4 stars! incredible book, the final battle and the ending absolutely broke me and i cried like a baby. there were so many twists in this book, and muc4 stars! incredible book, the final battle and the ending absolutely broke me and i cried like a baby. there were so many twists in this book, and much like the first many were predictable, but i still enjoyed it a lot. moving onto book 3!!! sorry for being so MIA, life has been brutal and im trying to take care of myself and my family! rtc… one day lol...more
there are no words for how emotional and harrowing of a journey this book is. from start to finish, i couldn't get these characters out of my head andthere are no words for how emotional and harrowing of a journey this book is. from start to finish, i couldn't get these characters out of my head and they ended up etched into my heart. my chest feels so heavy and yet i feel so at ease after listening to this audiobook. oh my gooood i wish i could articulate the way i feel about this book in a way that actually makes sense and isn't just me blubbering over how emotional i feel by it. incredible book. one of my best reads of 2025 so far. WE LOVE WOMEN IN STEM BTW!!!!! 10/5. rtc one day i swear...more
it always hurts when you are enjoying a book so much and then you absolutely despise it by the time you finish. valentina took this book from being soit always hurts when you are enjoying a book so much and then you absolutely despise it by the time you finish. valentina took this book from being so engaging and entertaining to a literal dumpster fire. i was rooting for you val, and you let me down :( 2.5 stars. rtc when i eventually get out of this review slump...more
i have mixed feelings about this book... i absolutely love liv, but finn was not my cup of tea for almost the entire thing. rtc when i'm out of my revi have mixed feelings about this book... i absolutely love liv, but finn was not my cup of tea for almost the entire thing. rtc when i'm out of my review slump because i have like 50 other reviews to write and i am slacking severely lol. 3 stars!...more
i think about this book at least 50 times a day and i question what i'm supposed to do with life until it is in my hands. i have never needed a book si think about this book at least 50 times a day and i question what i'm supposed to do with life until it is in my hands. i have never needed a book so bad or wanted a year to pass by in the blink of an eye more than i do now when it comes to carl's book of boom...more
i listened to this audiobook out of sheer boredom when it popped up on autoplay from what it recommended me on audible and i was too lazy to3.5 stars.
i listened to this audiobook out of sheer boredom when it popped up on autoplay from what it recommended me on audible and i was too lazy to change it. it actually wasn't too bad, i enjoyed what it was.
rtc soon! sorry for the delay on reviews and book updates, 2 jobs + vet school are brutal on the psyche lol....more
“To the ones who would kiss the villain… but only in fiction.”
✎ (❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ༉ Note : This review contains spoilers. Read at your own risk★★☆☆☆ 1.75/5
“To the ones who would kiss the villain… but only in fiction.”
✎ (❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ༉ Note : This review contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.
Kiss the Villain is not my first rodeo with Rina Kent, although this rodeo is more like beating a dead horse than actually being anything entertaining... well, it was a bit entertaining, but I'll get to that in the actual review. I just want to clarify before I get into everything I despised about this atrocity of a book, this is my own opinion. If you don't agree with what I felt or say in this review, cool! You don't have to! Now, onto the review.
: ̗̀➛ Main Characters
Gareth "Gaz" Carson is the main lead, the older brother to a previous male lead of her Legacy of Gods series, Killian (from God of Malice). He is, what we are told and meant to believe, a complete and utter sociopath with a disdain for all human life, including his own family and peers, but also is so perfectly aware of his sociopathy that he has masked it to become the golden child of his family, and the perfect student and man to his peers in school. He is brutal, violent, and burning internally with a rage so fierce he wants to kill to quell the growing void. Think of the "man has two wolves inside of him" meme, and that's Gareth Carson.
Kayden Davenport is Gareth's law professor, 12 years his senior, and this supposed mysterious, aloof, dead-inside man who hates everyone who crosses his path and feels no emotions whatsoever, only he feels emotions about everything to ever exist. He is a control-freak, brooding, vengeful man. Only, he's actually not that. . . he's a predator vigilante who does the very thing he was vilifying others for. Ironic.
: ̗̀➛ My Review Rants
“After which he disappeared. For two weeks. Sick leave, apparently. Hope he dies.”
Where do I even begin? Truly, this was something. Sometimes it is important for people to know that not everything they write needs to be shared, and this book is a very good example of that. Now, I know, "you should've known you wouldn't like the book, just read the content warnings in the beginning!!" yeah, I did. And I didn't mind those warnings, but that doesn't stop this book from being a nonsensical, plot hole infested, inconsistent bag of flaming garbage. You may be wondering, if you feel that way, why did you rate this book two stars instead of one? Oh, I'll tell you. Because this book was so bad, so cringe, so embarrassing, that I could only view it as comical in order to get through it. Despite the horrific content and overall "plot" of the book, if I looked at this as a mockery of dark romance as a genre, it was entertaining to an extent.
We start off this book with rape. Yeah, our male lead Gareth sneaks into his rival enemy's home to stage a rape scene and then get out, only that's not how it goes. Instead, our very own, oh-so-sexy vigilante, Kayden, suddenly appears to save the day by. . . raping Gareth? Yeah? . . . Yeah!!! You go, king!! Don't worry, he doesn't stop there, oh no. Even after it is confirmed a few chapters later that Kayden is Gareth's new law professor, what proceeds to happen? Oh, of course, Kayden continues to rape and assault Gareth. And this happens multiple times throughout the book, not just once or twice.
In fact, there is so much rape and assault that this is how Gareth and Kayden "fall in love". What? You were expecting some sort of redemption or character development where they realized what they were doing was atrocious and they worked through this trauma they're inflicting on each other by being mature adults? Silly you! No! They instead form a sexual relationship with no form of mental or emotional connection, purely sexual built off of the foundation that Kayden raped Gareth and that somehow this is incredibly sexy. And that's all we see of their relationship, ever. Period. Just sex, sex, sex, ah, almost forgot to mention, sex!
And then when you think things are getting a little more interesting (no, it wasn't, actually), we get an entire weird ass chapter from Kayden's POV roughly around the 50% mark where we suddenly are introduced to a woman not mentioned at all prior, where she appears in his dream killing Gareth. But don't worry, Kayden responds completely normally to this highly terrifying nightmare that has him shaking in his boots by, you guessed it, forcefully having sex with Gareth while he was trying to shower! Then it proceeds to spiral from there, all we hear in this chapter are comparisons of this "mystery woman" and Gareth, comparing how better Gareth is than her, both sexually and emotionally. How Kayden has never felt this way for anyone before, not even her. There's so much her, her, her in this one-off chapter before it ends with the ever-so-climactic "that mystery woman? my wife, duh!".
The book just goes to shit from there that I'm not even going to bother trying to explain it. Instead, I'll focus on what I genuinely despised about this book.
1. Rina Kent seems to have this really bad habit in her books (granted, all I've read is her Royal Elite series prior to this) where she turns all non-important female characters into bumbling idiots who think with their boobs more than their brains. These women are not allowed to have original, thought-provoking, intelligent thoughts. No, they only exist to throw themselves at the MMC—much like poor Cherry in this book, who's prime introduction quite literally goes like so: Gareth: Hi Cherry Cherry: Hi Gareth! Gareth: I miss you :) Cherry: I miss your cock so bad I think about it every day why did you take so long to message me I'm so wet for you I need you so bad please fuck me hard daddy oh my god where have you been my life doesn't go on if your cock isn't inside of me please save my sobbing pussy I am not joking when I say that is exactly how it goes down. And pretty much any other woman in the book is portrayed similarly to some extent. Rina Kent, your misogyny is showing, and it is not cute. 2. I am so tired of media, whether it be TV shows, movies, books, or skits, where any non-English native speaker is some obnoxious, bumbling character. Ma Jina is a Korean woman who seemingly only knows how to make kimchi for everything, only speaks Korean when she is mad and yelling, and hits people with slippers. Sure, the stereotypes aren't anything egregious, but as an Asian woman myself, it gets really tiring seeing even small stereotypes constantly pushed in media that pushes these narratives that we only speak our native tongue when we are being aggressive, or emotional, or frustrated and not simply because it is a beautiful language. It gets excessive and pushes a lot of these actions, even in non-Asian stereotypes, as normalized and "funny". It's annoying. 3. Gareth was genuinely cringe. I think I would rather take a fork and shove it in an outlet than ever communicate with someone like him in real life, seriously. We get all of these chapters and paragraphs after paragraphs swearing up-and-down that Gareth is a sociopath, that is he a ticking time bomb, that he is such an evil genius, so terrifying, so violent, so sickeningly twisted that he is pure chaos underneath his golden boy mask. Then we turn around and have him saying things like "Lol", "Sus af", "slay", "you ate that", making Reddit posts titled “I’m not gay, but I can’t stop thinking about my superior—Help?!” (where he proceeds to get very angry and offended that strangers on the internet didn't immediately assume he has a massive cock, because why the fuck would they?!), and throws hissy-fit tantrums when he doesn't get his way, literally stomping his feet and whining and crying because daddy didn't give him brownie points for wiping his own ass. He was littered with really weird Gen-Z slang that just didn't land nor reinforce how "dangerous" he was supposed to be. I don't really understand what Rina Kent's plan was with this lol. It failed. Despite my flawless act, pretending to be all about school and maintaining the perfect GPA, I’m on edge. No one notices, of course. But there’s a fire building inside me, swelling, growing, threatening to burn everything down. Okay, careful there edgelord! Don't go transforming into a wolf and howling into the moonlight on us now. I want to gouge his eyes out and slurp them the fuck out of their sockets. ??? Gareth, are you okay? “Hmm. Sus af.” “Carson.” “What?” “Full words.” “Suspicious as fuck, Professor.” “Language.” I actually hate it here. This is only one example of the ONLY way Gareth and Kayden communicate in this book. It is cringe, gets old very fast, and who the fuck talks like this unironically?? 4. Kayden is fucking weird. I'm sorry, you mean to tell me his wife—who he did NOT love at all, because women in this universe are not deserving of love, they only exist for a quick fuck—was gang-raped by the upper elite before being brutally murdered and unceremoniously dumped into the ocean, and Kayden's immediate response is to not only murder these men who gang-raped her (because you know what, they deserved it), but to rape someone else? Multiple times? Okay. . . . and on top of this constant raping of Gareth that he does, Kayden proceeds to tell Gareth to "act his age", berates and abuses Gareth when he doesn't act how Kayden wants, manipulates his feelings and actions to be more like he what WANTS Gareth to be like, and continuously dehumanizes Gareth—not by feminizing him, there is nothing wrong with that and if its your kink, good for you—by constantly referring to him as a mere hole for his pleasure, forcing himself onto Gareth and insisting he will rape his "virgin pussy", and telling Gareth he only exists for Kayden to fuck him, and nothing else worthwhile. Wow. . . so romantic! I'm swooning!! Who doesn't love a hypocritical rapist who grooms someone 12 years his junior?! 5. The complete dehumanization of Sandra (Kayden's gang-raped and murdered wife). The entire plot, which is very clearly written to be important, horrific, and traumatizing, is then used to make Gareth spiral into this psychotic mindset of "How dare Kayden love someone before he met me? How dare he have loved a woman who is now dead? How dare he have been happy and not completely and utterly miserable before he raped me?!" where he then gets so violent that he self-mutilates himself and Kayden in order to "rid Kayden of that 'other woman'". And what is Kayden's response to this bizarre ass mental breakdown of Gareth's? To tell him, "oh, I never loved her romantically. In fact, I hated sex with her too and she was an awful woman. I tried to fuck her a few times but she wasn't loyal, and I couldn't love her because of it so our marriage wasn't a good one." ?????? Hello???? Then you went on this entire 2-year vengeance spree killing those who were present in her rape and murder because... why? And then he proceeds to say in his own mind, "I had no friend like Sandra, she understood me so well, she was important in my life", but then he immediately gets rid of the tattoo he got in memorial of her and her death and. . . replaced it with a tattoo for Gareth? Was this supposed to be romantic?? 6. The nonchalance and dismissal of the extreme trauma, both mentally and physically, of rape. It is appalling that Rina Kent could excuse rape to the extent that she did in this book. To make their entire law-school assignment be focused on dismissing a real (in the book-verse at least) victim of rape as unreliable to get the rapist off with the lowest possible punishment by excusing the rape as "dubious consent", "well, did she enjoy it?", "was he just overtaken by passion?" Disgusting. This pushes and encourages so many horrific excuses for rape that are used in the real world that dismiss the trauma of real victims every day by dismissing it in this book as well. No consent? It is rape. She didn't consent, but she 'enjoyed' it (ie she orgasmed)? It is still rape. He was overtaken by passion and didn't realize she didn't want it? It is still rape. For Rina Kent to push this narrative on what is also a very serious problem in real-life rape cases to justify the rape in this series between the two main characters is revolting and she is awful for writing this in a "justifiable" way. You cannot justify rape. Sure, you can write books where dub-con/rape fantasy exists, but to justify it in ways where you defend the perpetrator and attempt to poke contradictions in the victim and their trauma is sickening.
Okay, but there was something I liked about this book. Moka!!! The cutest black kitty ever. She carried this book despite only appearing around the 65% mark and having intermittent appearances. She was THAT girl. Truly the only important character in the book, loved that for her.
Honestly, I feel I have so much to add to this review, but I don't really want to keep talking about this book other than to say Rina Kent should not have called this book her passion project because it is hateful, disgusting, and so poorly written that she should frankly be a bit embarrassed she considers this her best work yet. Those statements going around that Rina Kent may have a ghostwriter aren't looking too bad right now.... just saying.
To quote Nikolai in this book, "The bar is in Hell." It is, indeed. And Rina Kent still couldn't reach it.
“And we all know what happens when Carl gets a girlfriend. I love him very much, but he’s quite naïve. She could literally have dicks rain
★★★★★ 5/5
“And we all know what happens when Carl gets a girlfriend. I love him very much, but he’s quite naïve. She could literally have dicks raining on her, and he wouldn’t notice. No offense, Carl.”
✎ (❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ༉ Note : This review will be short and quick as usual. As always, I beg you to read this series for yourself.
This Inevitable Ruin is book seven in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and is currently the latest installment published at the date of this review, and that just breaks my heart. I absolutely adore these characters and the development in their stories and lives that knowing I am now like the normal reader, having to wait years for new books to release to continue this journey is so soul-crushing. I need MORE.
: ̗̀➛ My Review Rants
Seriously though, what an incredible wrap to one of the most anticipated floors in the dungeon. We have had to say goodbye to so many beloved characters in previous books and this one did not hold its punches in that regard either. I have a hole in my heart that could compete with Donut's, well, donut hole, for how gaping it is. I also want to mention, (major spoiler don't open if you haven't read the series) (view spoiler)[the arrival and introduction of so many of the previous cookbook authors was genius. I wept alongside Carl at the initial meeting for each of them. So fucking good. Carl meeting Milk had me so emotional. What a gut-wrenchingly beautiful scene. (hide spoiler)]
“Happy wife, happy life takes on a whole new meaning when your other half is an indescribable cosmic horror.”
“Be careful who you’re nice to. Because if you are nice to the wrong person, they’ll either take advantage of you, or worse, they might never leave.”
“When Big Things happen on such a large scale, it’s easy to forget sometimes that these Big Things are also happening to the little things in the world.”
“Yes, Carl,” the potion bottle said, his voice deep and demonic. “Drink me. Drink me deep. Put me inside of you.”
“We hadn’t used the chain skill because, well, I’d decided to blow myself up instead.”
“It was still dark and cloudy, and I could barely see anything, but a giant, quivering ball of rolling flesh with a god-sized dick schlopping out of it was pretty hard to miss.”
“Raul lowered her and let her slide to the ground. The crab sneered. “Daddy Carl is magnanimous today. Now you shall kiss his famed, alabaster feet and beg for forgiveness.”
: ̗̀➛ Final Thoughts
I LOVE THIS SERIES SO MUCH!!! That's it, that's my review. Thanks.
i love this series, i love emily, i love wendell, i love shadow, i love this world and these folk and the journies they're going on. i never want thisi love this series, i love emily, i love wendell, i love shadow, i love this world and these folk and the journies they're going on. i never want this to end. rtc soon!!!
-
i miss emily and wendell, my chaotic faerie-obsessed nerd and her eccentric pretty-boy faerie ...more
“Never stare into the blinding eye of the Bedlam Bride. What it means is don’t become obsessed with something, lest you’re blinded to ever
★★★★★ 5/5
“Never stare into the blinding eye of the Bedlam Bride. What it means is don’t become obsessed with something, lest you’re blinded to everything else.”
✎ (❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ༉ Note : This review is short and to the point, no spoilers aside from some fun quotes from the book!
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride is book six in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and yet another incredible addition to one of the best, most addictive series I have read. It is a bit mind-blowing I've pumped through these books so quickly; I just can't get enough. It's like I'm a child who won the golden ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory and I'm high on the sugar-rush.
All that to say - please read this series!
: ̗̀➛ My Review Rants
“I mean, really. I can’t be held accountable for everything I’ve ever said to a stripper.”
All I'm going to say here is: Jesus with guns, crabs jerking themselves off, demons spawning and taking the bodies of zombie seals, and Princess Donut finally encounters her first ever catgirl (spoiler alert: she is not happy about it!). Suffice to say, this book is, from front to back, absolute chaos. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if the very folklore beasts, the very ones you've grown up being warned about that are native in your country, were suddenly summonable via a card game (think Pokémon or MTG) where they would fight for you - well, sometimes - and wreak absolute chaos everywhere you went?! Wonder no longer! This book will show you just how ridiculous of an idea that is! And you will cry, laugh, and rage!! But a book is best enjoyed when it's got you feeling all of that, right?
“I didn’t realize you’d actually get that thing to work. Are you planning on growing a mullet as well? Are there any Waffle Houses between here and there? Maybe we can stop and get into a brawl, but only after you bounce a few child support payment checks first.”
“I remembered Mordecai’s advice when it came to mages. They can’t cast their spells when you’re punching them in the face.”
“You are more than just a person, if we lose you we lose everything. You are a symbol. You're the embodiment of our hope. You and that annoying f**king cat!.”
“I love that guy! Strippers are supposed to have names like that. There’s Anaconda. Damascus Steel. Dong Quixote.”
“Don’t gaslight me, Jesus.”
“Did... did you just rip your dick off and throw it at me?” “I’m going to do it again if you don’t let me in.”
“There’s this scent one associates with their parents. You don’t even think about it until you’ve been away for so long, and it returns, towing unwelcome memories with it, shoving them at you all at once.”
“Donut: PREPOTENTE DON’T BE MEAN TO KATIA. Rezan: Why does that cat always type in all caps? Donut: WHY DIDN’T YOUR MOTHER DRIBBLE YOU BACK OUT ONTO THE TRUCK STOP BATHROOM FLOOR, REZAN?”
“Wait for my signal this time or you won’t be allowed to go to the party.” “I will kill your mother.”
✎ (❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ༉ Note : This review is no★★★★★ 6/5
“Wait for my signal this time or you won’t be allowed to go to the party.” “I will kill your mother.”
✎ (❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ༉ Note : This review is not spoiler-free! Read at your own risk.
The Butcher's Masquerade is book five in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and is officially my favourite so far. I will think of this book for an incredibly long time to come. This review will be a bit different than my usual reviews for this series, there's a single topic I want to talk about on this book other than begging everyone who sees this review to please read this incredible series!
: ̗̀➛ My Review Rants
“Trauma does that, I thought. It’s an explosion with your heart at the center. It changes everything all at once.”
I knew it was coming soon—trauma has to take the spotlight in this series at some point. And it did, in this book specifically. And it broke me. Carl's mantra to the dungeon and the Syndicate has always been "You will not break me", but what am I supposed to do when Carl and Donut are the ones breaking me?
There was so much loss in this book, and it shattered me in so many ways to see how it continues to affect both Carl and Donut's mental health. Carl has always been very adamant on not letting this dungeon break him, he would break them instead. And he's doing a damn good job of it so far, but I feel my own heart breaking in the process watching Carl and Donut lose parts of themselves they cannot bear to lose.
It's always been a prime point in Donut's personality that she is very grandeur and confident for show, but in reality, she is very sensitive to loss, change, and stress. Yet she experienced all of this and more. Bea making an appearance and forcing Donut to come face-to-face with the woman who she believed to be her person was so heartbreaking. She held so much within herself—knowing Bea planned to get rid of her for a younger cat, for never truly loving her or Carl, and to let all of it out on live TV for a galaxy of people who watch and take your misery as their source of entertainment was so brave of her and Matt Dinniman, you are an asshole for destroying me like this (but also, you are incredible sir). I am so proud of Donut for standing her ground against Bea and telling her off and accepting that it hurts but she is ready to move on and spend the rest of her days alongside Carl.
“And I was so stupid, because I thought since I loved you, that meant you loved me.”
My next pain is the end of the book. When Donut experiences a panic attack while sitting atop a severely injured Carl. When she acknowledges the loss of their dear friends to Queen Imogen isn't hurting her or making her as sad as she should feel. Panicking because she feels like a terrible cat for feeling so little for the brutal death of her friends and Carl comforting her. I genuinely wept for her and Carl, this broke me in so many ways. I have never experienced loss to the extent donut, carl, and all of these other crawlers have felt, but in these moments, their grief feels like my own and I bear the same pain and heaviness as they do. The wave of grief and upheaval is so visceral, I realize I really have connected to these characters so deeply over these last 5 books. It takes a lot for books to make me feel the way this series does. I feel so attached to these characters and love them all so dearly. It is incredible how Matt has brought all of these crawlers to life, giving each of them their own backstories, personalities, struggles, and experiences pre- and post-dungeon.
“What we went through just now was only a taste of what’s coming, especially on the ninth floor. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re going to lose more friends. We’re going to have to do some pretty horrible things just to survive. So I need you to keep that mask on. But one day... One day you’ll find yourself someplace safe and without worries and without everyone watching, and it’ll just fall right off. And it will hurt. You will cry for Firas and Gwen and Yolanda and Brandon and everybody else we’ve lost along the way, and you’ll be glad you had it on the whole time.”
I cannot believe I picked up this series thinking, "oh, this is going to be sooo funny! I'm so excited to see the chaos that ensues in this hilarious series about a dude in his boxers and his ex-girlfriend's persian cat as they make their way through this dungeon!" and now here I am, crying over said man in heart-covered boxers and a talking/singing cat. Truly a journey.
: ̗̀➛ Final Thoughts
Is anyone really expecting me to rate any book in this series less than 5 stars? Cause I don't think it's possible. I love every second of this journey, even if it's ripping my heart to pieces.
“Reward: Your reward is advice. Fatherly advice. Don’t be a little bitch. There’s your reward.”