A review by sinamile
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

5.0

CW/TW: death, murder, blood, graphic description of gore, PTSD, vomiting, graphic description of violence, knife/knife violence, sword/sword violence, imprisonment, graphic torture, war, abuse, parental death, cannibalism, drinking, alcoholism, recreational drinking, emotional drinking, beheading, ableist slurs, ableism, graphic description of chronic pain, vomiting, kidnapping, arranged marriage, mental health issues, parental illness, mention of child abuse, bullying, misogyny, threats of violence, threats of torture, mental illness

This felt more like a West story than a Jezal story. I don't know. Or at least he should've also been mentioned in the synopsis. The story was as much about Jezal as West, I think.

Also, this read like a prequel, like we've already read how everyone has been suffering and breaking because of the war, and this is a prequel to show us that they were all sweet summer children once. I would've been totally okay with this being a prequel actually, I can see this being a prequel. But that doesn't mean it was bad.

Anywhomst, I had a good time listening and reading along to this one. I have the gist of the story, kind of have an idea why everyone's doing what they're doing, but I wasn't really sure about what was going on still. But it's fine, I really did have a good time.

I'll def read the next one eventually.