Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Blood of Elves

Overall I enjoyed this book, enough so that I will be reading the next instalment of the series. Some of the scenes were quite dull, but the more enjoyable ones made up for it. It also suffers a bit from the “men writing women” problem that made me a tad uncomfortable, but it didn’t completely ruin the experience. It’s a decent fantasy read, if you enjoy that then this book will likely be enjoyable.

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spookfish's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book is 90% dialogue, with a rare line I quite liked.
For a books where its three main characters/POVs are women (you can't convince me Geralt is an MC here), it is incredibly sexist. It cannot help itself to reduce women down to appearances and sexual desires. It keeps its men in boxes too.

In terms of the actual story, well, there isn't much of one. Between the very long political conversations amongst background characters we don't need to care about, is a short plot for an opening novel of a series.

I'm not sure if I will bother with the rest, perhaps if I get bored and run out of anything else to read.

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sarahdm's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Misogynistic at its worst and boring at its best, Blood of Elves fit in with the other books of this mediocre series just fine.

The first half of the book is just "Four Witchers and a Baby" which I feel like could be really fun if we weren't constantly bombarded with reminders of how weak woman are because of their periods and the none stop sexualization of a 13 year old child. Not to mention the other 2 women in the book being jealous of said 13 year old. Both Triss and Yen are just being horrible caricatures of a bitchy, overly sexualized woman. They don't have any character trait passed "Down bad for Geralt and will scratch out the eyes of anyone who gets in my way." Sapkowski is completely incapable of writing a good female character or creating an environment where a potentially interesting female character could thrive. But I think I have complained enough about this in my review for Sword of Destiny.

The other half is fantasy racism and politics. It was so incredible boring. I could not get invested at all. At least in The Last Wish, the action and story was interesting enough to at least pay attention.

Also what the hell happened to the writing? Sapkowski is relying very heavily on dialog in this one, its a miracle when we get a description of anything (besides breasts of course, we get PLENTY of descriptions for that). We are also constantly jumping around from different characters and different time line. Like this is so obviously Ciri's book but we kept being all over the place. And the ending being "but little did they know of the dark times ahead. Anyway, the end!" Lazy. I know Sapkowski can do better than this.

Lambert and Dandelion's bits were great. These are characters I actually really enjoyed. Ciri was also great, I just wish she wasn't put though Sapkowski's writing.

2-2.5 stars.

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lynnloveshobi's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

I'm not gonna lie, there's bits where it's hard to follow, especially when they deep dive into the world's politics, but besides it, i liked it a lot.. i wish the dialogues had some more description of what was actually happening, the writer used the conversation itself to explain some movements, especially during training, and it made it harder to read.. anyways I'm off to reading the next one:)

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