This was cute. My kid loved it! We read it together before bed. He liked the characters and the graphics. He loves Minecraft.

I got this book for my 10 year old son, a minecraft devotee. I can’t stand Minecraft or any Virgo games but we enjoyed listening to this together on a car trip and I gave the writer and narrator credit for making this funny and engaging even for those of us who still don’t get why there are so many emeralds or what the iron golem is all about. I expected it Nate this but I managed to enjoy it a bit and bond with my son so it was a success!!!

My son usually likes this type of book, but this was just a miss for him. He said it was ok, but it just didn't hold his interest.

As the mom of a Minecrafter, this book was thoroughly entertaining. Also, even though I had not read/listened to the other books in the series, I followed the story. The narrator did a good job in changing voices to keep the listener engaged. I keep thinking this would be a great audiobook to play during a road trip that would keep the whole car entertained.

Thank you to NetGalley, Andrews McMeel Audio, and Andrews McMeel Publishing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior: Path of the Diamond is the fourth adventure for Runt and friends by Cube Kid. Originally published in 2017, this reformat and re-release from Simon & Schuster on their Andrews McMeel imprint is 285 pages and available in audio and ebook formats.

This is an engaging and action filled adventure for Runt and his friends. Zombies are attacking, Pebble and his gang are trying to blow up Runt and frame him for destroying the wall, and even worse, school exams are coming up. Although the story is clearly aimed at young readers 7-12 years of age (Lexile 570), there's quite a lot of subtle humor to appeal to adults/older readers.

The audio format is charmingly narrated by Michael Gallagher. The total run time is 3 hours and 40 minutes and the narrator does a really good job of keeping the characters' voices distinct and easy to follow. There's a lot of rapid dialogue, so the narrative gymnastics are fairly impressive.

This is the 4th volume in the series, and although I had no trouble understanding what was going on, readers will need either a good understanding of Minecraft, or having read the other books in order, at a bare minimum.

I enjoyed this one and would heartily recommend it to fans of Minecraft, gaming adventures, RPGs, as well as public or school library acquisition. It might make a good choice for road trip listening, especially if there are young gamers along for the ride.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A quick favourite for my 6 year old Minecraft lover! Story is easy to follow and understand for younger listeners on audiobook, and follow the adventures of Minecraft play correctly (because, we all know, a 6 year old Minecraft Pro will call out any inaccurate gameplay!) We are excited to listen and read more in this series!