Reviews with content warning for Confinement - The Priory of the Orange Tree

I should not have been intimidated by the thickness of this book because it was an easy read. Samantha Shannon has the power to let you be engrossed with the story.

Once you get past parts one and two, you will be rewarded with a story full of adventures. It is a high fantasy, high stakes book. You will encounter characters you will fall in love with (with the length of this book, rest assured you will fall in love with at least one). You will encounter characters that you will loathe. However, since it's a long book, be prepared to be heartbroken because anything can happen - including the death of the characters you love.

I want to share my thoughts about 2 of the main criticisms I read/watched about this book.

First, people criticize the ending because they feel it was rushed. However, the battle scene was never the book's main point. Instead, the journey of the characters was. It was all about the journey, the adventures of the characters, and how they needed to be molded before the war. While it was very plot-driven, the book was prolonged because of how fleshed out the characters were. If they didn't go through everything they went through, we would never understand why the characters were compelled to think about what they thought. Also, in hindsight, battle scenes are quick. You don't need 5 long chapters to describe who fought who and who died and survived because battles are fast, so I understood why the war was fast-paced.

Secondly, some say that when the characters faced the questions of their faith, it's like they quickly gave in and abandoned their beliefs. However, some people fail to recognize the age-old saying, "Seeing is believing." The characters saw what was against their beliefs, causing them to change their thoughts. It was not just hearsay; they saw it with their own eyes.

The Priory of the Orange Tree is about finding and being yourself. It is about friendship and found family. It is about politics and morality. It is so jam-packed that when you find yourself zoning out for 3 sentences, you must reread them because you probably missed a lot.

Yes, it is more than 800 pages, but I wanted more. I could read 800 pages more if it meant I could still live in their world.

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sea_sea's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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

This book is absolutely amazing! It’s like Lord of The Rings, just with more dragons, the gays and queens. I seriously recommend this book to anyone who reads! Samatha Shannon literally transports you into the book. The words just vanish while you watch Ead, Sabran, Tané and Loth fight their own battles, that slowly merge into one. A song that I think describes the way this book feels is Cosmic Love by Florence + the Machine. I could go on about this book for FOREVER, I strongly recommend it!!!!! >o<

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theirgracegrace's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

The size may look daunting at first, but the depth and wealth of this book is beyond that of many series, much less individual books. Priory is an epic fantasy that stretches across a world divided by their love or and hatred for dragons. In the West, a handmaiden to a queen protects her from a plot while nursing hidden secrets of her own, and a young man is sent on a dangerous mission to an enemy land. In the East, a young woman trains to be the next dragon rider of her people and an old alchemist in exile seeks eternal life in a foreign land. The story travels the length and breadth of the world, culminating in an epic battle to determine the fate of the world. My only gripe with this amazing book was that certain plotlines were solved a bit too quickly and handily in order to get to those end chapters, and everyone seems to be able to speak each other's language with very little explanation. Absolutely cinematic-quality descriptions, heart-wrenching moments, surprise reversals and twists of fate make this a book for every fantasy lover out there.

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singalana's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.5

I feel cheated after reading this book: a long book with a very little payoff to the reader. This is a fantasy story of opposites: east and west, good dragons and bad dragons. It’s also a story about tradition, prophecies and expectations - and the way these things affect the POV characters’ lives.

We follow four POV characters: Ead, Tané, Loth and Niclays, but not in equal measure. At first the chapters are divided evenly between East and West (since 2 of the POV characters are from East and 2 from West), later in the book that structure is abandoned. The main POV characters (Tané and Ead) seem to be better at things than the people surrounding them: a student that is top of her class and a magician secretly protecting the queen. And I can’t stress this enough how I did not care about the other two POV characters. Something was missing and I could not connect with the characters, and especially towards the end they seemed to lose the little personality they had managed to gather in the beginning of the book.

The story is classic fantasy material: an ancient evil rises and the protagonists must work together to stop it. The other thing about this book that is too familiar is that just when things are starting to look up for the character, then disaster strikes. It’s a bit predictable and annoying. Considering the story, I found the choice of POV characters and the events this book focuses on a bit strange. There were many interesting elements I would have liked to know more about, but they were barely even discussed (like what was going on in Yscalin). Then there are things that seem like they are going to play a part in the book but are abandoned (like the rivalry between Tané and Turosa). There are same-sex romances in this book, but they too are strangely executed.

Why the hell is this book called The Priory of the Orange Tree, when barely nothing takes place in the Priory?

My main gripe about this book was the pacing. Sometimes scenes that feel important to the plot are written like: blink and you'll miss it, and then there are pages after pages of something trivial. It got a lot worse towards the end: 500 pages of barely nothing happening, and then everything happens all at once.

The villains in this book could have been interesting, but we barely see some of them (the king of Yscalin for example), the others (e.g. Kalyba) are too busy doing monologues, and the Biggest and Baddest Villain of them all and the reason why all of this is happening is defeated just like that. We barely even get a description of it!

The ending was so confusing and over so quickly that I think that the author must have realised that she had written 500 pages already and hadn’t resolved anything. And in the end, everything got resolved so easily, the POV characters instinctively knew what to do, the evil was defeated and everyone lived happily ever after. What a disappointment.

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talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense slow-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

4.5

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marleywrites's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional slow-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

4.5

I had 320 highlights for this book, and I didn’t even highlight everything I wanted to. I’ll have to do a reread to highlight them anyway.

I rated this book 4.5 stars out of 5. I was very invested in this story, starting around the 20% mark. The first 20% took me awhile to get into, but then we were flying. So if you’re trying this book for the first time, give it some time to get started.

Overall, I loved the characters and the complex world building. I’m almost sad this is technically a stand-alone because the book could so easily keep going. However, I was very satisfied with the ending we got.

This book was funny, as well, which surprised me. I didn’t expect to find humor in these pages but I did!

Another aspect of the writing I really enjoyed was the descriptions. Shannon has some serious skill when it comes to descriptions! I was blown away by the intricacies of this world and the magic system, as well as the rich history in this story.

I appreciated how many queer relationships there were in this story, and I’m glad that it was a relatively normal thing in this world.

Now for the spoilered section:

I’m head canon-ing Loth as asexual. I love him and will not hear otherwise.

I also am thrilled with Sabran and Ead’s relationship. Like thank you Ms Shannon, that was perfect!!

I love Ead’s powerful friendships in this story, they saved her as much as she saved them.

I wasn’t sold on Roos until like, 90% into the story. But now I am happy for him. His love with Jannart is one of my favorite parts of this book.

The witch of the woods character, Kalyba, damn! I did not see her coming! She could have had another several chapters, she could have her own book. Oh, I wonder if that’s in A Day of Fallen Night 😂 I haven’t read that one yet.

The dragons were so cool. I wish we could have had even more dragons. I loved Tané’s fierce love for her dragon and all of the. dragons and would have loved some fluffy dragon ride scenes.

Connecting with the East at the end for the battle against the Nameless One was great, but confusing. Their emperor agreed so quickly and without the marriage proposal. It felt unbelievable after how much build up we had telling us that the East is completely closed off to everyone else.

This was a great book, which I read as a buddy read with my friend. It took me a month to finish it when usually I finish books in just a few days. I was surprised it took me so long but I felt like I wasn’t making progress so I think that discouraged me overall to keep pushing, even though I loved the story overall.

Amazing book, would probably read again to see what I missed the first time! 🐉

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emmacartlidge's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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