The BookTok Test: Dungeon Crawler Carl

Have you ever wanted to read a book about a man in his underwear punching his way through dungeons while accompanied by a magic talking cat? No? Well this one might make you rethink that lack of desire.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the first book in a series of reviews that I will be making in order to test the merits and advice of the circles of book content across many apps that has been lovingly dubbed "BookTok" by many. The groups that have mainly impacted me tend to recommend fantasy and science fiction novels like the hybrid piece of literature that we are gonna explore today.

My reviews of all books will be separated into a few main segments, the first couple of which will be spoiler-free and will explore expectations and my thoughts on the book in a way that encourages you to check the book out. The rest of which will be for after reading the book to come back and see my more in depth thoughts on specific events and conflicts throughout the book that are best experienced first hand. I would strongly recommend reading the book before reading through the latter few sections of all of my reviews (However that is ultimately up to you, you can read whatever you want. I'm not your mom after all) The reviews will be clearly separated as to not lead to any accidental spoiling.

History of Dungeon Crawler Carl

The explosion of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman was a fairly recent development on Booktok as far as I can tell, however, he began the series in 2019 through self publishing. His self publishing days continued for a few years until Ace Books picked up the first six books in 2024. The series rocketed up on the lists of book content creators under many extremely secretive spoiler-free reviews. The protective nature of these reviews comes from the astonishing plot twists that appear at every step of the crawl. Dinniman expertly subverts all expectations through every word of this book.

BookTok Induced Expectations

Much like Carl and Donut, I was thrown into this journey fairly blind to the wonderous and wild world ahead of me. As I mentioned above, most of the reviews of this book present in my circles of things were very bare bones in the information given about this book. I will follow the example of them in the spoiler-free segments of this review.

The main things I knew going in were that it was going to be what's known as a LitRPG, which is a Fantasy or Sci-Fi book that uses video game elements like leveling up and training skills. This was something that originally threw me my expectations of the book off slightly. I had never read a book of this kind before, but I had a bit of a preconceived notion that I wouldn't enjoy it in a book. Dinniman proceeded to destroy that expectation and remind me not to give in to the judgement before trying something. I will definitely be open to the reading of more LitRPGs in the future.

The only other thing that I knew about the book going in was that it was heavily humor focused. This was a big drawing point to me as I was in a place where I needed a break from the dark and serious books that I had been consumed in over the weeks leading up to the reading of Dungeon Crawler Carl.

The Verdict (Spoiler-Free)

As the last of the spoiler-free segments it is now time to give the rating and recommendation of this book. I haven't exactly been subtle with my enjoyment of this book throughout my discussion of it so far, which makes it a surprise to no one that I will be giving Dungeon Crawler Carl an outstanding yes in the realm of was Booktok right in their hype. We are starting off the series with a book that I absolutely flew through in a single night and am waist deep into the third book when writing this review. Dinniman's world is addicting and will keep you crawling back for more. There are currently seven books in the series with the plan for roughly ten books.

This book receives an amazing 8.75/10 from me in the overall rating category. I will explain more of why this rating is the way it is in the next section of the review.

This is the end of the spoiler-free section of the review. Please proceed at your own risk if you have not read this gem of a novel.

Chapter One Promises

Welcome to the first spoiler segment of this review! You made it! Hopefully you read the book, and if you didn't, then shame on you. Just joking there though I do definitely reading it for yourself, Dinniman does a far better job at telling this story than my review will.

Time to explore one of the most impactful pieces of a novel in the eyes of readers and getting attention on your book - Chapter One. I want to explore in all of my reviews what promises the first chapter of a book makes to the reader and if it delivers on those promises in order to improve my understanding and ability to write a quality chapter one.

The first Chapter of Dungeon Crawler Carl quickly introduces us to the two main characters, Carl and Princess Donut, as well as the nature of their relationship. It offers glimpses into the sass and banter that these two will develop throughout the narrative. Dinniman gives small tastes of the backstory of Carl and Donut with the mentions of Bea and her promiscuous ways. The main promises made in this first chapter come with the dramatic collapse of the buildings and the announcement from Borant. The announcement promises a complex dungeon system and engaging show of epic proportions, but more importantly it promises the presence of aliens and a Sci-Fi element to the story.

These promises are expertly delivered on by Dinniman in this first book as Donut becomes a stronger character with the ability to talk and becoming a full fledged crawler. This meets the expectations of the relationship between Carl and Donut. The sci-fi element is slowly delivered throughout the first section of the story until becoming a huge part of the narrative as they reach the second floor and Dungeon Crawler World officially starts. The mid-second floor interview show with Maestro even entering Carl into the middle of intergalactic wars and plots.

Rating Rant

Now it is time to explore my full thoughts on the book and explain why I rated it the way that I did.

I gave this book an 8.75/10 which on the scale that I am intending to create for these reviews and books is amazing. This is a book that I absolutely adored and flew through. There are a few things that did drop the rating down a bit for me, however, I am in now way saying that I disliked this book in any way. The rating was brought down personally by occasional moments of the vulgarity being a tad much for my liking, and there were some moments of repetitiveness in the way that things were done. I don't see these things as taking away from the story or the quality of the book as a whole.

This was overall a ridiculous and ridiculously fun book to read with many real moments and explorations of human nature beneath the humor. This book will hold a high place in my mind and ranking of books. I will be continuing this series and can't wait to see what Dinniman has in store for Carl and Princess Donut.

Thanks a ton for reading the first of these BookTok tests! I hope you enjoyed and will continue to read more. If you have any recommendations for what books should be next, Booktok or otherwise, please leave those in the comments or the feedback form on the website homepage. And remember read, read, Read! (Please have read the book and get the reference!)