Hey all, I’m back with the first entry in a LitRPG series that I read recently for this week’s Bookish Wednesday. It’s “Collect the World” by Cameron Milan.

Plot: The plot starts off with the main character who’s a teenage boy named Keith Walker, and he’s just relaxing in some dangerous dungeons that are called rifts in the story. He’s there browsing his magic phone tablet trying to play the market in the rather recently invented “Mananet” Auction House. He does this while waiting for his sisters to finish having fun fighting the monsters in the area. Then Keith meets some random avenger archetype and decides to help him out despite the fact he was an absolute jerk from the get-go. That seems to be a very common thing for most of the story, and I wasn’t too annoyed with Keith as a character for it. That being said, the story isn’t the most engaging, and I had a seriously hard time focusing on it.

Characters: From the start, we know that Keith is very much spoiled by his family, yet he’s also likable in some really strange way. One of his sisters is completely incapable of causing damage to others and will only heal others no matter what she does to them, but that doesn’t mean she can’t cause pain. So, of course, she’s a giant freaking sadist who likes to inflict pain while healing others. There’s the uncle/butler who is a super fan of bodybuilding and likes to cause his clothes to fall apart while posing like some ridiculous cartoon. The rest of the characters aren’t quite as interesting, which is disappointing since Keith’s immediate family isn’t always very prominent during parts of the book.

Overall: A very odd take on the LitRPG genre and what seems to be a mix of other genres like Cultivation, Urban Fantasy, and the like.

For those who like: LitRPGs, Urban Fantasy, Cultivation, Drama, and Action.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.