Honestly, don't think I would have kept reading if I wasn't already familiar with the series (Witcher 3 and Netflix Season 1).

For the first half, I enjoyed the themes and format. But Sapkowski's retelling of fairytales with his original character thrown in the middle just wasn't keeping me engaged enough. Second half, Dandelion/Jaskier accompanied Geralt and honestly the book took a positive turn. I don't know if this is just me picking a favorite character, but Geralt actually becomes interesting when he is interacting with his foil and I could stand to finish this book.

The writing is beautiful. There is absolutely no complaints. I will say that female reviewers are completely justified in theirs complaints. There are some off putting language thrown in the direction of young female characters here. While it did give me pause, I think its easy to chalk this up to translation and setting.

This is such a hard recommend for me. I enjoyed it but there are definitely other fantasy series I'm more interesting in continuing first before picking up the next Witcher book.