marinaxanna's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Spoiler
Oh and not to mention more vile, completely unnecessary SA scenes/tropes for Ciri. Seriously what the fuck was up with that Gramps BS?Spoiler
Mila, Regis and Cahir deserved better. And I mean that as in, their deaths were incredibly underwhelming, with happening in the same 4/5 pages apart and with the bare minimum of impact. I didn’t even take it seriously. They went from all OP/skilled to dropping like flies in the last book.Well, so did I—Almost dnf. Reading this was just not enjoyable for me at all. I forced myself to finish it since its the last part. Skipped the entirety of chapter 7 when it was clear it was another senseless subplot with Men Being Men TM with a bunch of characters i would never read about again. Seriously, who needs so many detours and timejumps to shape a plot????
Graphic: War, Rape, Sexual assault, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Incest
green_amaryllis's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Violence, Torture, War, Death, Blood, Confinement, and Murder
Moderate: Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, Drug use, Kidnapping, Sexism, Incest, and Vomit
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic
camoo3032's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Violence, War, Xenophobia, Gore, Rape, Sexism, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Confinement, Murder, Death, Sexual assault, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Abortion, Drug use, Incest, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Vomit, Animal death, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Alcohol, Classism, Misogyny, and Sexual content
Minor: Alcoholism, Infertility, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Cursing, Slavery, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Death of parent, Excrement, and Bullying
geordirr's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
Graphic: Rape, War, Sexual violence, Blood, Adult/minor relationship, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Misogyny
Minor: Incest and Antisemitism
Spoiler
if you haven’t figured it out by now the entire plot of the series revolves around the attempted forced impregnation of a teenage girl by multiple parties. It’s particularly bad in this book as we get to read graphic descriptions of people attempting violent physical rape, coercive rape and medical rape on Ciri. Oh and one of the last things yennifer does before dying is to call Triss a slut for sleeping with Geralt back in book 3karenbo's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
Graphic: War
Moderate: Rape and Incest
efsimpkin's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I do need to say though that as a Merlin fan I really enjoyed all the Camelot references, lol.
In the middle of the book is where the plot starts to pick up and Sapkowski’s writing shines once more. There’s a chapter that uses multiple POVs to describe a battle scene and it’s masterful. Throughout, we get thrown between times and places with only scraps of information to tell us where we are but it is perfectly executed. The use of a recurring motif (I won’t spoil what it is) hit me like a tonne of bricks when I worked out what it was doing. The use of sometimes very simple dialogue or clever word games is brilliant and even more brilliant when you consider that it survived translation, so well done to French as well for his work there.
This is by far the darkest and saddest book in the series, I feel, and I think that’s what makes it beautiful in its own way. I spent the whole book wondering how it would align with the characters I know from TW3, and I only got that answer right at the end, which was excellent. I had been lightly spoiled for the ending previously which is a shame but I still deeply enjoyed the book.
I’m going to wait a good long while, until I’m feeling nostalgic, to read Season of Storms.
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, War, and Death
Moderate: Incest
Minor: Pregnancy
saltylane's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I didn’t necessarily expect a happy ending for everyone… But at least an ending that actually had conclusions that really mattered or that made sense would’ve been nice.
Overall, I rather enjoyed the series, despite its many flaws. With the switching perspectives, it did get confusing as to what was going on and what character was doing what. It often went to characters that I wasn’t really sure why they were even included… Unless they were just trying to close up plot lines? I don’t know; they didn’t really matter. It didn’t really seem very important that So-and-So died in such a way or succeeded in XYZ. Sure, sometimes it was nice to see what older characters that we hadn’t seen in a while were doing… But overall it wasn’t really important to the plot what was going on in their lives.
The reader for this audiobook is very talented! He really knows how to manipulate his voice to the different characters and stick with it consistently. The voice acting was also very good with emphasized emotions relevant to the scenes.
I’m really interested in seeing how the series on Netflix adapts all of the storylines. Hopefully it’s a little bit less convoluted…
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Body horror, Violence, Blood, and War
Moderate: Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Drug use, Genocide, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Torture, Xenophobia, Medical trauma, Rape, Sexual violence, Alcohol, and Grief
Minor: Pregnancy, Self harm, Colonisation, Animal death, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Homophobia, Incest, Medical content, Excrement, Adult/minor relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Sexism, and Vomit
tilo's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Spoiler
mit Nimue und CondwiramursDas Ende ist sehr sonderbar. Man mag darüber denken, was man möchte, aber speziell zu diesem Teil hat es schon gepasst.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Alcohol, Blood, Cannibalism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and War
Moderate: Classism, Cursing, Excrement, Grief, Incest, Medical content, Slavery, and Torture
Minor: Ableism and Colonisation
aangi16's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
I can appreciate that some things just weren't to my taste. For example, I'm sure other people enjoyed the overly complicated politics but personally I didn't care for it. But some things were just objectively bad, or at least questionable, decisions.
Spoiler
Like introducing a group of interesting characters (Regis, Milva, Angoulême) only to unceremoniously kill them all off in one of the laziest ways possible because they've served their purpose of getting Geralt to Ciri. Not to mention the reasons they each agree to help Geralt find Ciri in the first place are tenuous (don't even get me started on Cahir's reason/obsession with Ciri).Character motivations were something I consistently struggled to understand throughout the series, but especially near the ending.
Spoiler
You're telling me Duny waged wars with nations and is responsible for the deaths of millions of humans, dwarves, elves etc because he wanted his offspring to rule the world but changed his mind at the last second because Ciri cried a little? And Geralt and Yennefer after finally getting her back were prepared to just let her go without a fight and kill themselves (after having sex first because of course) instead?Other issues I had with the series as a whole:
- Why does every woman geralt comes across either fall in love with him or want to have sex with him? He's canonically unattractive and he doesn't have a very charming or likeable personality. 2 or 3 women sure, but not every single woman he has a conversation with
- Sapkowski's obsession with Ciri repeatedly either getting SA'd, almost SA'd, or being used as a breeding machine is weird and creepy
- The sex scenes were hilariously bad (I even read a couple passages to friends)
- The writing was terrible in some places (though this may be an issue with the translation, rather than Sapkowski himself)
Now for the good stuff:
- The books are actually quite funny in some places
- Geralt's crew in this book (Regis, Milva, Angoulême and Cahir) were interesting and fun and I wish we'd gotten to see more of them
- Ciri's character and story arch is really interesting, even more than Geralt's imo
- The world and lore are genuinely interesting and have a lot of potential (which is why I love the games and I'm looking forward to seeing what the show does)
- The characters have flaws and personalilty traits that make them feel more like real people (most of the time)
- I loved Ciri's relationships with Geralt, Yennefer, Triss and the other witchers
In summary, it wasn't worth reading the whole series just for the little nuggets of enjoyment I got every now and then, especially considering how disappointing I found the ending to be.
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Suicide, and Sexual violence
paulas's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, War, and Blood
Moderate: Death and Incest