Armada Review

Title: Armada
Author: Ernest Cline
# Of Pages: 349
Rating: ✯✯✯
Quote: "That’s how you know you’ve mastered a videogame—when a bunch of butt-hurt crybabies start to accuse you of cheating in an effort to cope with the beatdown they’ve just suffered at your hands."
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?
Thoughts: When I first heard of this book I thought it was going to be one of those corny sci-fi books where at the end the kid gets everything he wants after he save the world from whatever corny made up situation the author pulled out of his hat but it wasn’t. I’m glad I gave it a shot. I don’t usually read science fiction because I don’t like it much but this book was entertaining. It wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read and I will admit I was confused a lot with the acronyms like HUD AND super-ATHIDS I still don’t know what those two mean but I eventually figured out others I was confused with.
I felt like I could relate to Zack (the main character) in a weird way. He’s addicted to playing video games and I am addicted to reading and buying books. He’s also a senior in high school. Like me!!! J But anyways… he has this temper that kind of bothered me throughout the book I mean until he stopped being an angry child for reasons I can’t say (read the book). This book was the kind where I didn’t really want to cry (FINALLY!!!). But it did take me away to another world which I liked a lot. It was fun to get away and be in a world where there is a Female president and almost everyone in the world are gamers (more people than now like everyone was a gamer).
There were parts in the book where I couldn’t help but say WOOW or SERIOUSLY and wanted to stop reading for a minute. The author built up this whole world in his head and put it on paper and pulled me in like I was part of that world. I really liked that. I’ll admit there were times I got a little bored and tried to read as fast as I could. But I knew I had to take my time reading to really understand what was going on. It was a pretty good book. I see a lot of people saying this book sucked because it was too much like Ready Player One which I have not read so I can’t even judge this book based on that! I’m glad I can’t because the people that have read it gave this book pretty bad ratings.

Links: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16278318-armada
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804137250/ref=x_gr_w_glide_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_glide_bb-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0804137250&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2
I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review.