Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - The Last Wish

This book throws you in at the deep end, immersing you in magic, mystery and monsters. It helped having context from the Netflix show, but I just loved the sarcastic one liners from Geralt. I would note that you should be aware that at some points there are references about sexual objectification of women that were uncomfortable, but overall was an interesting start to the Witcher world.

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poisonenvy's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

3.5

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I ended up actually liking it, and that makes me sad. I'm not really sure how I felt about this book, to tell the truth.

The Last Wish is a book consisting of seven short stories that follow the witcher, Geralt. One of the stories, "The Voice of Reason" is used as a framing device for the other six stories. So, there's no overarching plot in this book in particular, just a few episodes to give us an idea of Geralt's life as a witcher and to set up some other plot threads further down the line.

So, let's start:

The Prose: The prose in this novel is... not great. I don't know if it's the fault of the translator or not. I suspect it's a mix of both, but a lot of the awkwardness of the prose does seem to be in line with the stilted nature that some translations end up taking on.

Luckily, I read the majority of this book on audio, and Peter Kenny does an excellent job at narrating it. With his narration, a lot of the awkwardness of the text on paper seems to disappear (even if he pronounces Dandelion in... a way that I absolutely would not).

The Storytelling: While some of the later stories in the book are better for this, the first like, three, are pretty much exclusively told through dialogue? A lot of telling, very little showing, and it makes for some kind of frustratingly boring stories.

The Sexism: It's not much more egregious than a lot of 90s fantasy, but I just don't have the patience for that sort of thing anymore. Behind, the sympathetic rapist! Marvel at the pregnant 14 year old (but it's okay, because she's totally in love with the man who's likely in his mid-30s at the youngest who knocked her up). Look in awe as literally every single woman in this book wants to sleep with our macho protagonist whether it makes sense or not (though, lbr, if he looks like Henry Cavill maybe it does make sense no matter what the greater context of the story is. Even if he does act like a prepubescent boy any time a woman is naked around him, even if she is invisible).

The Plot: Like I said, there isn't much plot in this novel. It's very episodic in nature. BUT! I'm intrigued by the plot that it's setting up.

The Pacing: This is hard to place, really. Again, most of the early stories are told through dialogue, which makes them feel unbelievably slow.

The References: I enjoyed the occasional sprinkling of classic fairy tales in here. Seriously, it made me smile every time I noticed one.

I did very much enjoy The Last Wish, however. There were parts that were funny enough that I smiled at them. I'm not sure if <i>all</i> the funny parts were actually meant to be funny -- it's kind of a tonal shift from a lot of the rest of the book? -- but I'm going to give Sapkowski the benefit of the doubt in this.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book enough that I'm going to continue the series. I've got several of the books signed out from the library. I haven't decided yet if I like the series enough to actually purchase the rest of the books in it, nor am I sure if I'll see it through to the end of book eight. But I'm having fun with it.

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lidia7's review against another edition

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adventurous

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A

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shodank's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny fast-paced

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

3.5

For a male power fantasy, it's not a bad book. The lore is fairly interesting. I enjoyed the retelling of fairytales. I am sure I"ll continue reading the saga at some point.

But GOD, the absolute lack of sexual morals and the full objectification of women. WOW. Not only does this take place in a fantasy medieval period, it feels as though it was written in this period too. I'm going to need at least half a year to recover from all the misogyny.

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ohthatsgrayt's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

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

2.5

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nikoc7's review

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I couldn't get past the casual misogyny, also the writing isn't very good on top of the weird timeline with often no context to guide you with.

Also what was the author thinking when he wrote a joke about the main character sleeping with a 14 y.o. princess recently turned back from a stryga who he says has the mental development of a 4y.o.

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