Scratch

Well, I didn't get an official answer to my question about discussing (young-)adult books that have some, uh, earthy language in them, so here goes:

About two months ago I bought a copy of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  It's about an online virtual world, sort of like Second Life, in which pretty much everyone spends most of their time because the actual earth is all polluted and out of fossil fuels.  The reclusive inventor of the Oasis has just died, and his will leaves all his vast fortune, and control of the Oasis, to whoever finds an easter egg he's hidden in the code.  The protagonist is an 18-year-old, one of many people who've devoted their lives to solving the puzzle, who becomes the first person to solve the first stage of the puzzle, five years after the death of the inventor.

About the language thing:  Parzival (the protagonist) and his friends talk the way teens do talk, things like "holy s***," but apart from that I don't think there's anything objectionable about the book.

Anyway, I keep re-reading it.  It's a real guilty pleasure for me: I could be reading something new (to me) instead, and it's basically just an adventure story with no deep meaning or even deep characters, but it has a few great moments like this one:

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I considered waiting a few days to call Aech back but quickly abandoned that idea.  I needed to talk to someone about all this, and Aech was my best friend.  If there was anyone I could trust, it was him.

He picked up on the first ring, and his avatar appeared in a new window in front of me.  "You dog!" he shouted.  "You brilliant, sly, devious dog!"

"Hey, Aech," I said, trying to deadpan it.  "What's new?"

"What's new?  What's new?  You mean, other than, you know, seeing my best friend's name appear at the top of the Scoreboard?  Other than that, you mean?"  He leaned forward so that his mouth completely filled the vidfeed window and shouted. "Other than that, not much!  Not much new at all!"

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One of the reviews quoted in the book, from the Huffington Post, talks about its "fascinating social commentary," and that's one of the things that makes me feel guilty about it, because imho it doesn't have anything like social commentary.  Yes, it deplores the fact that most people in this future world are poor, but it doesn't see anything wrong with the fact that a few people are incredibly rich.  It isn't social commentary, imho, until you make a connection between the facts that some people are poor and that others are rich.

They're making a movie of it, which will be great if they don't change the characters' dialog.

Anyway, so, has anyone else read this book?  And what do you think about it?