Justin's Notes
Oct. 31, 2026
Moments after every building collapses into the earth, Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat Princess Donut find themselves running down a set of stairs, entering a dungeon created by aliens. Anyone who made it into the dungeon quickly finds out their only chance of survival is to level up, fight, and hope to appease the millions of space viewers for follows and views, all while making it deeper and deeper through the televised dungeon adventure.
I had avoided this book for a long time. It is so insanely popular on social media. I generally have a line where I start to become slightly skeptical about if people actually like a piece of media or if talking about it gets them their views. Unfortunately that was the case here. Luckily, my friend gifted me a copy, and I finally read it. This book is awesome. I laughed out loud, probably 10 pages into the book, with many more audibly laughing moments throughout the whole story. There are so many characters with such a vast range of personalities where every character fills a specific role. The entire premise is very different from any other kind of post apocalyptic story I have ever read. One small warning here: there is a lot of violence and quite a bit of language. It would align with an M-rated game for sure.
I absolutely love RPGs, especially RPG video games, so my love for the genre definitely helped my love of the book. Everything RPG-related, like the achievements, the loot boxes with gear and items, and the leveling up of spells and skills while grinding away on low-level enemies, all felt so familiar to me. I am actually really excited to read the second book because of the other RPG systems that are mentioned in this first book but don't come into effect yet. There are just so many familiar systems from games I have played displayed in a new media format that I ended up really enjoying that aspect of the story.
If you enjoy RPG games of any kind, from video games to tabletop RPGs, it feels like the easiest recommendation I have ever given. Even if you don't, but you are a sci-fi/fantasy fan, I still think you will enjoy it and think it's worth a try.
