The Last Wish

I think I can say this was more of a 4.5.

In the months before the release of The Witcher tv show, I saw a lot of promotion going around and I heard a lot of good things about the books, but I never felt any interest in picking them up. But I couldn't resist watching the show itself and having enjoyed it quite a lot, decided I actually do want to try out the books now. Just so happens that it's very popular now and there's a long waitlist at the library, so it's gonna be a while before I'm able to read it all.

This is supposed to be a prequel to the original series of books with short stories of Geralt's adventures but a major part of it was in the show, so it almost felt like a refresher. But it was fun to go into detail and get to know the story and characters better. Reading through the famous fight scene from episode 1 was a delight because I could totally picture it in my head. I didn't know Jaskier was called Dandelion in the books and I kept waiting to see if “Toss a coin to the Witcher” was an actual song from the text, but alas it wasn't. I was also very impressed by some of the philosophical conversations and Geralt's moral code and convictions.

Overall, I had a lot of fun reading this book. I don't know if I can tell you to read it before watching the show (if you haven't already), but doing it in the reverse order didn't hinder my enjoyment at all; I actually loved being able to see the scenes in my head while reading. I'm hoping the remainder of season one will be covered in Sword of Destiny which is supposed to be another prequel collection of short stories.