cocoamoovamp 's review for:

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense 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: Complicated

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Beautiful, barbaric, ballsy, and badass. This book isn't for the faint of heart but it's a story for the ages. Matt Dinniman spins a chaotic, expertly woven tapestry of Dungeons & Dragons, video games, and game show meets 80s-00s slapstick humor, 4chan, and "Llamas With Hats" meets a true hero's saga. The characters are heartfelt, with quite a lot of growth, intrigue, and wit. Each chapter is filled with consequences designed to knock the characters down for daring to rise back up, but rise they do. Each turn unravels one bit of mystery, only for a much bigger one to develop... and some unpleasant gunk between the toes.  

All in all, I couldn't put this masterpiece down! In fact, I've told so many people about it over and over, they probably want to toss me into the game show, too. I can't wait to pick up book 2.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic