Flirty Fall Fling by Lyra Parish

Lynnie

contemporary romance 

If you've ever read a book from Lyra Parish you know that even though they can all stand on their own, the characters connect them and everything is more fun if you've read the books that come before.

In this case, Flirty Fall Fling features Blair (who previously appeared in Parish's Fall I Want and maybe in the Hookup Situation, though I can't remember, to be honest), and Jamie (who is the twin brother of Patterson from the Hockey Situation, brother of Addison from the Royal Situation and appears in other Billionaire Situation books, briefly).

Blair has inherited her aunt's witchy shop, selling spells, readings and other magical notions with some of her friends. After a scandal, Jamie has been forced to take a leave of absence from his company and he settles in Blair's town for a few weeks of relaxation. As soon as they meet, sparks fly and it appears that the universe, and their friends, are conspiring to bring the two of them together. And how can you argue with the universe? They agree to have a fall fling and, as one would expect, things don't quite work out as planned.

Interestingly, I came into this book not liking Jamie. From the previous books, I thought he was a jerk. My opinion of him quickly changed in Flirty Fall Fling as he was allowed to be charming, just like all of Parish's leading men. Blair, and her friends Winter and Josie (also from other books in the Parishverse) are delightfully whimsical and witchy. Pay attention to Winter and Josie because it looks like Winter is getting her own book next, which means Josie probably won't be far behind.

If you're looking for a seasonal fall romance, this is a fun, steamy choice.   

Flirty Fall Fling will be published on September 3, 2026. 

Thank you to the author for the advance review copy. 

Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

Amy   

fiction

Elsie, an 81-year old formerly known as the youngest jailed Australian Mad Mabel, is forced back into the spotlight when her elderly next door neighbor dies and someone divulges to the police that Elsie is really Mad Mabel.

This is another old curmudgeon redemption story. You’ve read others like this, no doubt. An elderly person who’s experienced trauma avoids people until meddling neighbors kindheartedly ruin their peaceful, miserable solitude. In this novel, that meddling neighbor is a lonely 7-year old who lives across the street.

I’ve read five other Sally Hepworth novels and they average 3-1/2 hearts in my reviews which means I generally like her novels. But I’ve not been interested in reading all of her novels. Mad Mabel was getting early rave reviews and I also liked the cover art. Sadly, this is my least favorite of all of them.

Why? Unbelievability, depressing vibe, and unoriginal storylines. I know that sounds harsh. I’m sorry about that.

Despite the happy ending and some really fun characters, I just had a hard time swallowing the main premise—that a parent would go around badmouthing his child to such a degree for something that happened when she was 3 years old. Sure, he was likely feeling guilty. But could he feel cornered and narcissistic enough to carry on a long-running smear campaign against his own child? And even if that is to be believed, the idea that other grown adults would be spreading that stigma against a small child and carrying it on for years is ludicrous to me. Sure, it was the 1940s and 50s but I wasn’t buying it.

Most of the time I was reading this novel, I felt a pervasive sense of sadness and dread because poor Mabel was failed by grownups at practically every turn. She lost the opportunities to experience true friendship and was led astray by multiple people who should have been protecting her. On top of that, there are two reveals in this novel which, I imagine, were intended to surprise readers at the end. However, I’ve read those storylines in other novels and could see them coming before the halfway point.

Overall this book was depressing. Even the “happy ending” was bittersweet because positive change came so late in Mabel’s life.

The audiobook narrators were Hannah Fredericksen (voicing young Mabel) and Jenny Seedsman (voicing old Mabel). They both did a great job—especially Seedsman who had more diverse material to work with. I’ll give them an A- as an ensemble. Although, I feel one narrator could’ve carried this novel.

Paper Ghosts by Sarah Addison Allen

Amy           

Lynnie       

 

magical realism

In Hen Town, North Carolina, generations of residents have had strong opinions about the Wester women; some want to be them, others fear them and still others want to ruin them. Once in a while, someone even loves them.

Paper Ghosts begins with the story of Willamena "Wills" Wester as a high school student. As a member of the school's popular clique, she felt trapped by her family's expectations for her future. In an attempt to rebel, she sealed her fate to stay in Hen Town and Wester House for the rest of her life. Years later, when her son moves back to town with his daughter, Bailey, Wills tries not to repeat her own grandmother's mistakes as Bailey grows up, but the ghosts of Wills' past turn out to be hard to avoid and Bailey is a lot more like Wills than anyone would like to admit. 

Amy's Review

The Wester women tend to be wealthy, reclusive, all-knowing, and intimidating so, through their generations, the townspeople sometimes call them witches. It’s as if the Wester women have eyes and ears everywhere. In the 1970s, teenage Willamena Wester generally follows all of her grandmother’s rules but, when Willamena makes a last-minute decision of her own, tragedy strikes. She becomes ruled by fear and resentment and eventually molds her granddaughter into the person she thinks she should be. 

I always adore Sarah Addison Allen’s magical realism and her southern characters and settings. I loved the concept that photographs of dead people are “paper ghosts”. All her novels are entirely different from each other, which is incredible. While the magic in this one was creative, as expected, Allen didn’t allow us to get to know her main characters very well because she had to keep their motivations and impulses mysterious. Because of this, I did not particularly care all that much about them. They were portrayed very stoically with their primary personality traits being bossiness, self-imposed loneliness, and secrecy. 

The secondary characters were more interesting to me, even though they were on the lower end of the Sarah Addison Allen Quirky Scale. Unlike the Wester women, the other characters were free to do anything and become whomever they wanted to be. Perhaps the moral of the story is to live the life you want to live. Make mistakes, face consequences, and don’t lock yourself away. Don’t make drastic life decisions because of one situation. And understand that you also have to let your children become their own people. 

Lynnie's Review  

In many ways, this book is darker and has a more gothic feel that many of Sarah Addison Allen's earlier books (I didn't realize I had read most of them before we started this blog!). I felt a lot of empathy for all of the characters and generally enjoyed watching them grow throughout the book. I was eager to see how their stories would be resolved and hoped to get answers to many of the questions I had as I read. I did get answers, but only to some of the questions.

Ultimately, I enjoyed my time with the Westers and the rest of Hen Town just as I knew I would when opening a book by SAA; it often left me feeling like I was getting a cozy fall hug. While this book was a little less magical and a little more paranormal than a typical SAA book, I think her usual fans will really enjoy it.

Paper Ghosts will be published on September 1, 2026.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press, NetGalley and Sarah Addison Allen for the advanced reader copy.

Ideal Life by Evelyn Skye

 

 

Lynnie  

contemporary fantasy, magical realism 

In Evelyn Skye's Ideal Life, Talia Morgan is an idealistic tech whiz, about to sell her startup company which creates wearable tech featuring a personal assistant that helps individuals analyze and adjust their habits and decisions to be their best selves. After discovering a bug in the software, Talia wakes up with a mysterious watch on her wrist and discovers that she can rewind time. After going back in time to fix the bug, Talia begins to reverse time to experiment with making other corrections to her life. As you can imagine, things don't go as well as she would like and, as every movie and book have ever warned, the fallout of these timeline changes are unpredictable for Talia, her company and everyone else in her life.

I loved Skye's previous novel, The Incredible Kindness of Paper, so my hopes were high for Ideal Life. Unfortunately, while I liked this story, I also found it frustrating. The idea of it was really intriguing, but I found much of the story repetitive and predictable, and never really connected with any of the characters. Some aspects of the book were never properly explained, and others were over-explained to the point that I found myself skipping paragraphs just to get through.

There are multiple points of view in this book and I found myself wondering if that was necessary. Did Erin the intern's viewpoint add anything to the narrative? Honestly, not really. However, I did love the connection of this book to Chloe and Oliver from The Incredible Kindness of Paper - that section made me smile more than anything else in this novel, which might say more about this book than anything.

I do think the overall message of this novel is an important one, living in the moment and not allowing technology to control us. But I fear that it gets lost in some of the meandering plot points.

Ideal Life will publish on August 18, 2026. Thank you to Atria Books, NetGalley and Evelyn Skye for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez

Amy       

romance

Samantha and Xavier meet when Samantha brings a newfound kitten to Xavier’s veterinary clinic in Minnesota. They eventually reconnect and have a very fun, memorable date. But Samantha moves to California the very next day and the two of them try to forget each other since it’s impossible for either of them to leave their respective cities.

I had much higher hopes for Say You’ll Remember Me after enjoying several of Abby Jimenez’s novels this year. But it really dragged and grew monotonous. The vast majority of the novel is the two of them complaining and stressing about missing each other and being unable to visit each other due to limited finances. And another huge chunk is about Samantha and her family caring for her mother who is suffering from dementia. It was depressing and not what I expect in romance novels. In fact, there wasn’t really much romance. It was instant falling in love and then the whole story was their inability to be together. That was it. Finally, at the end, they do live happily ever after. But it was a fairly frustrating reading experience.

I wish I had more to say about it but there wasn’t much to the story. *shrug* 

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Amy        


family drama

Natalie is an influencer, sharing her family life on a farm in Idaho via social media. She positions herself as a modern-day pioneer mother, working the Yesteryear farm while caring for her five children and husband. And she’s got a couple million followers. Unfortunately, her reality is not what she presents to the world. And when things get out of her control, she doesn’t handle it well. And then she seems to be uprooted and sent back in time as an actual pioneer mother of some other family.

This book is like nothing I’ve read before. It got really crazy at times. In that way, it was promising. I was interested in the influencer storyline up until I realized I’d really had enough of Natalie already. She wasn’t a pleasant person by any measure. And I generally don’t enjoy reading about unlikeable protagonists. However, I was curious about the time travel storyline. That, in combination with all the positive reviews I’d heard about this novel, I stuck with it.

Caro Claire Burke uses “flashbacks” into the contemporary life Natalie left behind when she was whisked into the past to explain how Natalie got to the point where she was at the beginning of the novel.

Natalie has a superiority complex and is a control freak. Everyone in her life is a prop, as is her religion. For someone claiming that religion is so important to her, she is extremely uncharitable and doesn’t even go to church. Anyone who disagrees with her is incorrect or stupid or jealous of her. She doesn’t mother her children. She doesn’t connect with her husband. Her family members are simply pawns in her giant, fictional, perfect life, and she is never at fault for anything. She doesn’t work the farm. The driving force in her life is to be more interesting and satisfied than her college roommate. She thinks she’s smarter than everyone else when, in actually, she lacks critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence. She shows no appreciation or love for anyone. She doesn’t know how to fit into the construct of every day civilization. She doesn’t know how to find her own joy, let alone share in other people’s joy. The one thing that arouses her is her idea of God.

There were some thought-provoking aspects of Natalie’s story which will make good fodder for book club (other than “what did we just read???”). For one, the idea of framing undesired tasks as if you’re performing for an audience was intriguing. For another, Burke spotlighted some genuine feminist concerns regarding “women’s duties” and struggles faced by women working outside the home. Additionally, I liked seeing the juxtaposition of current day life on a farm vs. American pioneer days on a farm.

AND THEN at the very end, the book turns out to be a recrimination of most of the people portrayed in this novel! After having to listen to almost 14 hours of Natalie’s life, I was rewarded with rational reality! That made me feel much better, honestly, despite the sadness with which this book left me. The moral of the story is that you can’t stop progress and if you try to stop time or avoid change, you are misguided and will lose in the end. Down with censuring! Down with people who think they know what’s best for everyone and have any right to impose their beliefs on others! Down with liars! 

The audiobook narrator, Rebecca Lowman, was good. She especially had some nice male voices in her repertoire. But she often read the book robotically. I tend to think this was intentional in order for her to relay Natalie’s psychopathy. Also, I’ve heard her narrate another novel as the voice of a sullen teenager and my comments about that performance were that she didn’t come across as robotic or unfeeling, as might have happened in another narrator’s hands. So, I’ll say that Lowman’s robotic portrayal served to make me even more annoyed with Natalie and that was probably her intention. I’ll give her an A-.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi #1) by Shannon Chakraborty

Amy       

fantasy, adventure

Amina is a notorious pirate who retired 10 years ago when she became a mother. Needing reward money, she goes out in search of the missing daughter of one of her former shipmates, leaving her own daughter back home in the care of Amina’s mother. As she rebuilds her crew and regains control of her ship, she investigates the whereabouts of the missing girl. Thus begins The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and the story of the challenges she and her shipmates encounter during the pursuit.

This was a fun story with a large, diverse cast of lovable (and hateable) characters and hard reality combined with fantastical beasts, curses, and luck. It was mostly action-packed but got long-winded at times. Their adventures through the Indian Sea were many. The trials were diverse and exciting. And, personally, it was a good time for me to read a book about pirates! Otherwise, for such a long book, I don’t have much else to say about it without giving things away. If you like adventures with fantasy creatures, magical objects, and a strong female lead character, you’ll like it!

I had read the first two novels in S.A. Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy but couldn’t get through the third book since too much time had passed between the second and third novels and I couldn’t get into it. So I was curious to give Chakraborty another try when I heard this novel was good. I’m glad I read it! I know there is already one sequel and I’m sure there will be others. However, I didn’t love this one enough to continue with the series. 

The narrators, Lameece Issaq (who read most of the novel) and Amin El Gamal (who read excerpts from various other stories throughout throughout the novel as a character called Jamal), did a great job. Issaq had a large vocal repertoire and was an entertaining voice actor! Unfortunately, her volume had a tendency to get really loud and really soft at times which required volume adjustments. This is not something I normally encounter in audiobooks, thankfully. El Gamal didn’t get to show off much with his limited contributions, but he did a fine job. I’ll give them an A- as an ensemble. The audiobook production had a unique feature in a few parts where the main storytelling by Amina was interrupted when she spoke to Jamal “offline”. The producers made it sound like she had shoved the mic to the side and was speaking to someone else outside her recording room. I liked that creative choice. Although it did always take me out of the story, it was the author’s intention. So I didn’t get as irritated as I otherwise do when taken out of a story.

Yes, Chef by Grace Reilly

Lynnie 

contemporary romance

I love to read about food, so I was happy to get an advance copy of Grace Reilly’s
Yes, Chef - a romance between Jack, a high-skilled but troubled chef, and Poppy, an influencer who can’t seem to get out of her own way. Jack and Poppy are both trying to outrun mistakes and bad decisions, and after an evening of commiserating, Poppy follows Jack to Florida where he has inherited a restaurant and a houseboat from his former foster father and mentor. Jack and Poppy believe that if they can bring the restaurant back to life and turn it into the fine dining destination they know it can be, they can win their way back into the NYC dining scene they've run away from.

I liked Poppy and Jack most of the time, though I thought that Reilly spent way too much time having Jack be absolutely rude to Poppy, and frankly Poppy spent way too much time putting up with it. For two people who clearly liked one another, I found that often what was supposed to be banter felt a lot like elementary school kids throwing rocks at each other on the playground. Fortunately, they got over that sooner rather than later. When Jack and Poppy were talking about the restaurant or food or actually cooking, this book was at its best. They were cute and fun and the dishes often made me want to reach for a snack because they were described so well. I absolutely loved the way they encouraged and believed in each other.

I also really enjoyed the cast of side characters in this novel. The found family in Florida was incredibly sweet and almost unnaturally patient. More than once I found myself thinking that Jack better recognize how lucky he is before it’s too late! Poppy’s family was an excellent plot device, and we intentionally didn’t get a chance to know or like them very well for much of the book.

Rarely though, have I read a romance and thought, “this book would be improved with less sex,” but it’s happened before and this is one of those books. What works for one doesn’t work for all and I just didn’t find Jack and Poppy’s sexy time very enjoyable. Unfortunately, it was kind of cringy for me. But others of you will love it, so to each their own.

Still, it’s a fun read if you like romance in a restaurant setting. Reilly did an excellent job of representing how an adult with ADHD feels as they navigate the challenges of work and general life tasks and it’s good to see that represented on a page.

Yes, Chef will be published on July 21, 2026. Thank you to Avon Books, NetGalley and Grace Reilly for the advance reader copy.

Take Me With You by Andrea Gibson

Lynnie 

poetry 

Like many others, I was recently introduced to Andrea Gibson through the documentary, Come See Me In the Good Light, filmed during a year of Gibson's treatment for the ovarian cancer that would eventually take her life.

I was so moved by the spoken-word poetry Gibson performed throughout the film that I wanted to read more of their work and immediately got my hands on this book and got on the waitlist for others at the library.

Take Me With You is a fascinating collection of thoughts. In some ways it felt like gateway poetry. There are short snippets of poems, some taken from Gibson's longer poems from what I understand, others are original short poems or couplets or phrases. Yet, these bite-size morsels pack a punch. Sometimes I would turn a page and just be gutted by the words there. Other times, I would find myself smiling or laughing. The thoughts may be brief, but the sentiments are huge.

This is a book that could be read in a day, but I found myself stretching it out, only reading a few pages at a time to make it last longer and to really chew on some of the ideas Gibson shares. I'm really looking forward to reading some of their longer works. This collection however, is one I think I'll return to over and over.  

Strangers by Belle Burden

Amy   

memoir

Strangers is Belle Burden’s memoir, mostly covering her marriage and divorce, but also including the histories of her family members as well as her husband’s. Burden came from a very wealthy family including several famous people. She lived a privileged life, married the man of her dreams, and created a seemingly perfect family with him. And then, one day in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she discovered a betrayal and her husband announced he was leaving her and their children.

While this book was never boring or long-winded, it can be very simply summarized in one paragraph. I won’t do that so that others can experience the ride of Burden’s experiences. Burden speaks authentically and from her heart. She admits her own mistakes while also sharing the horrors of her situation with the reader. Personally, while I’m not divorced, I’m the child of divorce and have many divorced friends. I had no trouble understanding Burden’s thoughts and actions. In fact, I was riveted to find out what she would learn along the way and how the memoir would finish.

While this book is being described as good for book clubs, I’m not so sure that it would generate overly lengthy or debatable discussions. But, at the same time, I feel it’s a worthwhile read for any woman and that it will undoubtedly speak very directly to those who find the subject matter relevant. And it will make everyone think. I applaud Burden for sharing her story and placing herself in the spotlight of public scrutiny.

The author narrated the audiobook. While she’s no amazing vocal talent, her delivery of her story was heartfelt and genuine. I always like when authors narrate their own books and am giving her an A- only because her tone could be flat for long periods of time. But I really enjoyed hearing her voice in addition to “her voice”.

In Stormy Weather by Chelsea Curto

Lynnie 

contemporary romance 

I was first introduced to Chelsea Curto's writing when a friend shared Curto's D.C. Stars series with me. It's a fun hockey romance series filled with dreamy, green-flag men, kick-ass, empowered women and very steamy romance.

Curto's In Stormy Weather brings that same energy to Florida where a small group of 30-something friends support one another as hurricane season is about to begin in the Sunshine State. Lucky for them, two of their friends are meteorological rock stars: Quincy, who runs a hugely successful weather blog with more than a million followers and Sebastian, a famous weatherman for ABC's national evening news. Quincy and Sebastian have been competing against one another since high school, for grades, awards and jobs; they circle each other's orbits but can't seem to stop picking at one another.

Of course, the laws thermodynamics and romance novels dictate that Quincy and Sebastian are going to be thrown together, experience some insane and terrifying storms, and will, eventually, have wild sex and live happily ever after, right? Of course right. 

I loved the characters of Quincy and Sebastian. I enjoyed seeing unapologetically smart characters who pushed each other to be their best and who were excited by each other's intelligence. The misogyny that Quincy experiences is realistic — every woman who has professional success in a male-dominated field has experienced it to some degree — and I think that Sebastian's shock in hearing about it is also realistic, sadly. I don't however, think his full-throated, constant defense of her is realistic, though I wish it were. That's the joy of fiction though, isn't it? Curto can create the man every woman wishes they were standing next to in the breach; the man who would stop an interview and demand someone give us the respect we have earned. Still, Sebastian serves as a great role model and if a woman reads this book and thinks that this is what they should expect from a man, maybe more men will be forced to step forward in the future, so I am all for it! Either way, it was a fresh, new take on the romance genre for me, having not read a lot of STEM or storm-chasing romance and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

I also loved the friend group who, it appears, will take center stage in future books based on the Acknowledgments. Curto sets up the future of these Oak Valley, Florida friends nicely and I'm eager to learn what will happen next, not only with Quincy and Sebastian, but also with Mia, Cooper, Harlow and Nate.

In Stormy Weather will be published on July 14, 2026. Thank you to Atria Books, NetGalley and Chelsea Curto for the advanced reader copy.

Every Summer After and One Golden Summer (Barry's Bay #1 and #2) by Carley Fortune

Amy    

romance

Persephone has not seen or heard from her first love, Sam, in 12 years when Sam’s brother calls her to let her know that their mother has died. Percy and Sam had fallen in love as teenagers when her family spent summers at the lake in a small town four hours from their home in Toronto. She has thought about the way things ended between them, with regret, ever since.

Every Summer After was an authentic-feeling story. Their young love was adorable. The story alternated between the present and various points in the progression of time from their past. While the ending was no mystery, the mysteries that kept me reading were about why they split up twelve years ago and how Percy, apparently, mishandled the situation. I enjoyed getting to know both characters and experiencing their love story. It was a good summer read written by Carley Fortune.

As with most romances, I don’t have much to say except that it was cute. I’ll certainly read the sequel! After all, I’ve grown to care about the secondary characters too! In fact, I read this book because the sequel was recommended to me and I always want to read series books in order. I look forward to it.

The audiobook was narrated by AJ Bridel and she did a terrific job! Great voice acting and a good vocal repertoire as well. Sadly, she mispronounced “poutine” and I even looked up the proper Canadian pronunciation online to verify it’s pronounced the same way we pronounce it here in the South. And she’s Canadian. SMH. Could there be regional pronunciation differences? I’ll give her an A-.

Amy    

romance

Another great romance by Carley Fortune set in the adorable small lake town of Barry's Bay. This time, Sam's big brother, Charlie, gets his happy ending. I liked the story about Alice spending the summer at the lake with her grandmother and meeting one of the boys she had seen 16 years ago when she was last at this lake. 

Alice is coming off a breakup of a long-term relationship and is looking forward to simply relaxing and helping her grandmother heal from a hip replacement. Charlie has his own past and future to reckon with and also isn't looking for a serious relationship. Of course, they're the perfect pair as these romance novels go. 

The audiobook was read by AJ Bridel and she did a terrific job. I'll give her an A!

Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman

Lynnie 

Amy   

science fiction, dystopian fiction

Dungeon Crawler Carl 

In Dungeon Crawler Carl, Earth is taken over by aliens who hope to mine it for essential resources. First however, they subject humans to a game for their amusement, turning Earth itself into a dungeon crawler game where humans must survive alien mobs and each other through 18 levels, growing their audience, collection loot boxes and sponsors, and hoping to survive another day. 

Lynnie's Review

Dungeon Crawler Carl was an entirely unexpected delight and wildly exceeded my expectations! I'm not a gamer anymore and, if I were, I would never play dungeon crawler games. When I did play video games I found no joy in games that required grinding away or killing things... just not my jam. But Matt Dinniman's book amused me endlessly from beginning to end. 

I listened to the audiobook, which probably had a lot to do with my enjoyment because the narrator, Jeff Hays, has a remarkable variety of voices that really brought this book to life! There are times when it is hard to believe he doesn't have someone else in the booth with him, but it is all him. 

Anyway, from the very beginning, I was invested in Carl, Princess Donut and the vicious world of Earth's dungeons. I fully admit that knowing there are several books in the series made it easier for me to read. Knowing that Carl and Donut were going to survive for a few more books made me much less anxious during some of the more stressful boss battles and I'm not even sorry about that. 

This is not a genre I would normally read, but I thought the creativity was really impressive and the humor kept me laughing during a road trip. Was it often brutal and gruesome? Absolutely, but it's a war with aliens. Aren't those always brutal and gruesome in books, TV and movies? That part just didn't bother me that much.

I'm not ready to commit to the full series, but I am absolutely looking forward to the next book.

Amy's Review

Carl, 30-something years old and recently single again, gets forced into a life-or-death game in which he has to fight to survive to each successive level. The game is being televised intergalactically like a reality show. He and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, team up to try to make progress through the game levels, stay alive, win sponsors, and kill the game monsters and anyone else who tries to kill them.

Dungeon Crawler Carl, by Matt Dinniman, is basically like reading a video game being played. In fact, it reminded me very much of how the first video games on personal computers were experienced. There were no videos or pictures in the early 1980s. Rather, the computer screen only displayed text (all in the amber color) which described the world the characters inhabited—all the scenes, characters, inventory items, action, etc Reading this book is like that except that Carl’s first-person narration of his own adventure is more personal and insightful than those old video games were.

The novel was funny, action-packed, and creative. The beginning was hysterical! However, for me, once the game play started, it dragged. First, the reader, and Carl, had to learn the rules of the game, then Carl and Donut had to repetitively kill game characters to increase their various statistics like strength, skills, weapons, etc. in order to be equipped to survive in future levels. And then more rules, more killing, more inventory/skills. And again and again. The monotony of the “busy work” of video games is boring to me. I suppose that this is why I stopped playing video games. Also, I’m really not entertained by reading extensive fighting/battle scenes, whether set in wars or video games. And this novel was probably 93% fighting. I forced myself to read a chapter every night before bed until about the 40% mark but I just wasn’t into it. At least the chapters were mostly short but this “plot” wasn’t something that held my interest. Mostly, I just wanted to finish this one to give it a fair shake after all the great reviews I’d heard.

My sister suggested I abandon trying to read it and move, instead, to the highly acclaimed audiobook. The truly astounding narrator, Jeff Hays, was extremely entertaining and kept me listening. But, even with that entertainment boost, this story just dragged for me. I finished it. I get why it’s a hit with the video game-playing crowd. But for me, I needed a more interesting plot besides game advancement. I did appreciate all the creative characters, situations, humor, and potential side stories that will, undoubtedly, be explored further in future books, but I’m not planning to read any more novels in this series.

Jeff Hays gets an A+! He simply has a crazy vocal repertoire and awesomely entertaining voice acting. The overall audiobook production was also sensational (including the ending credits—don’t miss those!)

Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Lynnie      

I hadn't really intended to listen to this second book in the series so quickly after the first book, but with a road trip, I had the perfect opportunity to dive back into Matt Dinniman's insane world of Dungeon Crawler Carl, so I was more than happy to queue up Carl's Doomsday Scenario and enjoy the ride.

Picking up right where book 1 left off, we are once again immersed in the dungeon as Carl and Princess Donut descend to Level 3. Once again, their adventures are compelling, now adding quests to the grind of the dungeon. In fact, there was a lot less grinding for points, experience and loot in this book than in book 1, which I enjoyed. Though, some of the game play was still more tedious than a nongamer like me needed but not so much that I ever wanted to turn it off.

Jeff Hays' narration truly made this book for me. I suspect that if I were just reading it, I wouldn't be as patient with some of the gameplay, but his variety of voices is endlessly compelling and really moves the story along.

Ultimately, if you enjoyed the first book, you're going to enjoy this one and, I suspect, you're going to want to move on to book 3 to find out what comes next. Carl is clearly thinking ahead to try to figure out what the game has in store for him and the other crawlers and I'm eager to find out how that works out.

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Lynnie 

Another adventure with Carl, Princess Donut and the gang, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, takes place on the fourth level of the dungeon, and is more tedious than the first two books. As the book's description states, this level is called the Iron Tangle, and is a mess of earth trains from subway systems to diesel, steam and electric trains, where the crawlers must figure out where the trains lead while finding their way past the mobs to a limited number of stairways. Unlike previous levels, the stairways won't be open until the very end of the level, so crawlers have to stay safe and alive (from the levels monsters and each other) until the stairways open. As expected, mayhem follows.

In this level however, the crawlers begin to cooperate with one another. Sure, not all of them, but enough that it makes a difference in some of the outcomes. While the "show" portrays them as characters, they are learning who each other really is. Whether or not that will make a difference in their long-term survival remains to be seen, but it definitely appears to be laying the groundwork for something.

The grinding and points and mobs, as mentioned above, were certainly less interesting in this book, but learning more about Carl, Donut, Katia, Mordecai and the others continues to fascinate me. I do feel like I should have been taking notes on the characters however, because we are reaching the point where there are so many that I am starting to lose track of them all.

As always, Jeff Hays' narration is remarkable and kept me entertained from beginning to end. I'm definitely looking forward to book 4!