Review: This Inevitable Ruin (DCC #7)

This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman 

Finishing up the last book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series (as of right now) is a great way to finish up the spring semester, and now I can get started on some summer reads! This did take me a minute to finish up, mostly cause I was so stressed for everyone and I would rather stop reading and them be alive versus read and them continue to be traumatized, but nonetheless! I persevered and finished up an incredible read. My rating for this book was a solid 4 stars. 

This Inevitable Ruin is set on the ninth floor, where Warloads Carl and Donut are forced to compete in the faction wars and either survive and save their comrades or die at the hands of the enemies (which are everyone! per usual). However, they do have an advantage compared to the previous faction wars in which they are warlords who are allies with the NPCs, an unprecedented move, both with crawlers as warlords and with NPCs as warlords. This book was packed with political drama and more information about the world outside the crawl, plus the other crawlers' backgrounds, feelings, motivations, etc. We also got to see former crawlers and former authors of the recipe book! I was genuinely tearing up when they met each other because Carl never gets a rest, and all crawlers have a constant fear of love, and connection, and hope, and when Carl met Milk?? Oh, I was definitely crying. 

The amount of emotional growth (and decay lowkey) that all the characters go through in this book is insane and traumatizing because Katia? and Loius? and Carl? and Donut?? they did not deserve what happened to them! None of them did! I do think that Katia and Donut's plan was amazing (even though Carl carl'ed it up) because she finally gets a break or at least reprive from the shitshow that is the crawl. It was interesting to see how their actions inside the crawl impact those outside in a major way, and how they barely see any of it because, honestly, they are more concerned with fighting their own fight versus whatever is happening to others. 

I am scared? excited? anxious? for the 8th book to come out later this year and I hope I do not get burnt out on this series because it is a lot of info stuffed into one book. I love these characters, I fear the end of this series, and I can't wait to continue it.