Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Dungeon Crawler Carl

Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

20 reviews

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.

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abirchtealeaf's review against another edition

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dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Look to be clear this is a light novel. Maybe it doesn't look like but the title of this should be.
How I ended up in the dungeon with nothing but my cat, underwear, and dynamite.
Taking this book as what it is. It's tremendous fun. The action goes fast enough to almost make you forget how horribly bleak the setting is. It's a decent take on the genre and compared to something like solo leveling, omvient readers viewpoint, or even any power scaling dungeon, crawling book it comes off less serious and more lovable.
Now to be clear this book comes with a pretty big list of trigger warnings. If none of those bother you and you want something fun. It's a pretty good read.

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katie_holder's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I HATED THIS BOOK!

I question if the author hates women? The misogyny was real. The references were absurd and offensive. Also I hate video games and I double hate books written like a video game (new hate unlocked) I definitely was not the target audience, the target audience would be the men incels who talk about hating women while simultaneously wondering why they can’t find a woman. This book was torture.

I only finished this because of book club, I like going to book club. Also the reason why I rated this a 2 star book was because the audiobook production was fantastic. I will not be continuing this series.

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bookrater777's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

I seriously love this book! This is a great read for video game and D&D lovers.

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jenabest's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

4.0

I picked this up on a whim, then started with much trepidation after someone I typically align with really disliked it. But maybe I went in with more accurate expectations?

I mostly enjoyed this, and while I wish there weren't SO many books in this series, I do think I'll chip away at it.

The premise is cool, and honestly, I'm here for Princess Donut. It's not a deep thinking read and the humor is really on par with online video game spaces. I'm really hoping book 2 gives more plot and less "action, action, action" but I'm rambling a bit because it wasn't bad and I had a good time.

HOWEVER - some of the content will seem questionable at best if you miss one teeny tiny paragraph. It states that "the game" takes stereotypes from Earth and then caricatureizes them further. This is probably a questionable judgement on the author's part, but I don't think the intent is malicious. At least, I really hope not.

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lecheeese's review against another edition

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adventurous funny tense 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

A Dungeons & Dragons-style dungeon crawl with the wit and imagination of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Will be sure to get you out of a reading slump as it's VERY addicting!

Did we really just start a meth war between the goblins and the llamas?

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steph_sosa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I really enjoyed this book. It took me a while to read it, which I totally was not expecting, because it is a book that deserves and almost needs to be binge-read. The story somehow checks every single ‘mood-box’ they offer on StoryGraph besides ‘relaxing’. This story is intense, it’s fun, and it’s deserving of a re-read.

I can’t imagine the kind of dedication it took to have this whole juggle of this game system, inventory, and remembering all the little tid-bitty details, but it had a very cool result. Every so often you would kind of fall into the excitement of the story, and it was so intense when the author had placed Carls dedication to not being broken and loosing himself that felt like being pulled to the surface for a quick breather.

If you like video games or D&D, and if you are a comedy lover or even a mood reader, pick up this book.

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