Armada

Ernest Cline is one of my favorite authors (seriously, his bio page/website is awesome). "Ready Player One" tops my list of all time favorite books. I knew going into this newest book Armada, that I shouldn't compare it to RPO. If I did that there was no way I'd enjoy Armada. What I really like about Cline's books (including Armada) is the way he inserts pop culture into the story. 
Armada tells the story of Zach Lightman who one day sees a ship from one of his favorite video games on his way to school and from there he discovers that he wasn't imagining it and that all the time he spent playing video games wasn't for nothing. 
I really enjoyed Armada, albeit not as much as I enjoyed RPO. Cline's writing is entertaining and makes for a quick read but there were certain parts of the book that were just a bit too fantastical (which is saying a lot for a book where video games are used to train civilians for war against an alien race). There were several times in the book where Cline wrote himself into a corner and then his characters suddenly get really lucky (a few times) and they're magically saved. It was a bit frustrating. 
The other thing that annoyed me was (small spoiler alert) Cline's belief that babies are consolation prizes. Like, so and so character died but take heart! Here's a baby that magically came about after one romp to ease your pain! Maybe it's because of my struggles with infertility that left a dark mark on that part of the story for me but it really annoyed the crap out of me. 
What was fun about reading Armada was how it changed my view on my husband playing video games. It was kinda neat to think that he was playing to train himself on how to handle drones so he could fight to save the world. All in all, it was a great story and I definitely recommend picking it up since Cline created another enjoyable read, plus his "Raid the Arcade" playlist is a really good listen! 
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.