The Lady of the Lake

This may be a long review, because I have a lot of feelings about this book, and this series as a whole. I won't go too far into the plot because this is the last book of the series, and I don't want to spoil anything.

This series as a whole has been a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed the short stories. Then, when we got into the full books, they were hit or miss. There were some books that I thought were really captivating, and some that were complete wastes of time to read. This one falls in the middle of that spectrum. First, there were so many potential triggers in this book. There were multiple sexual assault scenes that got graphic. Every time, I was completely pulled out of the story and disgusted. They didn't add to the plot at all. In my opinion, the detracted from it greatly. They were unnecessary.

However, there were certain parts of the book that I felt were so great. The plot was fast paced, and the characters were put in interesting situations. Then, all of a sudden, a chapter would be thrown in that completely killed the pace and was incredibly boring. Every chapter had a different “vibe” to it that could be quite jarring.

Overall, I love the story of the Geralt and Ciri and Yennefer and all of their friends. I think a lot of that stems from my love of the game, however. I don't know if these books are worth it to read. I don't think that the good parts are good enough to outweigh how much shit you have to get through to get to them. I am very excited to continue watching the show and seeing how they adapt it, and hopefully improve it.

TW (there's so many): ableism, alcohol, amputation, animal abuse, animal death, assault, attempted rape, blood, bones, child abuse, death, drugs, famine, fire, genocide, gore, hospitalization, incest, kidnapping, misogyny, murder, pedophilia, physical abuse, rape, sexually explicit scenes, skeletons, torture, violence, war, forced artificial insemination