Ready Player One was never great writing. It was full of plot holes, it was undisguised wish fulfillment, and I still loved it - because (at least to me) it wasn't trying to be great. It was a simple and fun romp through nostalgia, and it excelled at being that.

RP2 tries to widen its scope and take on more weighty themes.... but the writing hasn't grown up to match the content. It feels clumsy, at times preachy, and implausible. My suspension of disbelief has gone. At times it's still a fun, fast-paced romp, and I enjoyed those parts as such, but then I was brought up short by the complete absence of character development in the 3-4 years since the end of the first book, and then the way that a fundamentally broken relationship can be repaired so that the hero can get the girl by the end, despite nothing in their disagreement actually having changed...

Nope.