Here’s my artifact for the book Cherub. I made a book trailer with iMovie. I hope you like it!

 

Ready Player One and I have developed sort of a love-hate relationship. I’ve never been much of a fan of video games. Most of them are just full of miscellaneous and unnecessary violence. Then again, this book definitely wasn’t just about a kid’s obsession with video games. To me it seemed more about Wade trying to leave his own harsh reality by making a new one. Sure, in the real world he could tell who a person was just by looking at them, but everyone else could do the same to him. In OASIS, he had friends who seemed to understand him, and shared common interests.

The OASIS itself I think would be an awesome place to visit every now and then, and I think school would also be awesome to participate in. The only problem I’m seeing is that if everyone is focused on this fantasy world and the problems they have there, they might lose touch with the real one and the real problems. All over the world there are energy crises, wars, famine, poverty, and people who are literally living on top of each other. It seems like as soon as OASIS came out, even more problems started popping up, and the ones that were already there started getting worse.

I always have loved books with characters who know just about everything about something, maybe because I’ve always wanted to be like that, but I think Wade’s fountain of knowledge was different than most books. With Wade it seemed like he was learning as much as he could about his virtual world because he couldn’t make any sense of the real one.

At the beginning of the book, you witness Wade’s only family taking his laptop and blaming him for money issues, and right afterwards he implies that he was picked on in high school. It seemed as if no one had ever really treated Wade with kindness. The virtual world once again seems crucial to him because his peers are pretty much forced to judge him not by their looks, but by their personality and smarts.

When Wade finds the cave, it seemed like his entire world was turned around. All of a sudden, thousands of people are offering him money and fame if he tells them where to find the first key. The only lesson I can find in this section of the book is that “Power Corrupts.” Wade seems to be so happy with his newfound fame that he wants the entire world to stand still. He stops trying to find the second key, he spends money and goes to parties. He talks to the girl of his dreams. I think even when what’s left of his family is killed he is still enjoying his life to the fullest. The only thing that really seems to matter to him is the equipment that takes him into the OASIS.

I’m glad that at the end of the book there is at least a plan to do something about all of the problems that are happening everywhere, but I kind of wish that the author had added a twenty years in the future section so that I could see whether it had actually happened or not.

My name is Grace. On those increasingly rare days known as “average,” I can be found inside of a book. On days that are not average, I can be found inside a book, because I like to shake things up. I am a fast reader who has an aptitude for stories. Stories for me can be anything from books to podcasts, but I’m usually reading. I picked the books I get to read because they were ones I hadn’t read and they were within my reach. I’m not really picky about my books. I am looking forward to this project and I think it will be a lot of fun!