**warning this contains spoilers to the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline**
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a book about a boy who lives inside a virtual reality video game called the OASIS. The creator of the OASIS was a man named James Halliday, who was one of the richest people in the world. When he died, he created an egg hunt where people would have to solve riddles to inherit his fortune of two hundred and forty billion dollars. The main character, Parzival, goes through love and loss when searching for this egg.
Parzival had two best friends named Aech and Art3mis. They had never met in real life, but had an amazing, strong personal connection via the OASIS. After Parzival met Art3mis, he and Aech became more and more distant from each other. After Parzival and Art3mis had been hanging out with one another for a couple months, he told he that he was in love with her. She then ignored all of his messages to her, and basically didn't talk to him again until the end of the story. He and Aech were not on good terms as well. He had everything he thought he ever wanted though: he had passed the copper key and gate, he had his own planet, he had tons of money, he had the highest level avatar that he could have, he was number one on the scoreboard, he had people paying to advertise products, and more. But he didn't have any friends left, and that really took a toll on him.
At the end of the story, he passes the final level and wins the two hundred and forty billion dollars. But, he realizes that his life isn't online. Being successful in a video game wouldn't make him happy in the long term. This message is true for teens today as well. Some teens thing that everything worth doing is online, and if something happens that wasn't posted on social media doesn't really count as happening. They need to learn that being instagram famous won't help them get into a good high school or college, and it certainly won't make them happy later on in life.
