I first read Ready Player One for a book club that I had joined when I moved to Boston. I really just wanted to meet friends at that point so I would read anything they put forth. But as soon as I started reading it, I was hooked! This book is just pure fun and adventure. The main premise is of a world in about 2040 where kids go to school as their avatars and live almost exclusively in a virtual world. And not just the kids live as their avatars, but most of the planet does too. A man named, Halliday, the creator of the OASIS (virtual world they all exist in), dies and leaves his entire fortune to the person who can find "the easter egg". This book is essentially a giant treasure hunt, from beginning to end. Our main character, Wade Watts, after researching everything there is to know about Halliday, is the first one to find the first clue on this hunt to find the easter egg.
On his way, he meets other "gunters" (people who are huge followers of Halliday and are also on the hunt) as well as "sixers", which are the evil in this story - basically a really rich dude (Sorrento) pays all of these sixers to do all of the dirty work and research for him to find the easter egg. There are various intense battles between the gunters and sixers, meanwhile the book is peppered with lots of humor, an insane amount of nerdy references to video games and 80's pop culture (Halliday was obsessed with the 80's), and a little bit of romance :) This sounds like a ridiculous premise, a little intriguing of course, but ridiculous. However, it is fast-paced and SO fun!
Upon my first read, I read the actual print copy of the book and devoured it. Recently, I decided to listen to the audiobook because it is heralded as one of the best audiobooks out there. Will Wheaton, who all of the geeks out there will know who he is (I confess, I didn't) narrates the audio and he is fantastic at it. I will say though with listening to the audio, there are times where he's just going through lots of 80's and gamer facts that he's discovered in his search for the easter egg, and it can be easy to zone out while listening to that. But, when there are the exciting parts, it's incredibly engaging.
I would recommend to read the book first, then listen to it if you want to. But I also know lots of people who have only listened to it and loved it. It's really your call, but I just wanted to put up both of my reviews on the formats on here. Regardless of the format, READ THIS BOOK. Especially before it becomes a movie :)