Jassmine’s Reviews > Tales of Witchcraft and Wonder: The Venomous Maiden and Other Stories of the Supernatural > Status Update

Just... throw it away 🙈 Like a hot potato! It is doubly terrible if they use "the venomous maiden" in the title and the book isnt amazing.

Finished it! Uph... Yeah... I picked this one as a sort of "mapping the field" read, so I allowed it bigger liberties, but this actually wasn't great at all fronts. Idk, maybe I'm too harsh...

🙈 Uff, it happens, also the selection promised something that was almost opposite it seems? You are right to be disappointed.

I think the title is really unfortunately chosen because it implies different content than it presents. And the second thing is that old literature often has some content that we judge as problematic that's fine really, but the editor can deal with it in different ways and this edition really tried none. I'm not sure why some of the stories even got chosen. And the narration also sucked so... there are just not many (or any?) highlights...

Oh, no. That sounds unfortunate, hot potatoes are tasty, I take back the throwing away like them. :(
Some books are more an editorial disaster.

Yeah, we shall throw the hot potatoes on the plate and no farther! 🤭
I'm really just glad I finished it. I'm trying to limit my "currently-reading" shelf with very mixed results 😂😂😂

hahahah Oh, my... you just have a book or two in your "currently-reading" shelf, you´ll get to it 😅

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It could be worse I guess... but then you don't know about my secret currently-reading shelf 😂😂😂

Ok, now I want to hear about the secret shelf. Do you have a funny tag, like: I-could-be-reading-this-one-but-not-really?

Ah, no, it's not an actual GR shelf, there are just a few books that I'm reading that I either forgot to add to GR or I'm reading them for such a long time that they are sort of pre-GR.
Like for example, I have The Tower of the Swallow sitting on my shelf, I think I started it about a year ago? I had troubles reading then and I wasn't in mood for it and it was mildly triggering, so I put it down, mostly unintentionally. It seems odd adding it to GR now when I didn't touch it for such long time BUT SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE ABOUT IT!

Ah, I see, your trickery is versatile 🤭
You are right, the original DNF shelf is the nightstand or the closest shelf to the reading area hahaha
That book was the one with gratuitous sexual violence?

Alia wrote: "That book was the one with gratuitous sexual violence?"

Yes...
I mean, a big part of the Witcher series is actually war critique, so it's not meant to be read as exciting or something. But it got actually more complicated in this last book and it crossed the line for me in some ways and it just wasn't handled well in my opinion.
But I still want to finish it, I really love the series. It has some AMAZING characters - I mean, I LOVE Yennefer so much... I really want to pick it up again, I just don't have the time and mental space for it...

Ahhh, I see. That's an annoying pull, you want more of a character but the arc sucks. I am afraid we are squishy beings and always return in the end for the character 🙈

☝🏽 Yes, I see it like that too...
I really want to re-pick it soon, it's also the last book (well, there is one more short-story collection) in the series, so I just want to.... be done with it, but in a good way. There were a lot of good bits...

You are close then. Also, doesnt it happen to you that you remember the good parts and hope for something like that again?🙈

Yeah... Sapkowski is a sneaky author, I already was mightily crossed with him once, only to found out in the next book that it was actually a misunderstanding (well, deliberate misunderstanding at his part...)
Well, I have to know what happens to my love Yennefer, so I'm going to dive in soon. She's always amazing and she needs my compony with all the... useless persons around her. I need to rescue her soon! 😁

Oh, no other way then.... Go save your love! ❤️⚔️🐉

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