Reviews with content warning for Death - Sorcery of Thorns

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

90 reviews

fayesavanne's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

Love how books were such a big part, reminds me of howl's moving castle and loved the romance

Content Warnings

toastyghosty13's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This was such a fun read that was so nostalgic for me!! It reminded me of the books I loved to read as a kid (i.e. The Septimus Heap series) and I really enjoyed it. I listened to this as an audiobook, which was narrated by Emily Ellet whom I have heard narrate before. I love her voice which just added to the enjoyment.

Elizabeth Scrivener is an interesting and capable character that has a mysterious backstory where she was left on the doorstep of a great library and subsequently raised in the library. She is falsely accused of a crime and then transported to the main city by a magister Nathaniel Thorn and his butler Silas. This sets off a chain of events where they have to work together to unravel the mystery behind the chaos around the city. I loved watching them grow closer and also learning more about the characters and why their similarities brought them closer. There were also some great villains in this story, and it felt like a lot happened without it feeling too rushed or forced.

My understanding is that this is a standalone book for the most part, but that there is a follow up novella that continues the story but with a different and more lighthearted plot. I sincerely hope there is more in the works for this "series?" in the future, since it seems that the novella was published in 2023, roughly 4 years after the publishing of Sorcery of Thorns in 2019. Sorcery of Thorns has the closure to finish as a standalone novel, but my hopes for more books are still high since it has been revisited with the novella Mysteries of Thorn Manor.

I highly highly recommend this book if you want a fun story with loveable characters, a great villain, a unique magic system, and some nostalgic vibes. It was an absolute joy to listen to the audiobook and I plan on buying a physical copy!

Content Warnings

margaret_k30's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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

4.5

Content Warnings

kshertz's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

What a cute book. It’s a YA coming of age but with an orphan hero. There are demons and sorcery. It was interesting that this hero saves the whole world with the help of her love interest. It’s mostly a hero’s journey. Not much romance. But still interesting.

Content Warnings

nat_kiverse's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Content Warnings

itsnotalakeitsanocean's review

Go to review page

funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I don't think I was entirely in the right frame of mind for a book like this but also as I was reading, I got the sense that it was aimed for a demographic significantly younger than me. That isn't to say it isn't good at all, rather that it's a perfectly fine book that would be better suited to people either getting into fantasy or are just new to reading in general.

Things I liked:

It was suitably descriptive and was easy to imagine the kind of world the characters inhabited.
No awkward sexual content for the sake of sexual content. Disclaimer that I have nothing wrong with smut being in books (I've written smut fanfic myself) but it feels like there's an expectation in books these days - especially ones that booktok focuses on - to have sex scenes in them, and they end up coming across as gratuitous rather than the evolution of a couple's relationship. The closes thing that happens is a sexy makeout session that gets stopped by another character.
On a related note, the romance was pretty good. I still think we didn't get much of what Elisabeth sees in Nathaniel compared to what he sees in her, but they're a cute, slightly chaotic couple. It especially felt like the romance was more of a side plot rather than the main focus, which was nice.
Speaking of romance, we have some good representation in the form of Nathaniel who mentions he's bisexual in a very natural way, and it's just accepted before moving on.

Things I didn't like:

The pacing felt a bit all over the place, and as a result some things felt like they were over before they had even begun. Sometimes it felt that Elisabeth and other characters were going through a checklist of things to make the plot progress rather than it happening organically. Two spoilery examples come to mind:

Elisabeth being institutionalised and her subsequent escape felt like it happened way faster than it should have. It felt like the author had plans for it to be longer but couldn't find the appropriate research or changed her mind last minute but didn't take out the scene because otherwise it would have ruined the progression of events.
Silas' first death is supposed to be treated as this massive stakes raising moment forces Nathaniel and Elisabeth to think for themselves instead of having to rely on him constantly... or so I thought until Nathaniel essentially goes "right, let's go to the basement and re-summon him; I'll just bleed on the old pentagram and he'll be back in a jiffy", which really killed the stakes for the remainder of the book.

Your mileage may vary heavily on this point of contention, but some of the foreshadowing was very obvious to me. This is one of the main reasons I feel like the book was definitely aimed at younger/less experienced readers than myself.
A very minor thing but I got annoyed at the author's use of the Noodle Incident trope for funny moments involving Nathaniel. It happens a lot in another one of my favourite series - The Gallagher Girls - but that series is aimed at a younger demographic, and the protagonist of that series is often telling noodle incidents that she has only heard of instead of directly participating in.

In contrast to here where Nathaniel is describing things that happened to him to make him seem charming, I think there could have been moments where instead of Nathaniel describing a Noodle Incident that happened to him, Elisabeth could have either witnessed an incident or come in partway through/at the tail end of an incident.
The ending felt extremely rushed and anticlimactic. It felt like the author got bored of writing the story and just wanted to wrap it up as soon as possible. And I still have no idea why Nathaniel lost his powers at the end.

And something double-edged I both liked and didn't like:

We have some decent aroace representation - and a Black aroace character to boot! I'm grateful that Katrien's sexual orientation is alluded to but not dwelt upon. Again, it ties back to the idea that the romance was a side thing rather than a big focus of the story.

...Unfortunately Katrien is barely in this story, and feels more like a token Black Best Friend that Elisabeth occasionally communicates with for updates on the Summerhall Library, rather than a fully realised person.
It was especially annoying that Katrien supposedly single-handedly investigated the new director and documented his crimes so that he could be punished off-screen. I believe the author wants this to be a standalone story, but I would like to have a short story or just something about Katrien's off screen chronicles.

There were a few other Black characters that felt more like they were there for token representation, but it didn't irk me as much as it did Katrien.