What’s up bookworms? I hope you are all reading your hearts out. I know I am. Over the past 3 weeks, I participated in my first ever buddy read with J.W.Martin from Storeys of Stories and we read the book Armada by Ernest Cline. We did about 2 chapters a day and fit in extra when we had time but stayed pretty consistent. Each day we would message each other about the stuff that happened in the book and give our predictions for what we thought would happen. It was quite fun and we plan to do another in May. For now, you can read my review below!

Synopsis: Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure.

But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe.

And then he sees the flying saucer.

Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders.

No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it.

It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar?

If you loved the nostalgia in Ready Player One then you will like this book because it is stuffed with it. It has many references to Star Wars, Star Trek, pretty much any Sci-Fi film franchise you can think of. This made me very happy.

Zach is a lovable character that takes you on a journey of life as a nerdy kid. He has his two best friends (both named Michael) by his side and they are all extreme gamers who log at least 15 hours or more a week on their favorite game, Armada. The author introduces more characters along the way that I’m very fond of. I can see this book potentially being made into a movie.

One thing I would say is that the conclusion of the novel seemed very forced and too fast. I was hoping for more action and intense descriptive fight scenes (they still are there but it seems to wrap up and move onto the next scene too quickly). The book has so much build up to the finale so the least they could do is extend it a little longer to satisfy the reader with that juicy explosion of an ending. This was the area where the book fell short for me and the reason I gave it a 4 star rating instead of a 5 star rating.

Overall, I would suggest this book to anyone that wants a fast-paced science fiction page-turner.

Book Rating: 4/5

You can buy this book on Amazon or Book Depository and find it on Goodreads.

Disclaimer: I bought this book with my own money and read it because I wanted to.

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