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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
A lush rendering of Laudna’s backstory.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Murder
laaate review but i spent a week of my commute to and from work listening to the audiobook and am in LOVE with it. as a critical role fan and laudna lover, i had been WAITING for her backstory for so long. it was BEAUTIFULLY written and robbie’s narration alongside marisha, grey and laura’s voicing of the dialogue was just so perfect. absolutely obsessed.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
i love you laudnaaaaaaa
this was so well written they chose the perfect author to write about laudna wow
this was so well written they chose the perfect author to write about laudna wow
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Must read for critical role fans, especially those following along C3 who have fallen in love with Laudna like I have! I loved getting little nuggets that add to her backstory and loved seeing aspects from the campaign become more fleshed out like the “birth” of Pâté and Imogen meeting Laudna! Just that part alone was worth the read!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Murder
And Laudna thought she could live with that so long as she was loved.
My heart is just... bursting. There's no way I could give this anything other than 5 stars. Like the other Critical Role novel I've read, I think this can technically be read as a standalone, but you'll really get the most out of it if you're familiar with the series and the characters, and can appreciate all the nods and references. And the character, of course. Laudna, for the longest time, was my absolutely favourite character of Campaign 3. Imogen bypassed her for a while, but after reading this... oh my god. I love her. I love her SO MUCH, she's the character of all time. Some of the most horrendous things that can ever happen to a person have happened to her, and she would be more than justified in taking her anger and pain out on the world becoming bitter and cruel. And yet she's one of the sweetest, kindest, loveliest people on the planet. While also being really fucking weird and really fucking spooky. I adore her, I ADORE HER.
We, of course, know a lot about Laudna's backstory from the campaign, but this filled in the years from her death, up until she met Imogen, and gave context to a few things that she's mentioned. The relationship with Delilah was the most horrible tennis match ever. Entertaining at times, but if you ever stopped to think about where they started, it's just so cruel, and awful. The depiction of those years where Laudna was barely a person, of the ways she's taught herself to repress and push things down, of al the cruelty she's had to endure... it was just so much. But at the heart of it is always her irrepressible light, which made this a joy to read. I loved seeing how she slowly came back to herself and developed a personality, seeing all those terrible encounters that informed the view she had of the world, seeing glimpses of the little relationships she had.
Spoiler
When she started to haunt Turst Fields with altruism, taking joy in sneakily fixing things and doing little errands... I knew I was in love. She's LITERALLY an angel. I loved the grumpy old half-orc woman SO MUCH, and her weird little give-and-take relationship with Laudna. I loved the inept baker's assistant, and how much he just wanted to be kind to Laudna. I'm straight up IN LOVE with the exemplar, seriously, awooga, call me, etc etc. She's kinda sort of an antagonist for Laudna, but her righteousness and dignity and bravery were just amazing. The book did such a good job of that, of creating all these wonderful side characters whose stories, even if we only get a little bit of them, were so rich and full. And it made me cry, the way they touched Laudna's life, for better and worse.And the more substantial side characters were even better. Matthew PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let Bell's Hells go to Kymal at some point before the campaign ends and meet a grown up Bella, possibly Sybil. I adored them both so much!!! Sybil just for the way she was described, all feral and haughty and strong. And Bella for being this sweet weird kid who gave Laudna so much, more than she could probably ever know. It was seriously so cute, the way she bullied her way into being Laudna's best friend. I really expected that part of the story to have a more tragic end, and I'm definitely not complaining that it didn't. Also, the Pate creation scene was everything I could have wanted. And the epilogue? Imogen saving her? Don't get me fucking started, I was feral. THE SOULMATISM OF IT ALL!!!!!!!!
“My name is Laudna . And I’ll be a monster for you if I have to. Anything to keep you safe.”
The writing was really great. I've been meaning to pick up a Khaw book for some time, and I'm glad this was my first. There was a lot of little subtle humour in the prose that was very on brand for Laudna. There was also a lot of darkness and horror and really descriptive, evocative writing. I loved when we talked about the ways women are made into monsters if they don't fit a certain mould; the way some women are just that. The Laudna that we know in the campaign delights in being horror-show of a woman, all spooky and scary, but she's also very kind and sweet, and the writing did a good job of stitching those two parts of her together. She always had so much empathy for the dying and the dead, whether human or monstrous. Even though the POV was omniscient, it still always felt very Laudna. Sometimes it was a liiiiittle too wordy, maybe a liiiiittle on the nose. And that's where I could see myself being picky, if this weren't a Critical Role book about a character whom I already love with all my heart and soul. The writing was great, but it didn't always hit, and in another world, this would have been 4.5 stars. But it IS a CR book, and I DO love Laudna wholeheartedly, and I really couldn't rate this any lower. Everything about it just makes me... gah.
Listened to the audiobook as read by Robbie Daymond, and I adored it so so much. Robbie has so much great range, and so many great voices. Each of his characters sounded natural and animated. It also made me kind of weepy, ngl, to think of this as like, Dorian, a few years down the road, narrating the story of his friend who he's gotten to know and love. T__T The audiobook is definitely the way to go, because it has the added benefit of additional voices from Grey Delisle, Marisha and Laura. And I cannot overstate how amazing that was to listen to. (THE EPILOGUE!!) The production quality was amazing, and I just know I'll always listen to every CR book. I purchased the Molly/Lucien book a while back, actually, but I haven't been able to make myself listen to it yet because I know it'll make me too emotional. (IDK if I'm lucky or unlucky, that all the CR novels so far have involved my favourite characters from all three campaigns. And Vax, Molly and Laudna all have something in common, lol.)
Anyway, I loved this. Really don't know if I could or would recommend it to anyone not familiar with the show, because like I said, my love for the character was already there, and this just built on it. But I don't want to diminish was a powerful and hopeful story of pain and survival this is, following the best woman in the whole world, and I'd hope that anyone would be able to enjoy that.
Content warnings:
Spoiler
death, explicit torture, gore, body horrorLaudna decided then she could be content running forever so long as the path led back to the girl who’d saved her.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"The worst had already happened. And she didn't break."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Death of parent
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
well, that fucked me right up! easily the best novelization cr has put out yet through sheer depth of emotion and heart. laudna resonates with me so deeply as a symbol of not victimization per se, but someone who survived an incomprehensible number of tragedies and heartbreaks and still is so, so kind, with a ginormous capacity for love and warmth.
in other news: fuck delilah briarwood, I hope she rots a thousand times over.
in other news: fuck delilah briarwood, I hope she rots a thousand times over.
laudna is one of my favorite characters of ALL time. so when i heard she was getting her own book, i jumped out of my seat in joy. this book met every one of my expectations, gruesome and held no punches with describing the pain she endured in her life (and unlife). im so glad she got her happy ending (or rather, happy new beginning) :)