Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Carl's Doomsday Scenario is the second book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. I managed four whole days between finishing the first one and starting this one - but I think the highest peaks of my obsession with this series are (probably thankfully) over - at least for now...
This one has a bit of a slow start, with the whole of the first hour dedicated just to Carl and Doughnut choosing their race and class for the next dungeon level.
I wasn't wholly happy with some of the choices made about certain characters, I struggled a bit more with some of the stereotypes, especially regarding female characters, it definitely didn't make me laugh as much, and some of the humour and some of the violence tipped very close to my ick threshold.
So - diminishing returns already? Overly high expectations from the first book (which I likely enjoyed more because my expectations going into that one were low) not quite being met?
I also could have done without the evil clowns and the parasitic worms...
It was still largely fun, though - and still very clever, not just in the moment but also in terms of how many really complicated and fascinating things are set up for later books... Plus, we get more character and relationship developments, which are all good.
It definitely got me hooked again by the end, so I'm still keen to carry on, but I'm going to start taking longer breaks between volumes.