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! 

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.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is first-person pop-culture-referencing easygoing light adventure in the style of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, Dennis E. Taylor's Bobiverse or books from John Scalzi or Andy Weir. It's a first LitRPG book I've read - perhaps not that extreme but a fun introduction to genre anyway. LitRPGs are a bit like games that you read, containing statistics, skill levels and scores for the main characters. I was a bit sceptical about the genre but it ended up being good entertainment.