Ready Player One: A Novel by Ernest Cline, 3/5

A dystopian setting in Planet Earth’s near future provides an interesting contrast to the steady stream of 1980s trivia in this homage to geek culture. It is, perhaps, unreasonable to complain about the preponderance of cliches and stereotypes in this novel, since Cline uses them effectively to create an exciting, page-turner story. However, the complete lack of character development, increasingly contrived plot, clumsy foreshadowing, excruciatingly poorly-written “love” angle, and lightweight ending complete with deus ex machina ultimately kind of killed it for me.

[Why I read it: I waited so long for this book to come in at the library that I’ve completely forgotten how I heard about it.  Perhaps a friend told me about it?]