I loved this continuation of the Dungeon Crawl game show with Carl and Princess Donut as they try to survive and get to the next level. The story had the perfect balance of humor, love, real life issues, cuteness, danger, machinations, supernatural elements, and morality. This book continues exactly where the last book left off. Carl, Donut and Mongo are now of level 3 of the Crawl, they continue to be very popular with the fans and Mordecai continues to assist them. I loved the interplay between Carl and Princess Donut and that Carl’s character is a sweet, snarky, messy, lucky, sarcastic, kind of dumb, and awkward man who regularly screws up which just makes him a very likeable and relatable hero. The story includes what you’d expect from this genre – fighting, dangerous situations, supernatural creatures, evil entities, henchmen, loyal friends, tragic back stories, mystical coincidences, snark, and laughs. There was once again some light ethical, moral, and philosophical undercurrents which added to the depth of the story rather than detracting from it. I will definitely keep reading the series to see what the next levels are like and what happens with Carl and Princess Donut.
Jeff Hays did a phenomenal job narrating the story and characters into life with enough change of inflection, tone and cadence to voice multiple characters quite convincingly. This was one of the best narrations I have ever heard. Reading the story was great but listening to it raised the enjoyment to a whole other level.