Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

122 reviews

aksmith92's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful 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? No

4.5

Samantha Shannon is a phenomenal writer! I love the prose - her descriptions of people and events work for me, and I love storytelling through the eyes of vastly different people. I read A Day of Fallen Night a month or two ago and couldn't wait to get my hands on The Priory of the Orange Tree - the first book in the series. Although this one was written first, I decided to read A Day of Fallen Night - the prequel - to start since I wanted to go chronologically, and because I read that if you read this book first, you would already know a decent plot twist in the prequel. All-in-all, for some reason, I just LOVED A Day of Fallen Night, even if we were still left with a bit of a mystery. I REALLY enjoyed this one, but it didn't tug on my heartstrings as much as the prequel.

Regardless, just like the prequel, this book follows four narrators, all from different parts of the world (two being from the "West"), that Shannon sets up for us. Each area - East, South, West, has its own religion and customs, which were very intriguing to read about. We have the West, which has a pretty cutthroat religion about someone named Galian who slayed the "Nameless One," a wyrm that came to destroy the continent about 1,000 years ago. They view him as the Saint. Then, we have the South, which actually believes that his love, Cleolind, is the one who slays the Nameless One. They call her the Mother. The East is disconnected from the bigger Continent by water, and they worship dragons, different from wyverns who follow the Nameless One. It was so intriguing to read about these different cultures and how they intersect. 

I think the characters are built amazingly, and I really feel like I'm in their world. Like the prequel, a lot of this novel is setting up the characters, world-building, and plot, and therefore, it may feel slow for some people in the beginning. Additionally, there are a decent amount of characters and sub-plots to follow throughout, which may be confusing in the beginning. For these reasons, I shied away from giving it a full five stars. The beginning was just tough for me, but after about 15-20%, I hit the ground running and became fully immersed. 

I really enjoyed the magical system, the connectedness of the continent, and others questioning their faiths based on new information. While it didn't seem totally realistic that folks from certain religions would be more than happy to accommodate others (sorry, the real world just sank in too much to find it believable), I will say I thought that the characters were strong and layered. The plot made a lot of sense, and I was excited to see it in this way as opposed to A Day of Fallen Night, where we are mostly left with more questions (which is totally acceptable for a prequel). I just had such a great time reading this and have fallen in love with this series. I can't wait to read more once other books are out!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Miscarriage

Moderate: Alcoholism

fanboyriot's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

3.5

Read For:

Dragons

Slow Burn

Fantasy Map

Sapphic Romance

High Fantasy (but make it queer)

I definitely have some mixed feelings about this book.  I wanted to love it but it fell more flat for me than anything else.  It was just kinda meh.  It wasn’t bad but I also just didn’t fall into the hype about it either.  I was a bit bored at times, honestly.

While the worldbuilding/setting was done really well the characters overall just lacked personality.  I found myself confused as to who was who for more than half of the book, which might be more of a me thing than anything else, but even then I just didn't really care for any of them.  I am much more of a character person than a world-building person.

Then there were some chapters that just dragged out, and while in the beginning, it was fine.  It's high fantasy and that's expected to get to know the world and everything but it was no better by the last chapter.

However, I didn’t totally hate this book either.  I really liked how the Queen was the one running things.  It was super nice to read a high fantasy without it being majorly sexist or borderline creepy.  Plus it had some queer relationships as well, a sapphic relationship being the main hype of the book besides the dragons.  And lastly the dragons, I loved how they were written into the story, how they interacted with their riders, and the bond they shared.

Overall, if you're a fan of high fantasy and want to see some queer rep within the book then I recommend this to you.  However, if you’re more like me, where contemporary books have taken over your tbr, then I probably wouldn't recommend it to you.

POV: Switching, Third Person

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Rep: Queer MCs, Queer SCs, Sapphic (main), Achillean (side), Aspec MC

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Alcoholism, Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Pandemic/Epidemic, Miscarriage, Death, Infertility, Child death, Confinement, Religious bigotry, Medical content, Violence, Murder, Grief, Gore, Death of parent, Torture, Sexual content, War, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Genocide, Bullying, Outing, Alcohol, Terminal illness, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Classism, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Incest, Infidelity, Addiction, and Gaslighting

Minor: Dementia, Sexual assault, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Rape, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexism

arlaubscher's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Miscarriage, Infertility, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Alcoholism, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, War, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Xenophobia, Medical content, Murder, Mental illness, and Violence

Minor: Sexual content, Slavery, and Trafficking

bkc's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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? No

5.0

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it was exactly what I needed! Ead & Sabran are my favourite characters, but I really didn't like Niclays. The pacing was good and I enjoyed the tale. I usually hate books with heavy world-building but the author fed the information in naturally, so it was digestible. From what I gather, this book is like marmite and for me, it hit!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism and Miscarriage

Minor: War and Suicidal thoughts

pbeeandj's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? No

5.0

Huge, epic, and gay. Quality animal and dragon friends to help our protagonists (I especially loved the Ichnuemon). All but one of the pov characters are POC. I wish I could watch this as a series. 5/5 stars and no notes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Murder, Religious bigotry, Death, Miscarriage, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

elissabrady's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

The book reads more like a Netflix series than a fantasy book but it’s trill brilliant. I really enjoyed the visuals it stimulates and the storyline between Sab and Ead is beautiful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Sexism

Moderate: Misogyny, Murder, Death of parent, Miscarriage, and Grief

Minor: Gaslighting, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Torture, and War

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

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

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

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

alexayres47's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? No

3.5

Would have really loved this if it had been 300 pages shorter. Pretty slow to get going, hooked by the middle, and then lost steam towards the end. Great characters but as always with regular POV-swaps some were better fleshed-out than others. Overall a solid fantasy epic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Miscarriage

Moderate: Pregnancy and Alcoholism

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: Blood, Violence, Miscarriage, and Death

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

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