YA Buddy Readers' Corner ♥ discussion

New Achievement! Total, Utter Failure.

You failed a quest less than five minutes after you received it. Now that’s talent.

A floating fortress occupied by warrior gnomes. A castle made of sand. A derelict submarine guarded by malfunctioning machines. A haunted crypt surrounded by lethal traps.

It was supposed to be easy. One bubble. Four castles. Fifteen days. Capture each one, and the stairwell is unlocked.

Here's the thing. It's never easy. Carl and his team can't go it alone. Not this time. They must rely on the help of the low-level, I-can't-believe-these-idiots-are-still-alive crawlers trapped in the bubble with them. But can they be trusted?

Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to the fifth floor of the dungeon.

I'll be a couple of days later. I need to wrap up book 3.

Starting this week!

Starting nowwww

A Quarter In:

(view spoiler)[Love how everything is happening so farrr, Louis is definitely awarder for the worst person everr (He called Princess Donut a CAT 😭😭) aand im guessing that their 'sponsors' who send them those boxes just does that for their own entertainent, i mean the entire game itself is like broadcasted and all for the entertainment of extraterrestrial beings.

I also don't know why the game would specify that an NPC has a specific sickness because we're not even supposed to care about them and even just kill them afterwards but ok, maybe feel a bit sympathetic to them 😭😭😭 (hide spoiler)]

I've finally started, but will comment when I'm a few pages further.

Up to chapter 3:
(view spoiler)[The set up of the bowl, the quadrants and the castles is really interesting and I like it more then the Iron Tangle. It makes me think of a children's outdoor game I played when I was a kid. Also, I get some Dune - vibes and expected to some sandworms popping up in the dessert. There was mentioning of Pterodactylus drawings on the wall. One would expect that there will be flying some around. The need to reach the goblin castle, so...Wouldn't that be nice? (hide spoiler)]

I really like the steampunk-vibe the story has.

Finished chapter 5:
(view spoiler)[Waw, there's definately something seriously wrong with Lucia Mar! Typical Carl trying to round every crawler up to work together. Maybe now all the floors will asking more teamwork to get through them. (hide spoiler)]

Saar The Book owl wrote: "Finished chapter 5:
[spoilers removed]"

Agreeee, teamwork and collaboration activities would get us introduced to more & more characters and that would be more interesting 🥰🥰🥰🥰

44%

(view spoiler)[well u can say that that bossfight was......a literal goose chase 😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆 (hide spoiler)]

64%

(view spoiler)[it's a bit great that they managed to defeat a boss without actually killing it but it really seems that this book is parodying the events of the previous books,. It is certainly a weak entry in this book series & there's not really that much impactful scenes that happened yet. Even the newly introduced characters are pretty flat & uninspiring (hide spoiler)]

78%

(view spoiler)[awhhhhh, at least now we have the absolute best good boy everrrr 🐕🐕🐕🐕 but this pup right here is extremely fragile and i think an accident would happen that would kill this dog and anger the Emberus the Fire God. The rest of the plot is a bit shallow tho so this part is the only thing that is standing out. (hide spoiler)]

100%

(view spoiler)[yeahhhhh this book was..... Very underwhelming....the only memorable thing at the end was Samantha trying to kill Princess Donut because of—something. It was the least good book in this series. I just hope that the next book is more improved than this one. (hide spoiler)]

Still reading. Had put it aside for a bit.

30% in:
(view spoiler)[Now I know of what Sledge and Bomo remind me of! It's a reference to The Edge and Bono from U2, haha!
Carl needs to work on his people skills, I think. Okay, he want's to save as many victims as possible, but he's commanding Katia and Donut. They're in a party and are equals. That was what Katia was trying to say before the big earthquake. I wonder with who Katia was secretly talking about. Also, that wasn't a bug, when the game paused. The characters higher up are messing with the quadrants, making them like a maze. (hide spoiler)]

Chapter 13 - 15:
(view spoiler)[I really thought that Donut would hate the robotic version of herself, but instead she loved it. Well, she's being herself: all about merch and viewers and the like. What the AI did with the gerbrils was beyond cruel. It seems that the AI has a lot to say in the current dungeon. I had a feeling that Chris wasn't himself, but what happened to him was bad. I mean, being controlled by something/someone else and don't have a say in it...It was a relief that Donut came up with her plan to safe Chris for now. (hide spoiler)]

Still reading as it goes slower than the other books:
(view spoiler)[Well, I thought Denise was a mix between that goose from Beatrix Potter and that thing from Stranger Things, I think. I feel sad for Zev, though, Donut and her got such a good vibe. I really thought Mongo was going to die with that fight with Denise. (hide spoiler)]

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Date changed. Restarting November 18th 2025. Happy Reading ☺

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Chapter 3 (view spoiler)[ oh man I am kinda really into this quadrant thing, especially with them having to take 4 different castles! It does seem like every other crawler is useless. I like his new tattoo though. (hide spoiler)]

chapter 6
(view spoiler)[ god his partners are useless i feel so bad. but i think everyone is going to whip them into shape. it really is wild how they survived so long and played so poorly and still got here.
i like donuts new class. i feel like everything is going wrong for everyone in this book so far. i like donuts comment about carl being ruined with the face tat. the bubbles are very neat. good way to split people up it just seems like such a dang gamble. the lucia stuff during the recap was horrible. i didnt realize she was going insane. i feel bad for florin :( (hide spoiler)]