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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
An epic adventure tale. Loved every moment of it. A great read for anyone who is interested in magic, dragons and a good story to tell a fascinating tale.
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
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:
No
Quelle jolie découverte !
J’ai connu Samantha Shannon avec The Bone Season. En m’attaquant au Prieuré de l’Oranger, je ne savais pas trop où l’autrice m’emmènerait. J'ai été surprise, agréablement, malgré la peur du nombre de pages et d'un univers décrit complexe.
Première bonne surprise : ce n’est pas si complexe qu’on le dit ! Certes, il faut s’y plonger entièrement et parvenir à être bien concentré, mais la plume très actuelle de Samantha Shannon permet à un monde de se dresser devant nos yeux, brique après brique, le rendant très palpable malgré sa richesse et sa finesse. Je trouve que tout s’installe doucement, les liens sont évoqués progressivement, les croyances finement décrites, etc. Le système de magie se dresse petit à petit pour qu’on parvienne très aisément à le saisir. Bref : laissez -vous bercer, tout va bien se passer, Samantha Shannon nous tient par la main de A à Z ! Et pour autant, sa plume est très subtile. Je trouve notamment qu’elle sait à merveille nous exposer une évidence sans pour autant la nommer, je pense notamment au personnage de Loth.
Et oui, les personnages ! Eh bien, j’ai adoré chacun des narrateurs et des personnages principaux. C’est une fantasy et pourtant, ils sont d’une vérité très contemporaine. Ils ne sont pas 100% bons ni 100% mauvais. Ils doutent, ils flanchent, ils foncent, ils tombent. Ils sont durs, farouches, sarcastiques, stratèges et manquent aussi de confiance. Qu’est-ce que j’aime cette authenticité dans les personnages pour une fantasy ! J’ai beaucoup apprécié leur maturité, ce qui permet vraiment à ce roman d’être très adulte. À l’ouest, la dureté de la reine Sabran et la franchise sans détours de la servante venue du Sud, Eadaz, mais aussi les exilés Luth et Kit que j’adore, car je trouve leur duo assez drôle. À l’est, le vieux professeur Niclays un poil grincheux et égoïste, la jeune étudiante dragonnière Tané. Entre les deux, le couple Truyde et Triam un poil immatures que j’ai moins appréciés de par un côté un peu jeune, mais qui peut s’expliquer par leur âge. Petit nota bene : j’aurais adoré en découvrir plus que le personnage d’Aleidine dont je trouve la sagesse tellement difficile et nécessaire aujourd’hui !
Malgré tout, en effet, ce n’est pas la note maximale pour moi parce que j’ai tout de même subi un peu quelques longueurs, mais il s’agit d’un point très personnel que j’interprète par un manque d’expérience en high fantasy.
This humongous beast of a book is one of my all time favourite reads. I have read it three times since i bought it, and every single time it snatches me into a world beyond my wildest dreams. The way Miss Samantha Shannon intricately weaves the world of the Priory from its complex political factions to the different religious regimes of the various kingdoms all seemingly originating form the same event blows my mind away.
We follow the story from 4 different perspectives, each bringing their own voices into the storytelling experience, The East with "Tané" and "Niclays", The West with "Ead" and "Loth".
I got to live through each character as they uncovered conspiracies, secrets, histories, and emotions. I got to witness a hazy truth slowly being broken down to pieces as our narrators begane to unveil its nooks and crannies. How they all tied in together at the end to reform the clear outline that binds their different cultures into each other.
I loved the anticipation i had reading through the different events of the book waiting for the characters to meet, specifically Ead and Tané. I loved the language of the book and how it made it easy for me to actually immerse myself into its world. To forget about the modernity of our current time and just exist within the time frame of the priory. I loved the way everything written within the book converged towards the plotline. How it all made sense at the end, every small detail written. And most importantly i loved how Miss Shannon did not shy away from the horrors of reality, bridging a world built upon fantasy and fairytale with the harshness of what's real. Reflecting the difficulty of situations with real casualties that break you, but still knowing that they needed to happen. A lot of books nowadays tend to shy away from killing characters even when it drastically ruins their substance, so i'm really glad that Miss Shannon found the perfect balance within this story.
This book will forever have a special place in my heart and i cannot wait to dive into its world again with the release of its prequel.
We follow the story from 4 different perspectives, each bringing their own voices into the storytelling experience, The East with "Tané" and "Niclays", The West with "Ead" and "Loth".
I got to live through each character as they uncovered conspiracies, secrets, histories, and emotions. I got to witness a hazy truth slowly being broken down to pieces as our narrators begane to unveil its nooks and crannies. How they all tied in together at the end to reform the clear outline that binds their different cultures into each other.
I loved the anticipation i had reading through the different events of the book waiting for the characters to meet, specifically Ead and Tané. I loved the language of the book and how it made it easy for me to actually immerse myself into its world. To forget about the modernity of our current time and just exist within the time frame of the priory. I loved the way everything written within the book converged towards the plotline. How it all made sense at the end, every small detail written. And most importantly i loved how Miss Shannon did not shy away from the horrors of reality, bridging a world built upon fantasy and fairytale with the harshness of what's real. Reflecting the difficulty of situations with real casualties that break you, but still knowing that they needed to happen. A lot of books nowadays tend to shy away from killing characters even when it drastically ruins their substance, so i'm really glad that Miss Shannon found the perfect balance within this story.
This book will forever have a special place in my heart and i cannot wait to dive into its world again with the release of its prequel.
adventurous
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
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:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I feel like I definitely didn't grasp everything in this book in terms of world building, backstory, geography, so I must admit I didn't 100% get what was going on at all times (partially bc I read this super fast) BUT!!!!
I love how this was complex and yet accessible, the characters were fun and interesting, even Niclays, I followed enough of the plot that it kept me interested. Ead and her queen .... A+, 10/10 romance. I do think Tane's sections were super boring though which is a bummer bc on paper she sounds really interesting. The pacing of this book was also way off. She definitely rushed the ending. I get it, writing climactic intense battle scenes that you've been building up to for 700 pages as a huge big deal that only happens every thousand years is difficult, but this was just stunningly anticlimactic in that regard. It didn't have to be perfect but it should have been longer. Which is wild to say about an 800 page book but surely she could have cut some of the earlier parts. I would say cut all of Tane but you need her for plot purposes.
Anyway, fun experience! I'm glad the next book is a prequel, it'll help me understand the bits of backstory and world that I missed.
I love how this was complex and yet accessible, the characters were fun and interesting, even Niclays, I followed enough of the plot that it kept me interested. Ead and her queen .... A+, 10/10 romance. I do think Tane's sections were super boring though which is a bummer bc on paper she sounds really interesting. The pacing of this book was also way off. She definitely rushed the ending. I get it, writing climactic intense battle scenes that you've been building up to for 700 pages as a huge big deal that only happens every thousand years is difficult, but this was just stunningly anticlimactic in that regard. It didn't have to be perfect but it should have been longer. Which is wild to say about an 800 page book but surely she could have cut some of the earlier parts. I would say cut all of Tane but you need her for plot purposes.
Anyway, fun experience! I'm glad the next book is a prequel, it'll help me understand the bits of backstory and world that I missed.
I keep bouncing between giving this a four star or five star rating so I’ll put it at a tentative 4.5. Most aspects of this book I LOVED. Which is saying a lot because I am not a big high fantasy reader and tend to struggle through them. But this book was so rich in character and imagery that I genuinely had a wonderful time reading it even though I honestly was confused through a lot of it (which I put down to my inexperience with high fantasy). The imagery in this book is breathtaking and the love story between Ead and Sabran was absolutely perfect. In fact, to me, Ead’s pov/story was the most compelling part.
The aspects that brought down this book for me were some of the pov’s, the end, and the complicated world building which relied so heavily on history and legends that were so mixed up by all the different countries viewpoints. While I can admit that some of the confusion was definitely due to my own lack of experience reading high fantasy, I do think the different interpretations of the history made it a lot more confusing.
As for the pov’s, I really was most interested in Ead’s and some of the others moved a bit slow. Niclay’s especially moved slow and by the time I finished the book I felt like the plot had not gained much from his arc. It felt slightly detached from the rest of the story to me and, especially because of the way it ended, it did not feel satisfactory or like I had connected to him at all.
All that being said, I really did enjoy Priory, absolutely loved Ead and Sabran’s story, and feel more compelled to delve into high fantasy from now on.
The aspects that brought down this book for me were some of the pov’s, the end, and the complicated world building which relied so heavily on history and legends that were so mixed up by all the different countries viewpoints. While I can admit that some of the confusion was definitely due to my own lack of experience reading high fantasy, I do think the different interpretations of the history made it a lot more confusing.
As for the pov’s, I really was most interested in Ead’s and some of the others moved a bit slow. Niclay’s especially moved slow and by the time I finished the book I felt like the plot had not gained much from his arc. It felt slightly detached from the rest of the story to me and, especially because of the way it ended, it did not feel satisfactory or like I had connected to him at all.
All that being said, I really did enjoy Priory, absolutely loved Ead and Sabran’s story, and feel more compelled to delve into high fantasy from now on.
WOW....great book! Well written, great story line, did not drag, had a great mix if characters, etc... I was really able to connect with the characters. I can't say enough.
I would have likely made this into a series as I think this book could have been split up easily with cliffhangers to boot ;) Maybe we could get another book from this one?!?!?
I would have likely made this into a series as I think this book could have been split up easily with cliffhangers to boot ;) Maybe we could get another book from this one?!?!?