5 stars

“I’ve become convinced that the witcher’s profession is worthy of respect. You protect us not only from the evil lurking in the darkness, but also from that which lies within ourselves.”

Yes, I jumped on the Witcher bandwagon. My fiancé and I binged the entire Netflix series in one weekend back when it came out in January, and we loved it. Well, actually, he binged the entire series—at the time, I was living two hours away for school, so when I came to visit that weekend he had already seen the first episode and then we watched the rest together… so I still have not seen the first episode!

Then came my long wait to read the book. Note: If you just want to skip down to the book review, that’s fine, I’m just super salty about how long I had to wait to read this and I want to talk about it! My fiancé, who is not a big reader, actually did want to read the book after we’d seen the show, so contrary to my usual custom, we started our search at the bookstore where, thanks to Netflix, the Witcher section was completely cleared out, except for one copy of The Tower of Swallows. The first shortage of 2020…

So then I went to my library website and decided to put the physical book on hold. I wasn’t reading a lot of ebooks at the time besides some ARCs, and I thought I’d prefer to have the physical book, and the waits were about the same for both. This was in January. I checked up on it every once and awhile and watched my name crawl up the list from 26th place to 2nd. I ended up second on the list towards the end of February, and religiously checked to see if I’d scooted up the list enough, because I was going on a trip from March 5-14 and if I didn’t pick it up by March 4, I’d have to defer my hold until the 15th—which I ended up needing to do.

Well, I think we all remember what happened mid-March. My library officially closed on March 16, the day after I returned from my trip, and I have not been able to pick up any new books or even return the books I had checked out at the time! I still have them, because my library is still closed. So far, curbside pickup has not been an option. And I was top on the list for The Last Wish. As in, if we had had just one more week before lockdown, someone probably would have returned their copy and I’d have been able to pick it up.

And maybe I would have held out longer for the physical copy had things been different. However, that was my public library in my university town, and I graduated in May. For now, I’m living with my fiancé and his folks until I can line up a post-grad job (let me tell you, that’s a whole nother can of worms in this climate), but I won’t be moving back to my university town. So even once the library opens, I won’t have the chance to borrow books from there again, and in the end, I borrowed the ebook of The Last Wish and canceled my hold for the physical book.

Also, I’d like to apologize to whatever library patron had this exact same problem, except with Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. That’s one of the books I couldn’t return.

Review

Okay, now that I’ve got that off my chest!

The Last Wish was well worth the wait! I can’t remember the last time I read a new book and just straight up enjoyed it. It might have been because I’d already seen the Netflix show, because I already loved the characters and was excited to read about them in print. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t enjoy it as much, because The Last Wish is technically a collection of short stories and I tend to rate short story collections a solid 3 stars, because some of the stories are good, some aren’t as good, you end up middle of the road.

And I think it’s true that you might be put off by the format of The Last Wish if you aren’t prepared for it. It isn’t a linear story, and I can see how it might feel disjointed. Even if you are prepared for it, the intros to each chapter can throw you for a loop, since they are in a timeline by themselves, and then introduce each short story as something like a flashback. All of the stories really hold up though, and I think that as a collection it is really solid and follows a logical order. That cohesion is what ties this book together despite it being a collection of short stories.

As I said before, it’s been awhile since I felt the same genuine enjoyment from a new book, and I think that has a lot to do with the characters. As I said, I was already familiar with the main trio, Geralt, Dandelion, and Yennefer, but I really enjoyed getting to know the characters better while reading The Last Wish, especially Geralt and Dandelion. What really stood out to me was how Sapkowski showed how intelligent they both were. He frequently describes Geralt as have a lot of book knowledge, and being able to read and in fact reading books often, but I was really impressed with how he treated Dandelion’s character. Dandelion is the comic relief of the book—although there were parts throughout that made me laugh out loud—but he is frequently shown to have an encyclopedic knowledge base that supports his bard profession. The author, and Geralt, never treat Dandelion as a stupid side character, but as a smart and fully-fleshed out character.

Geralt’s character is also very fleshed out. We see him struggle with philosophy and morals, and come to terms with his past and future. I loved how Sapkowski was able to show how kind-hearted and intrinsically good Geralt is, but that he is driven to sometimes act against his own moral code because of outside forces, or how his moral code doesn’t always work out for the best and that he is sometimes wrong. Hell, an entire chapter intro is dedicated to essentially exploring Geralt’s inner thoughts; he thinks a lot, and he ponders a lot, and he’s an incredibly complex character who was a lot of fun to read about. We really didn’t get too much time with Yennefer in this book, but I can’t wait to see more of her in Sword of Destiny!

Although The Last Wish has a lot of character work, it’s plot also makes for easy reading. Most of the stories are taken from folklore and fairy tales, but many have twists on them and introduce Slavic folklore that the Western reader won’t be too familiar with. I think it was an excellent blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar, and it overall enhanced my experience. In addition, because it is a short story collection, each chapter is self-sufficient and it’s easy to move through the book, even if you are only reading casually.

I had very high hopes for The Last Wish after seeing the TV show, and I am so happy that I was not at all disappointed! I’m definitely happy to have jumped on the bandwagon and can’t wait to continue the series, although it might be awhile until I get the chance to.

Also, a fun fact! I was curious while reading about why Dandelion’s name is Jaskier in the TV show. Turns out that Jaskier is his name in Polish, which translates to “Buttercup” in English, and the original translators felt like “Dandelion” fit his personality better!