Reviews tagging 'Pandemic/Epidemic'

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

58 reviews

micaelacccc's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Absolutely beautiful, I loved it so much!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Death of parent

maddiemooney's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

navierreads's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, Religious bigotry, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, and Classism

guessgreenleaf's review against another edition

adventurous emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic

l4urenbrooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Sexism

taryn_g's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Violence, Blood, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Sexual content, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Incest, Torture, and Grief

poyopipo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Spoiled epic fantasy for me (positive). Diverse cast of well written characters, lovingly built fantasy world, and also dragons. :3

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Vomit

takarakei's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

• EPIC fantasy
• sapphic slow burn
• dragons
• fate/destiny
• battle against 'evil'

I honestly highly recommend reading A Day of Fallen Night first if you haven't. I believe SS recommends that you try and it does make ADOFN a bit of an uphill struggle with all the world building, but it pays off when you get to TPOTOT and you're just breezing on through (well... it's easier at least)!

My biggest critique of this book is the Niclays POV - I just did not care enough about him as a character and I felt his was the weakest POV and that side of the story could have been told differently. Also slight pacing issues as the end feels a bit rushed and doesn't match the pace of the rest of the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Infertility, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Lesbophobia, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

questionable_reader's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Infidelity, Outing, Gaslighting, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Torture, Trafficking, and Lesbophobia

sofipitch's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

This was fine. I'm not sure I would have finished it if it wasn't an audiobook which I could listen to while driving to work or at work. I did consider DNFing and what saved it was the first dragon appearance. This book has a TON of lore, at least the first 5 hours just feels like being hit with a firehose, and at the same times lots of parts of the world still felt undeveloped. I think the world Shannon created was maybe too large and as a result, a lot of the countries and cultures of color were the ones that suffered, as opposed to Innys, the England stand in. I actually thought I was stupid and had just missed a lot at the beginning, bc the beginning has 3/4 of the POVs all being different ppl from different cultures entering a new one and commenting on it, but no there just wasn't much. This got a lot of praise for having lots of characters of color but I only thought it was okay in effort there.
There are also a lot of potentially interesting scenes that aren't shown on screen, such as the water trials, competitions to determine if you are skilled enough to be a dragon rider. You get scenes of Tané stressing about them but not the scenes itself. Shannon likes writing exposition a lot, very obviously not action, which for an 800+ page epic is not great. A lot of information is given to you only as it is relevant, and directly from the characters in dialogue. There is no sense of the readers figuring anything out. The villains are 1-D just plain evil and pretty boring. I did end up caring for the characters but that did take a while for me to get into. Overall, entertaining, it was a throw back to the kind of huge fantasy novels I remember reading as a kid, but nothing special

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia

Moderate: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Torture and Death of parent