A review by sauvageloup
The Time Of Contempt, by Andrzej Sapkowski
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
mixed feelings on this!
pros:
- it really picked up sort of 2/3rds of the way through. Like, it focused on Ciri (and Geralt a bit) and there was tension and an obvious goal and a coherent narrative and it was great! why was it not like that the whole way through??
- occasionally it was funny, but a lot of the "joke" went over my head
- even though i respect that there were powerful female characters, there still felt like there was misogyny here, which i've seen in his other books too.
cons:
- it was just really confusing. esp. the middle with all the politics going on. I had no damn clue who was who or why shit was going down or what was happening for a good 50 pages. it was clearly meant to be a bit unclear but i was just plain lost. it was also just not gripping at all for the first 2/3rds and i also DNF it. it just wandered about the place, with Geralt having long conversations that didn't seem to mean much. I can't even remember the first half.
- just too much random worldbuilding that added to nothing and was confusing
so i was prepared to give it 2/5 stars at best and to quit the series but the end got suddenly good and now I'm tempted to read the next one >.<
pros:
- it really picked up sort of 2/3rds of the way through. Like, it focused on Ciri (and Geralt a bit) and there was tension and an obvious goal and a coherent narrative and it was great! why was it not like that the whole way through??
- occasionally it was funny, but a lot of the "joke" went over my head
- even though i respect that there were powerful female characters, there still felt like there was misogyny here, which i've seen in his other books too.
Spoiler
a lot of the female characters have backstories that involve rape or are threatened with rape. we get it, its a dark story! but quit with the troubled past = rape for women. there's also a lot of sexualising women. One aspect i did appreciate was when Ciri was assaulted, she couldn't protest and her attacker says 'she's not struggling is she?' to defend himself, but we're in her POV and *know* she doesn't want it. I appreciated the acknowledgement that whilst a person may not verbally speak it doesn't mean you have consentcons:
- it was just really confusing. esp. the middle with all the politics going on. I had no damn clue who was who or why shit was going down or what was happening for a good 50 pages. it was clearly meant to be a bit unclear but i was just plain lost. it was also just not gripping at all for the first 2/3rds and i also DNF it. it just wandered about the place, with Geralt having long conversations that didn't seem to mean much. I can't even remember the first half.
- just too much random worldbuilding that added to nothing and was confusing
so i was prepared to give it 2/5 stars at best and to quit the series but the end got suddenly good and now I'm tempted to read the next one >.<
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Cursing, Death, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and Vomit
Minor: Genocide