Ready Player One

Name dropping does not make a good book

I'm a child of the 80's. I loved the 80's. I want to go back there.
So like every other tragic fan of that era I thought this book was tailor made for me.
Unfortunately this was the closest I've ever come to a DNF. 80% of this was not a story. It was name dropping for the sake of it. For the first half of this book I felt like I was sitting in a room with someone simply reading through a list of 80's movies, TV shows, songs and fictional characters. That's it. That's all it was. It was 20% story, and 80% filler. And the 20% story was filled with overly convenient and simplistic plot devices.
“Oh let's pull this thing out of my inventory that was never mentioned anywhere else in the the book which just happens to be the exact thing I need to progress further!”
Sorry, but I'm angry. Because so many people love this book. So many people I respect. But I can't help but think they all got so caught up in the reminiscing that they didn't notice that this is a terrible story.
I look forward to seeing what Spielberg does with the movie, because if anyone can make something good out of this, he can. And he's the perfect person to turn this into what it should have been.