Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Der letzte Wunsch

My adult kid gave me this book as a birthday present because we enjoyed watching the Netflix series together. This is one of the cases when the moving image production is better than the book. I'd like to say it's because the stories were written in the previous century by a boomer male and obviously men's opinions of women/people have changed so much since then but regrettably I can't - women's lives are still a full of inequity and fear. I will say that the people who produced the series addressed a lot of the absolutely disgusting misogyny in the book, as well as restringing the story in a cohesive manner and giving Geralt a personality. Reading one account after another of what a woman (always referred to as a "girl" by the author) looks like, whether she passes the male-imposed standard for attractiveness, the incredible, cliche'ed detail of their breast-enhancing, thigh-revealing, hip thrusting outifts (compared to the male characters of whom very little is said about what they wear), the sexualization of the fight scenes between the Witcher and his female foes (always thighs and breasts exposed during a viscous fight to the death), the opening scene of an actual girl sexually attacking the Witcher in his sleep as part of her priestess training - it was all so gross that I had a hard time processing the stories behind these disturbing revelations of what men think when they see women. The stories were interesting, although I was hoping for more of Geralt's back story, and you have to keep in mind that these stories preceded the Game of Thrones celebrity not to find them kind of hackneyed. Sadly, no matter what male writers imagine, women are always relegated to one of three roles - virgin or girl I'd like to have sex with, whore or in this case demon, and female bringing beverages to men. If we are imagining a different world, couldn't we fantasize something different for the women for change?

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emilywasbored's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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readbyella_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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pikitat's review against another edition

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3.0

It was alright. I might read go on to read the next book because it was a pretty interesting read at some points. The book is broken into sections that have chapters within them, and I thought the first and second sections were really engaging. The rest of the book was alright, but I definitely enjoyed the style of the first two sections the most. I found the characterization of Geralt a little inconsistent, although I did like the dynamic between him and Dandilion.

I wasn't crazy about Yennefer so I hope she doesn't show up a lot in the next book lol

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idajoh's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious 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

3.5

It's a good fantasy book and it kept me engaged the entire time. However, all the stories were adapted into the TV-show (which is a good thing), but I wish there were some fresh stories for me to enjoy honestly.

The story is mainly told through dialogue which makes it a pretty quick and easy read. The action sequences, although few, are also very good at creating suspense while being believable. I will admig that I was a bit confused throughout most of them, but I just chalked it up to me being tired while I read most of the book.

The major downfall of this book is the extreme misoginy. No women in this book, except maybe Nenneke, is seen as something other than a sex object by all the characters. That includes Geralt. It was extremely off-putting and I'm glad that aspect was toned down in the TV series. At least Yennefer in the TV series had other redeeming qualities except her want of a child.

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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3.0

This was a weird reading experience because I'm already fairly familiar with the Witcher settings, concepts, and characters from the video games (I've never played them myself, but I've watched my husband play through The Witcher III twice). I think if I didn't have that context, it would have been a lot harder to follow this book. (Although to be fair, a large part of that is audio is not a good format to read this and the audiobook narrator was not the greatest.) The internet recommended I read this short story collection before jumping into the first novel because chronologically they're set before the novels, but they seem to be written for people who already at least a little bit understand what's going on. I'm still going to give the first book a shot, but I'm not sure The Last Wish is really the best place to jump into the Witcher books.

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bookishchef's review against another edition

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funny mysterious medium-paced

2.0

So, I just finished the Dutch version of The Last Wish audiobook: the first book in the Witcher series.

Was it badly written?
Yeah. It mostly consists of dialogue. And pretty weird, clunky dialogue at that.

Was the romance incredibly rushed?
Yeah. Kind of suddenly happened.

One moment they're fighting, next moment they're fucking.

Was it incredibly sexist?
YEAH

I read that infamous 'her nipples touched his eyelids' scene a few years ago, and Oh My God that set the bar so incredibly low. And yeah it's bad. It's a terribly written scene, and most women (although not all), including the main love interest Yennefer, were just there to be a pair of tits. A feisty pair of tits sometimes, but a pair of tits nonetheless. This single book has more descriptions of breasts than the entirety of A Song Of Ice And Fire.

Yet it still wasn't as bad as I expected. And I guess that's something. I definitely enjoyed some scenes and some of the jokes.

The Dutch audiobook did change some names and words into Dutch 'equivalents' that aren't really equivalent at all. This made the book feel even clunkier than usual, I think. Using 'neuk' instead of every 'fuck' doesn't really work in the Dutch language anymore, even if that is the literal translation.

For some reason they changed Dandelion's name into 'Ranonkel', which means Persian Buttercup, not Dandelion. Ranonkel is a godawful name. Why oh why did the translator do this?
Later translators hated their colleague's decision too apparently, because later in the series his name gets changed into 'Ridderspoor', which means Larkspur and is a little better (still a shit name though).

Jelle Amersfoort acted as the VA for the Dutch version of the audiobook. He read every male character with the same intonation though, and he would often cut off his sentences in weird places, as if he ran out of breath. This sometimes made it hard to distinguish between characters. I wouldn't realize Geralt had said something, instead of some other character, until a sentence ended with 'Geralt said'. Still, this was the first Dutch audiobook I ever read to the end. Usually, the VA is incredibly cringe (which might just be due the Dutch language itself), but I actually managed to listen to Jelle. So kudos to him.

2/5

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leavened's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

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