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Ok, let me first explain the topic.
I'm brazilian. A few years ago we went thru a local nostalgia of the 80's similar to the one described on the book (well, not that BIG).

It all began with teenagers suddenly getting interested on the culture of the 80's. Video clips, movies, TV series. Teen music from that period was suddenly playing at parties again. And old, forgotten artists from the 80's were "returning to life", being invited to appear on TV and sing again what was often their only famous song, released in the 80's.

Then came the Ploc parties. Ploc was a famous chewing gum from the 80's, that no longer exists. At such parties, those not-anymore-famous singers would make shows, and sing their once-again-famous songs. If possible, people would dress like the 80's, and the drinks would be the ones popular at the time. Old toys and video games were found as decoration, often still functional.

It is kind of dying down now, but we still get several of those each year, and to my surprise, most of the people attending to these parties have not lived the 80's.

I'm not sure if the book would have the same appeal to everyone. But for those that, like me, were young at the 80's, this is the Ultimate Ploc Party. A truck-load of nostalgia mixed with an interesting and fast-paced treasure hunting story. I'm caught by it like a fish in a hook. I'm trying not to devour the book as fast as I usually would, to savor every reference it mentions. And I'm grateful that Veronica and Tom made this the bookpick, or else I might never have heard of it.

I'm curious, though. There must be among us some readers with 30 years or less, which did not had such contact with the 80's. What is your impression about the book, and it's references? Boring?

Cheers!

I'm a 90's kid mostly, but I found the book really awesome. Most of the nostalgia went over my head, but I related to and loved the general feel of geekiness and nerdiness.

If there was a book dedicated to the parts of the 90's that I enjoyed, I would probably love it as well. There are old Nicktoon shows I love, movies I watched and games I played that are still enjoyable. I'm not so big on the fashion, though.

I was born in 81, so I missed about half of the references. The book became a game for me, everyone once in awhile the narrative would reference something I absolutely loved and had completely forgotten about.

Even though I was born in '79 I still caught nearly all the references. I just wasn't a fan of many of them. I watched WarGames as a kid but since nobody had explained the Cold War or nuclear weapons to me, it went over my head. I did however, love The Goonies and Explorers. I watched shows like Airwolf, Family Ties, and Silver Spoons though I didn't always understand what was going on. I know a few Rush songs but I'm not a fan. I don't dislike them but I also don't own any of their music. I didn't discover most 80's music (aside from Michael Jackson) until the 2000's.

The video game aspect of the book is what really resonated with me. My brothers and I owned an Atari 2600, Intellivision, NES, Gameboy, Turbo Grafx 16, Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64. I've lived with a PC in the house since I was about 6. We also spent a small fortune playing coin-op arcade games. The two of them have kinda grown out of it, leaving me to pick up their slack! My first MMORPG experience was with Dark Age of Camelot and from there I went on to World of Warcraft.

I like that the author didn't just stick to the 80's and made references to Firefly, The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings movies etc...