hello, everyone.

Roll call time! Let’s make sure we’re all present:
- me, the cynical and disappointed reviewer, equal parts dreading the angry comments to come and wizened and numb by the angry comments that have come before (here!)
- other people who were genuinely disappointed by this book after really liking the first one
- the lifeless incels who are sure to yell at me for being a woman on the internet who dares to have an opinion on something that’s For The Boys (definitely here - see comments)

Okay! With that, I think we’re ready to get started!

(insert throat clearing, glass tapping, and so on)

...

This book is bad.

Something impressive is that it’s actually bad in a variety of ways, instead of just really bad in a couple. It’s groundbreaking in that way.

I mean, let’s start with the pacing, considering that was the inescapable nightmare that plagued me for seemingly one thousand pages, unrelentingly boring and yelling WHAT IF I RUIN EVERYTHING? WHAT IF THIS IS NEVER FUN FOR EVEN ONE MOMENT? WHAT THEN? until I break down in tears.

Just kidding. I don’t cry. I’m too powerful.

Be warned, angry men. (It’s funny to pretend they’re actually reading this when we all know they saw the rating and skipped right to the comments section.)

But anyway, back to the garbage fire.

We kick off this rollercoaster ride of fun and excitement with about a hundred pages of worldbuilding, which would make more sense if this weren’t the SECOND BOOK IN A SERIES. A SEQUEL. We spend 20% of the book pm info dumping, when the action starts we have to pause for 25 pages to go in-depth into every single technological side effect or potential problem.

Of fictional technology.

It made me want to scoop my brain out with a melon baller. (Already regretting how gross that mental image is, but I simply must speak my truth.)

Then, once we get past what I’m calling What We Talk About When We Talk About How Not To Write Sci-Fi, we get to...well, more of that.

When we skip past the worldbuilding, we FINALLY!!! get to the quest, which is, uh. Not better.

They say if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. But unfortunately we’re already 400 words in.

Once we get to the actual plot, it constantly interrupts itself to info-dump, give more nonsense explanations, and build up romantic relationships NO ONE CARES ABOUT!!! The entire reason the first book is fun is because it is almost all action.

This is...almost none action. Because the quest itself is somehow never the focal point?

Even the clues and riddles and tasks the story does focus on seem to be the most boring ones. I swear it felt like we spent 82% of this book following Aech around as she ran through Prince trivia.

Or people who actually read that section would feel that way, I imagine. I skimmed the hell out of it.

Let’s take this lovely little side path to talking about the characters.

Our main character, Wade, is super selfish and a dumbass and it sucks to read about. To put it, you know, bluntly. In the first book he can be hard to like, but I liked him, because he was dedicated and single-minded and determined and had a development arc I found compelling. Also he was doing interesting things.

In this, he has all of the stamina, backbone, and critical thinking skills of a Build-a-Bear (trademark). And not one of the ones you can put a voicebox in.

He is constantly thinking things like “What? How could this technology that enters people’s brains and controls them fully and has life-ending side effects and destroys any hope of fixing the world be bad? To me, it sounds good.”

And it’s like...didn’t we just spend an entire book doing this?

He’s also, like, a trillionaire, so instant guillotine in my book.

Wade has two friends who, unsurprisingly, seem pretty uninterested in being his friend. (Who would be?) There’s Shoto, a Japanese guy who is obsessed with all things ninja-related, and Aech, a Black girl who speaks totally differently from the other characters (“Oh! Yo! I said God damn, Shoto!”) and inexplicably breaks into hip-hop style dance moves.

Enough said, no? (See you in the comments, people who want to be angry at me for not letting straight white men write “diverse” characters by drawing on *checks notes* racial stereotypes.)

Then there’s Samantha, Wade’s love interest and a true barrel of laughs. I love a girl who is a full-on snooze. I hated this romance in the first book, and I hate it even more now that I have to read Wade thinking about losing his virginity to Samantha, featuring details on how they “couldn’t stop making love.”

So, to sum up: bad pacing, bad plot, bad worldbuilding, bad characters, bad relationships, bad morals.

Bottom line: This book should be reserved only for punishing society’s most heinous criminals.

-----------------
pre-review

let the games begin.

review to come / 1.5 stars

-----------------
currently-reading updates

people have gotten angrier at me in the comments of this review than possibly in any other i've written, and i haven't even read it yet.

let's give them something to be mad about, shall we?

-----------------
tbr review

NOTE: i wrote this review in TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHTEEN, when this book was announced. it's not a review, it's me marking it as to-read. chill the ever-living hell out.

title!!! cover!!! pub date!!!

i don't know what this book is about and i don't know why people are getting mad at me in the comments of this review but regardless things are happening!!!

-----------------
announcement review

I'M FURIOUS.

CATCH ME OUT HERE BEING: FURIOUS.

WHAT IS HAPPENING. WHY IS THIS BOOK BEING BROUGHT INTO EXISTENCE. WHO ASKED. WHO SAID, "YOU KNOW THAT PERFECT STANDALONE THAT DOESN'T NEED A SECOND BOOK? YEAH. GIVE IT A SECOND BOOK." WAS IT STEVEN SPIELBERG? JUST TELL ME. I'M NOT MAD. I JUST WANNA TALK.

i mean. i'm going to read this book. that should go without saying.

BUT I'M NOT GOING TO BE HAPPY ABOUT IT.

okay. maybe a little bit happy. okay yes i will probably be at least mostly happy BUT ALSO THERE WILL STILL BE ANGER INVOLVED.

in the immortal words of jessie j featuring B.o.B.: it's all about the money.