I wish Goodreads allowed half stars, because I would actually rate this 3.5/5.

TW: One of the stories shows sexual assault for no reason other than to have it. It’s acknowledged in one paragraph, and completly dropped in the next never to be really addressed. Basically to reach the nudity/sex quota. Please be advised.

The translation was quite weird again. More descriptive than the last, but still had some obvious things lost in translation. I believe somethings that we are supposed to know from Poish culture wasn’t written/explained for english audiences so I felt left in the dark for a bit. There are also moments that it seems they don’t explain what happened to some objects? For example, Yennifer has a gag in her mouth and can’t speak, but then magically can speak clearly and the gag is never explained to have been taken off, or she somehow loosened it and it fell, or what. This is going to sounds ironic since it’s a fantasy novel, but it really takes you out of the reality of the story.

I will quickly review the last short story, as all of the other updates had a bit explaining the story as soon as I finished it. The last story was... quite weird. It time jumped a lot, and sometimes would announce that it’s time jumping, and other times not, which made it hard to follow at times. I liked the ending, but of course I did.

Now onto the collection as a whole: I liked 3/6 of the stories, which is an improvement on The Last Wish, where I think I only liked one or two of the stories. I still understand we have sex for the sake of the target male audience, but the majority of the time (with exception to 1 1/2 times) it didn’t feel earned. I feel like if sex doesn’t need to be included, than it shouldn’t. It feels like you have a producer on the side saying “We need a sex scene in this episode!”, or “Hey, what if we showed boobs for no reason other than to meet the quota?” This may just be from a female-ish perspective, but I don’t know.

I appreaciate how these stories seem more linear in time than the last, which really jumped around. It was also easy to see that this collection takes place 6-10ish years after The Last Wish. Although, this can also be tricky. Some of these stories seem to align with Geralt actually choosing not the neutral choice, while others are just Geralt being like I don’t care. I know he isn’t a “good” guy, and it shows, but it seems his characterization flip flops at times.

These stories also took a shorter time to get through, but I did have to put the book down for long stretches of time. Again, I think I will wait a bit before reading Season of Storms (which I’ve read is the correct reading order, and takes place either during or right after The Last Wish, but you need the context of this book to understand? I really don’t know).