Ready Player One

The action takes place in 2044, on an Earth that has experienced an energy crisis and continues to experience global warming. Society is in decline and “lives” most of its time in Oasis - an online simulator (Metaverse is that you???).
Total isolation and the lack of physical contact have been trivialized in detriment of an online existence where our true characteristics are hidden behind what we choose for our avatars.
Unfortunately this doesn't sound as much as a sci-fi dystopia as I would like. It feels too close to a possible future.

The creator of Oasis, who has no offspring, creates a game based on the pop culture of the 1980s and 1990s to pass on his legacy after his death to whoever can solve the puzzles. The story follows Wane and his avatar Parzival through the search of Halliday's egg.

The book has a slow start and the first 20% consist essencially of worldbuilding (which is really good by the way) but after that it has a good pace.

I think this book is ideal for anyone who spent their teenage years in the 80s and 90s and would typically be connoted as a Geek.
Although I am younger, I grew up with 5 siblings who would be the target of the book and therefore I have many references from a youth that is not exactly mine.
Still, I felt that some references did not contribute to the story's development and sounded a bit like name dropping.
I really liked the book but I don't think it is for everyone and I don't think it will age well (I'm sure not going to recommend it to my kids as they will most probably find it boring).

PS: Metaverse can actually been traced back to Neal Stephenson and his dystopian novel Snow Crash (1992), which is actually one of the references mentioned in RPO. However, Mark Zuckerberg Metaverse sounds pretty much like Oasis, at least for me... but I am no expert on the subject.