I’ve been working through the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and honestly, I don’t really understand the level of hype around it. The books aren’t terrible, but they definitely haven’t lived up to the recommendations for me.
My biggest issue is the Princess Donut character. I know she’s intentionally written to be chaotic and comedic, but I found her more irritating than entertaining. On top of that, many of Carl’s decisions feel inconsistent with the personality and survival mindset the story establishes for him early on. At times it almost feels like characters act against their own nature simply to force plot developments or jokes.
The series does have some creative world-building and occasional entertaining moments, so I wouldn’t call it unreadable. But for me, it falls more into the category of “filler between better series” rather than something I’d strongly recommend. If someone skipped it entirely, I don’t think they’d be missing much.
By the time I finished, I was honestly starting to question the taste of the two people who recommended it to me so strongly.