Aww, I’m sad. This was actually bad. I really really was fan girling for all the other books in this series so I really have my head set to overlook a lot.
However this was just, not good. I really didn’t think there was enough good world building moments or descriptive writing to make this dungeon/book make sense. It kinda felt formulaic but over complicated at the same time. The whole ‘bubble’ system or basically having like several mini dungeons in one dungeon just didn’t make a whole lot of sense why anyone thought thatd be fun to experience.
It felt formulaic in a way that all these mini dungeons just didn’t feel like they had much to do with eachother other then checking off a list and working through the motions. Also since their mini dungeons I just didn’t feel any sense of attachment to any of it, a lot of times it would just come and go then feel oh most completly forgotten about by the time the next dungeon bubble needs to be worked on. Made the prior mini dungeon oh most completly forgettable by the time their working on the next. You really don’t get a lot of time to just sit and soak in the dungeon or what’s going on when they just keep changing scenery.
Also i just really didn’t get the sense of community again with this which sorta my complaint on book 2. The lack of any side characters to get to experience just made this even more boring. There are technically side characters aiding in the several mini dungeon quest line but you hardly see them, experience them or care about them, they all felt written in to perform a task more then add anything to the story or for character building. It was incredibly bland.
The plot was just a mess and not in a fun way either. I definetly felt like it was rushed, like this mini dungeon concept sounded like a good idea in theory but actually writing it out maybe a bit of control was lost on how to stuff it all in there, make it cohesive still and somehow still make it meaningful. It really failed to do anything to build attachment to this world if the writing is just going to be this lackluster for it all. I honestly just didn’t feel any realistic sense of tension either as it’s really way too messy and disorganized to even get the illusion that there isn’t heavy plot armor.
I honestly struggled with this, i didn’t think I’d run into this where It felt like pulling teeth to finish this story but it honestly did. I didn’t enjoy my time with it. The only good takeaway here was there was an occasional good zinger in there to make it funny. Donut really kept this from being unbearable.