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lycaenide's review against another edition
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol
Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Blood, and Vomit
Minor: Animal cruelty, Drug use, Racism, Sexual content, and Death of parent
nivlacwise's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
A story of how human world / earth is turns into an rpg game, with stats, loot boxes, rng(esus),
With viewer, favourites, and patrons
You get the idea.
With viewer, favourites, and patrons
You get the idea.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death
theleppy's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book had me hooked immediately. There are so many moving parts and teases for what is to come later but all of the information and world building never got overwhelming. I crave more of these characters, this savage vicious dungeon world and it's place in a much wider world too. Even though this story's premise and content can be very grim and dark it tempers this with a lot of humor. I found myself feeling very sad but moments later I was cackling with delight. I couldn't wait to start book 2 immediately after I finished this one!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Dementia, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
tea_time's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This book had me laughing in all the right ways! The audio was amazing and I would recommend listening to this book 100%
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, and Violence
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, and Murder
Minor: Fatphobia, Infidelity, and Sexual content
lehmane's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
It was a very entertaining read. The humor was enjoyable and the story is fast paced and easily read. The story progresses towards a predictable out come but the encounters an
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
blast_range's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Death and Violence
thedragonswarrior's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Two star reviews are reserved for books that were so bad I did not finish, but had something enjoyable about them. This gets 2.5 because I finished it.
So I want to start by saying this is not a good book, and I would never recommend someone else read it. That being said, the good things about this book are that the action is fun, the characters are sometimes tolerable, and the author does a great job at two things: setting up seemingly impossible problems that the characters solve in interesting ways, and really getting a reader curious about what's going to happen next. This last one is somewhat clumsy and heavy handed, but it is very effective, so credit where credit is due.
This book is also incredibly racist and misogynistic. I'm pretty sure the author thinks most people in South America do not live or sleep in houses, either that or he thinks the continent is on the other side of the planet from North America. The book is full of gross sexist jokes, oftentimes in places and situations where they make no sense. The main character is practically sexless in the ways he responds to conversations about sex or sexuality, but the world around him is disturbingly horny, with the narrative pausing occasionally to breathlessly describe the details of an alien woman's gigantic boobs.
Also I'm pretty sure the author thinks the MC is a good person, but he chose to rob a group of people (racialized and otherized) who just helped him, then kill their leader. He accidently kills all their kids when he does this. How does this make him feel? Just kinda bad! Like a bit of a jerk! And how dare they make him feel bad about it (his words not mine.)
I use this detail to illustrate how incredibly bad at character writing the author is, at least in this first book. He really wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to write a fun and fast paced sleazy trashy adventure book, which he's pretty good at doing! But he also wants his characters to be complex and deep, he wants them to make hard and complicated choices and deal with the consequences both internally and externally, he wants to satirize our world and say something deep and meaningful about it, and at all these things he is an absolute failure. Also his worldbuilding is terrible. What a waste of an intergalactic society.
All in all I will not ever recommend this book, and will actively discourage others from reading it.
So I want to start by saying this is not a good book, and I would never recommend someone else read it. That being said, the good things about this book are that the action is fun, the characters are sometimes tolerable, and the author does a great job at two things: setting up seemingly impossible problems that the characters solve in interesting ways, and really getting a reader curious about what's going to happen next. This last one is somewhat clumsy and heavy handed, but it is very effective, so credit where credit is due.
This book is also incredibly racist and misogynistic. I'm pretty sure the author thinks most people in South America do not live or sleep in houses, either that or he thinks the continent is on the other side of the planet from North America. The book is full of gross sexist jokes, oftentimes in places and situations where they make no sense. The main character is practically sexless in the ways he responds to conversations about sex or sexuality, but the world around him is disturbingly horny, with the narrative pausing occasionally to breathlessly describe the details of an alien woman's gigantic boobs.
Also I'm pretty sure the author thinks the MC is a good person, but he chose to rob a group of people (racialized and otherized) who just helped him, then kill their leader. He accidently kills all their kids when he does this. How does this make him feel? Just kinda bad! Like a bit of a jerk! And how dare they make him feel bad about it (his words not mine.)
I use this detail to illustrate how incredibly bad at character writing the author is, at least in this first book. He really wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to write a fun and fast paced sleazy trashy adventure book, which he's pretty good at doing! But he also wants his characters to be complex and deep, he wants them to make hard and complicated choices and deal with the consequences both internally and externally, he wants to satirize our world and say something deep and meaningful about it, and at all these things he is an absolute failure. Also his worldbuilding is terrible. What a waste of an intergalactic society.
All in all I will not ever recommend this book, and will actively discourage others from reading it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Trafficking, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
frogggirl2's review against another edition
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
This is a fun, fast read that requires zero mental effort. I like the main characters and really want them to succeed.
This is a standard LitRPG. I like this subgenre and have read several series like this. It's doing what it's doing well but it's not doing anything original with the LitRPG elements.
This book really wants to be funny and sometimes it's quite funny and sometimes it's not. It's consistently trying too hard, though.
The book is intermittently cruel, i.e., the first main boss is an overweight woman with hoarding disorder who vomits bugs out of her mouth. Do we really need to be making fun of mental illness at this point? It doesn't sit well with the main character that she's a person from the real world, but that doesn't excuse the author's unnecessary exploitation of mental illness. Being that this wasn't a critical part of the plot, it just comes across as unnecessary and unkind. At several points there's these sorts of riffs on stereotypically negative portrayals of women that are excused by these characters being enemies. Add onto this problematic pile of issues, the main character's cheating girlfriend and I start to get a little uncomfortable with the trend.
This book is over-hyped - I think a lot of the hype is that this is many people's first introduction to a LitRPG. That said, I enjoyed reading this page-turner and I look forward to continuing the series. I've heard the series gets better as it goes along and I hope that's true because there's a lot of potential here.
This is a standard LitRPG. I like this subgenre and have read several series like this. It's doing what it's doing well but it's not doing anything original with the LitRPG elements.
This book really wants to be funny and sometimes it's quite funny and sometimes it's not. It's consistently trying too hard, though.
The book is intermittently cruel, i.e., the first main boss is an overweight woman with hoarding disorder who vomits bugs out of her mouth. Do we really need to be making fun of mental illness at this point? It doesn't sit well with the main character that she's a person from the real world, but that doesn't excuse the author's unnecessary exploitation of mental illness. Being that this wasn't a critical part of the plot, it just comes across as unnecessary and unkind. At several points there's these sorts of riffs on stereotypically negative portrayals of women that are excused by these characters being enemies. Add onto this problematic pile of issues, the main character's cheating girlfriend and I start to get a little uncomfortable with the trend.
This book is over-hyped - I think a lot of the hype is that this is many people's first introduction to a LitRPG. That said, I enjoyed reading this page-turner and I look forward to continuing the series. I've heard the series gets better as it goes along and I hope that's true because there's a lot of potential here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, and Violence
isaac_evans_97's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Death
hbaldasano's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence