Reviews tagging 'War'

Le Prieuré de l'Oranger by Samantha Shannon

313 reviews

torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cursing, Gun violence, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Body horror, Bullying, Xenophobia, Confinement, Dementia, Genocide, Grief, Infidelity, Misogyny, Death, Torture, Violence, War, Alcoholism, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Miscarriage, Animal death, Dysphoria, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

nineinchnails's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

i will definitely be rereading this at some point! partly because there was a lot of stuff i didn't fully understand but mostly because i enjoyed it so much. i don't think i've ever read such a rich, sprawling epic fantasy contained within one novel. the characters were complex and interesting but i wish we got a little more focus on tané and loth. they both felt less fleshed out to me than ead and roos. the only other thing that kinda bugged me was how rushed the ending felt in comparison to the rest of the book. i expected the final battle to be drawn out longer than it was so it felt almost anticlimactic but it was still tied up pretty neatly. my main priorities in fantasy are character development and worldbuilding and those elements were near perfect!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: War, Pregnancy, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Homophobia, Alcoholism, Religious bigotry, Classism, and Grief

Minor: Abandonment, Incest, and Death of parent

Pseudo incest

rainydaycookies's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

3.5

There was a slow start as the reader got to know the world and characters. I didn’t know how all the pieces fit together but once I started seeing the whole story I really enjoyed this book. Very heavy on descriptions of death, blood and guts. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, Murder, Death, Violence, Torture, War, Sexual content, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, and Miscarriage

ginamiya'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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Xenophobia, and War

Minor: Miscarriage

srobs24's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious fast-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

Moderate: Violence, War, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

a_novel_craving's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Miscarriage, Death, War, Addiction, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Infertility, Gore, Pregnancy, Blood, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, and Murder

mary_stormageddon's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring 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? It's complicated

5.0

If, like me, the size of this book is the only thing keeping you from picking up this beauty, then let this be your sign to go for it anyway. I have never loved a fantasy book as much as I have loved this one!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, War, Death, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Pregnancy, and Violence

Minor: Incest

awkwardimagination's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful 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

3.5

There is too much in this book to giva comprehensive review. i have been reading all day to finish it, it is marked up like a text book, and i am hungry. The density of it may be a slight fault, but its one im willing to overlook, bc for the life of me i cannot see this book being multiple.

I will say i have 3 favourite characters (Meg, Nayimathun, and Aralaq) and only one of those is a human. I truly didnt care for one of the main storytellers, but it did provide some good information. The first hundred or so pages of this book is mostly exposition and world building , which isnt a horrible thing but it can be a lot to get through.

I dont know how much a look forward to the daunting task of reading the sequel but i will do it, hopefully in less time than it took me to read this one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Miscarriage, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: War, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Confinement, Grief, Medical content, Sexual content, and Torture

Minor: Death of parent and Classism

dylly_russell's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

Graphic: Gore, Blood, War, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Homophobia

fluffy_comet's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

What started out as a beautiful feminist reshaping of the classic sweeping fantasy novel got bogged down by too much worldbuilding (I cannot believe I'm saying this as a worldbuilding lover???) and too many characters. 130 characters in 800 pages? That's a new character every 6 pages. Absolutely bonkers. The characters were loveable and the ending bittersweet; but like many things in this book, the ending was dragged out a few chapters too long. Felt it truly for lost in the weeds towards the end - specially when the author suddenly relied on mantages for important fights, had a character make EXTREMELY SUDDEN mindset changes 3 times in a row within 3 pages, referred to a character (Tané) we've known from THE FIRST PAGE as a completely different word/name, and took way too long for the main conflict to pay off. I should not have 70 pages left and wonder when the fight they've been eluding to for the last 730 pages is going to start! Other than those (honestly large) issues, I did enjoy the book and grow to live the characters. Mostly. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Torture, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Vomit, Death of parent, Mental illness, Blood, Murder, Pregnancy, Self harm, Miscarriage, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Death, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Abandonment, Religious bigotry, Child death, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Emotional abuse, Violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and War