Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

70 reviews

tyr2607's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, and Violence

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Child death, Hate crime, Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Murder, Pregnancy, and Terminal illness

theirgracegrace's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Hate crime, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, War, Xenophobia, Classism, and Confinement

Moderate: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Vomit, and Excrement

Minor: Cannibalism, Incest, and Abandonment

singalana's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Minor: Infidelity, Mental illness, War, Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Death of parent, Death, Infertility, Violence, Body horror, Toxic relationship, Confinement, Deportation, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Blood, and Kidnapping

the_bees_books's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

My favourite book. 
This book is for the kids who didn't want to be princes and princesses, this is for the kids who wanted to be knights and dragon riders, royalty and sorcerers. 
This is a story for those who never felt they were enough and proof that you are, if you choose to believe it. 
 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, Grief, Violence, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, and War

Moderate: Gaslighting, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Mental illness, and Blood

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, and Infertility

marleywrites's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual content, War, Animal death, Death, Murder, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, and Blood

Moderate: Death of parent, Incest, Alcohol, Grief, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Medical content, Emotional abuse, and Confinement

Minor: Child death

noshinbean's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

I am so mad at myself for waiting so long to read this book! The pacing of this book was perfect, and I devoured every single page. The characters were all portrayed so vividly and I found myself growing more and more attached to characters like Sabran, Ead, Tané, Margret, and Loth. There were so many strong and complex women in this story, and I constantly kept thinking, "That was so badass," every few chapters.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Dementia, Grief, Death, and Death of parent

supergirled's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry and War

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, and Grief

Minor: Mental illness and Sexual content

n0elle's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Blood, Torture, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Body horror, Gore, War, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Miscarriage, and Mental illness

americiumam's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Miscarriage, Religious bigotry, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Cursing, Dementia, Infertility, Sexual harassment, Fire/Fire injury, War, Classism, Infidelity, Outing, Racism, Incest, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Slavery, Addiction, Murder, Pregnancy, and Sexual content

Minor: Stalking, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Incest, Genocide, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Rape, Suicide attempt, Vomit, and Racism

schnaucl's review against another edition

• 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

4.0

I enjoyed it.

I thought the cultures were both interesting, although not necessarily well balanced. 

I'm not sure what the West got right, aside from the fact that Ascalon was the sword that could wound the Nameless One.  But they were wrong about the part of all the participants, their entire religion was based mostly on a lie, and they were wrong about the dragons of the East.

  But the world is clearly well thought out.

I also liked the characters, particularly Ead, Tane and Loth.  

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Infertility, Confinement, Pregnancy, War, Death of parent, Infidelity, Murder, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Religious bigotry, Animal death, and Violence

Minor: Vomit, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Incest, Sexual assault, Suicide, Rape, and Mental illness