Glorified Buddy Reads

As an honorary member of both the Princess Posse and the Donut Holes, it is my honor to introduce you to the book that set the bar for all books I read thereafter. April's cawfee tawk will be all things Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinneman. Equal parts hilarious and absurd, this is the LitRPG book you never knew you needed in your life. Fantasy, science fiction and role-playing games had a baby and magic ensued.

Join us as we find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. No, sorry, that's MTV's The Real World, wrong televised apocalypse show. Anway, hope to see you there.

Description
The apocalypse will be televised!
A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.

Community Reviews
StoryGraph - 4.41 Stars based upon 6,932 reviews
GoodReads - 4.53 Stars based upon 50,489 reviews
Fable - 4 Stars based upon 3,242 reviews

We are a women-only book club that meets the second Saturday of every month to discuss a pre-selected book while enjoying our favorite caffeinated (or decaffeinated) beverage and the company of fellow readers.

This month join us for a discussion on The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab.

Description
"Never pray to the gods that answer after dark."

France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman named Adeline meets a dangerous stranger and makes a terrible mistake.
As she realizes the limitations of her Faustian bargain-being able to live forever, without being able to be remembered by anyone she sees- Addie chooses to flee her small village, as everything she once held dear is torn away.

But there are still dreams to be had, and a life to live, and she is determined to find excitement and satisfaction in the wide, beckoning world-even if she will be doomed to be alone forever.

Or not quite alone-as every year, on her birthday, the alluring Luc comes to visit, checking to see if she is ready to give up her soul. Their darkly thrilling game stretches through the ages, seeing Addie witness history and fight to regain herself as she crosses oceans and tries on various lives.

It will be three hundred years before she stumbles into a hidden bookstore and discovers someone who can remember her name-and suddenly, everything changes again.