Reviews - The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher

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The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher

I picked up this first book in the series after really enjoying season 1 on Netflix. I m impatient from the season ending cliffhanger. I was hoping to read the series to find out what happened, but the TV series must skip all over cuz this book didnt help at all.

julieflaming's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark

charlotteslilshelf's review against another edition

2.5

There was a lot of promise in some of the concepts explored, but overall it was 2.5 stars for me mainly due to preference rather than quality. Spoilers below -

The setting is not really my thing - too much relish in "medieval time appropriate" misogyny, too many mentions of rape and womenfolk having no power etc, in a world where I'm suspending my disbelief for elves and fantasy monsters, I feel like you don't need to have such an emphasis on what it would have been like for women in that time in real life, people spitting constantly, taverns and filth etc etc, I've read books that have done this setting in a way I enjoyed more, so we were off to a mid start. I found the structure a bit meh, the jumping about from story to story but some of these stories not really having a satisfying conclusion wasn't a style I enjoyed a lot. Starting on the striga one, interesting premise, a lot of build up, cool twist with him staying in her sarcophagus I enjoyed, then kind of no real conclusion, he just wanders off? I guess it felt a bit episodic, and I cared more about the monsters and what happened afterwards than geralt himself in a way. The rehashing fairy tales vibe I enjoyed 50/50, some hits, some misses. I had a significant dislike for the introduction of 6/7 new characters at once, all with fantasy names like shravgark of plobulo, I found the scene with the pricncess getting married off really hard to follow because I kept forgetting who was who. Some of the characters were interesting, I enjoyed the bard, and priestess especially, it's clearly a series so they will get more time later on, but I found it difficult to vibe with geralt. He had an interesting story but it was veering a little bit too "tragic masculine hero" for me to not roll my eyes at it a bit. I also thought the love aspect between him and the sorceress was a bit whack considering they'd met for like 5 seconds and her actions were awful towards him and the bard, other than soapy boobies awooga they had 0 chemistry, but a rushed/love at first site romance is a massive bugbear for me specifically so I like to have a whine about those.

Ultimately, I don't think it's terrible story, it's not badly written either, just not my kind of thing

toejamfat's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

Cool collection of stories, my only other foray into the world of Rhe Witcher was the third game and the first season of the Netflix series. I think the books are probably the best version of the stories, but I didn’t like the book enough to dig further into the rest of the series. Maybe some day, when my to-read list is shorter.