Book Review - Armada

I've been anxiously awaiting Armada's release ever since I read Ready Player One.  I had read some reviews saying it was nowhere near as good, which I was kind of expecting, because RPO was SO SO GOOD!  And despite my lowered expectations, I was still disappointed.  I figured even if it wasn't as good, it would still be good.  And well...  I guess it was an enjoyable read, but it just felt really forced.  The story line was basically aliens invading earth, and video gamers are recruited to save the day.  Not exactly an original plot.  There were also about a million references to other books, movies, and video games that deal with aliens invading earth, which I am sure I didn't appreciate as much as some might.  I suspect I didn't quite get about half of the references.  Probably because my favorite video games are less about aliens and more about plumbers saving a princess. Or dancing.  

The more reviews I write, the more I realize that my rating system doesn't make sense.  I'm all "this book was dumb!" and rate it 3 stars, which according to Goodreads is "liked it."  My rating system is probably more like:

5 stars = loved it!  will tell everyone to read it
4 stars = liked it.  will recommend it to specific people I know love to read, or like that specific genre.
3 stars = meh.  I wouldn't tell anyone to read it, but if you said you were going to, I wouldn't discourage you
2 stars = I'd recommend you skip it.
1 star = looking at my reviews, these are mostly books I had to read in school or that online book club I used to be in.  These are books I will likely go on rants about.  Or maybe didn't finish because they were so awful.

So anyway, Armada was just okay.  If you are super into alien video games, you might like it better.  But I'll probably continue to read novels by Ernest Cline.