I have lots of thoughts on this book, some good and some not so good. Overall, I think I can't recommend it generally, and most folks who loved the first one will be okay with this but disappointed.

While both the Player One and Player Two are entrenched in 80s and 90s pop culture, this one is also steeped in tropes, most notably relationship and villain tropes. And, it mirrors the first novel in structure. Outside of different historic culture references, there is nearly nothing new here.

I enjoyed parts of the new quest, but I'm really stuck on the things I didn't like at all: I hated the concept of the bad guy, I don't like what Cline did with Wade and Samantha, and finally, I can't stand that the way those changes to that relationship are essentially ignored once the new crisis hits.

While I like Prince's music, I'm not a fanboy, so nearly all of the references in that section of the book went over my head completely. On top of that I expected this whole section to be a red herring, but fortunately it wasn't. That said, by avoiding the red herring, Cline has left a reference in this part of the story hanging.

It's hard to tell that I didn't hate this book. I gave it three stars because it has an incredible amount of potential, mostly missed potential. I can imagine stories stemming from this novel, and I'm happy with this.