Well. This was nice. I did enjoy this book a lot. Although I may be a bit biased as a fan of Critical Role and especially the twins. As such, I found this book did their characters wonderfully justice, and I loved how it captured their special dynamic from the very start. As a book per se, I think it was good as well. Sure, the story is not all that complex or anything new, but it was still well made. But the focus was definitely on the portrayal of the twins. Which, personally, I didn't mind at all.

Alright let's start with an objective review: from a non-critter perspective the books is...fine. In terms of fantasy, it's not bringing anything new to the table it's just a story of two sibling who find themselves in a situation thats a lot more complex than it seems at first. The book is fairly slowly paced and the writing style is fine, nothing special and it's pretty obvious that the books main focus was on doing beloved characters justice rather than writing a truly compelling story As for the critter perspective, sure, this was nice. Love me some chaotic queer half elfves and a bear. Obviously the audiobook was a great experience since Robbie, Laura and Liam are all incredible voice actors and I really enjoyed the flashbacks of the twins leaving byroden, living in syngorn and finally escaping to start their life on the road. It also further explores the truly unhealthily codependent bond the twins have and how it can get in the way when other things are at stake. What I think is a bit sad is that I felt like Vax was much more fleshed out than vex, seeing as most of the syngorn chapters focused on him and his parts of the main story where more character driven while a lot of vex' chapters were a little more plot driven. Over all this probably would've been closer to a 2.5 for me if it hadn't been for the critical role aspect, but I don't think the book is really meant to be a standalone in the first place it is specifically for people who cant get enough of vox machina so I think that is fine.