D&D meets Hunger Games meets Vonnegut - it reminds me of all of them and none of them. Love that there were both moments that made me laugh out loud and also reflect deeply. Side characters have these profound details and moments, and that’s not usual in a book like this. Some moments were a little crude for my taste but honestly - that’s kinda the point. Devoured it in one day! Stoked to read the rest. 

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. 

I loved this book! contains just enough earth pop culture references to not be insufferable like Ready Player One, but is more grounded than the whimsy of hitchhiker's guide (which I loved, don't get me wrong). love the (mild) gore, satire, and crude humor. 

the game mechanics (loot boxes, leveling, stat points, etc.) got a smidge tedious—though its clear Dinniman tries to cut out down the unimportant details once readers have adjusted to premise—as well as the xp farming bits, but it's clear from the beginning that the first three levels are TRAINING. I disagree with the people grouching that the story is moving too slow because book 1 progresses through only two levels: if the levels moved any faster, y'all would've complained Carl was OP and the pace was unrealistic. once they get to level three and choose race/class, things will (hopefully) expand beyond defaulting to familiar tactics (explosives and magic missiles), and we'll get to see more inventive boss fights. it's clear that there are overarching political agendas at play, both inside and outside of the dungeon, and there are a number of complex characters that I'm invested in. 

if I had to critique something besides the repetition, it'd be Odette's obscenely massive breast armor? I get that it's high-level gear, but with the loot boxes being somewhat tailored to the crawler, I want an explanation as to how and why she ended up with the appearance she's famous for when (if?) we get the backstory on her crawl. as for the rest of the female nudity, I'm not necessarily mad about it... yet. bodies are bodies, and there's nothing wrong with describing them, and right now, Dinniman's grotesque depictions lean more into body horror than sexualization. BUT! that could change. the only other nit-picky thing I have is Donut's Second Chance spell, which is originally described as being able to raise a monster of a lower level than the caster from the dead (Chap. 30, p. 257). In Chapter 45, Carl describes that Donut "could now apparently resurrect monsters up to five levels higher than herself" (396). The word "apparently" makes me think that there's some explanation for this, but for now it's an inconsistency.

can't wait to read the next book! long live science fiction!

It was surprisingly hard for me to get into this at first, but once the action started rolling, I was into it. I'm looking forward to the next installment! 

I had a good laugh reading this, but I think the misogyny was juuuuuuust too much. Look, I can laugh at a joke like that if it’s delivered well and is surrounded by a different tone throughout the book. This book is not subtle. After the first bro joke it got old quick. Really fun concept, but I personally enjoyed “World Tree Online” better. 

This is a very non-serious book that reads as a dramatic Hitchhiker’s Guide meets RPG mechanics and gamer humor. The beginning is super weak, and many of the piss jokes are not as funny as the author seems to think. However, some jokes did make me laugh. 

There were occasional hints of depth like

Carl’s childhood, the boss pleading for her life in Spanish, Mordecai, etc

Yet it was instantly brushed over and was more set-dressing to make the story slightly more unique. I got the impression they are there for a reason but it is not touched upon as much as it could be. The number of people alive going down feels so divorced emotionally. Mysteries are set up and they were fairly engaging. The galactic corporation is more interesting than I thought it would be, mostly because all the higher-ups seem to conceal information a lot, and the hints of political intrigue. 

This is a very fast read. It does require gaming knowledge, and I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who wasn’t familiar with those references. The first half is very boring, but the later half did make me understand why people like it. I started to enjoy it in a sort of trashy fun way by the end. I definitely wouldn’t rank it 5 stars but it is what it is.

You have received (1)🌟Rare Book Genre Bonus Box!🌟

Inside you’ll find:

🤷🏻‍♂️🐈 Capable, mostly respectable mc and cat with complicated childhood backstory that will flashback at inopportune times

⚱️Safe Room Guide you will possibly be more endeared to than the mc, despite the sum of his appearances making up less than 5% of the book.

Equipping this book will yield the following: 

➕15 XP appreciation for gaming mechanics
➖37 damage to mature adult brain cells

Most of the reviewers who disliked the book have said some version of “Disclaimer: I’m not the target audience for this.” 

📚🎮But I was a Hunger Games reader who in my present adult years occasionally gets hooked on a specific video game. Arguably, this book sh/could be for me.

💥I was having so much fun for the first 30%, chuckling out loud, and then I started to experience a slow and steady increase of ick. At first I excused it, because it was applied to the in-game narration or culture-picking dysopia of it all. But we’re gonsta have the game voice for every book, yeah?

🛒I won’t judge you for smashing this series, I thought I was going to be reading every level at that 30% point. 

💀Do the subsequent books have less explosive ick, “corn” references, and “duck” jokes?

❌ Leave Game

Grimdark but add a touch of humor and a talking cat with the sass and you might as well call Matt Dinniman a fisherman because my attention? HOOKED.

I've heard so many good and bad things about this book so I was quite apprehensive about being disappointed once I started. You can imagine my surprise when it went above and beyond my initial expectations! Instead of just being within the realm of campy, the serious and often real stakes that Carl and the talking cat, Princess Donut, endured help cement the legitimacy of the story.

The story revolves around our protagonist, Carl, who was literally caught with his pants down as all semblance of society and life as we know it disappears in the blink of an eye. He enters a dungeon together with his cat, Princess Donut, to compete in a literal life-and-death fight against Elden Ring-esque monsters employing RPG game mechanisms.

If you're the type of person who enjoys playing RPG games and probably uses Twitch, then this would be right up your alley. If you haven't played any games recently, then the explanations to get the ball rolling might get a little too info-dumpy and might affect your enjoyment of the series.

I suggest giving this first book a try because there's so much to love! 

To start with, I loved the characters! Carl is a no-nonsense practical guy who's just here to survive despite the dungeon AI's foot fetish obsession and the ethical situations he constantly finds himself plagued with. I like how straight and moral he is, qualities that are hard to remember and hold on to once the rules reward murder and destruction. And there is a lot of murder and destruction that goes on in this book. Like <I>please-look-at-trigger-warnings-before-you-cast-judgement</i> a lot.

His foil is Princess Donut, a cat blessed with sentience and charisma. She is haughty and proud tempered with her love for Carl and her passion for the camera. She'd make a good streamer - one that can potentially make it big on both Youtube AND Twitch. Her antics and choices are ostentatious, which makes Carl's unintentional catchphrase of "Goddamnit, Donut" all the more humorous.

I'm a huge sucker for interconnected alien or monster species that thrive within a particular environment. If you like the anime Dungeon Meshi, I think you'd enjoy this. We are met with a variety of creatures that Carl and Donut fight for experience. They're not just mindless creatures; they are involved in politics and instinct within their race and the dungeon's rules. Although they're NPCs, you catch bits and pieces of their lore through the AI's description which hints towards a bigger story than what we see in this book.

One of the highlights of this story is the streaming concept. It reminds me of the manhwa "Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint" so if you enjoyed that, you might enjoy this as well. I like that the characters are challenged by a third aspect - to make their survival as spectacular and as captivating to the average viewer. Carl and Donut's murder spree - because killing sentient and self-aware NPCs to survive is STILL murder - is televised and weighed by billions of lives and in turn, they continue to survive and thrive due to an ambivalent viewer's interest.

There's a lot to unpack there but on the surface, I've found myself enjoying it to even let out more than a chuckle or two. It is a funny book if your sense of humor is wry and dry, which only Andy Weir has wielded masterfully so far.

I highly recommend this book! It's a good book to read if you're looking to be entertained and you want to root for characters that continue to persist against all foreseeable odds. If you don't find the

mass murder, genocide, infanticide, senicide, cannibalism, implied rape, filicide, drug abuse

palatable concepts for the sake of entertainment and to show the bleak, depressing world they live in or you're not a big fan of complex game descriptions, then this might not be the best book for you. And that's okay! 

Overall, I'm off to purchase the second book to figure out what the hell happens next.