Reviews with content warning for Violence - Sorcery of Thorns

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.

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nat_kiverse's review against another edition

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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

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itsnotalakeitsanocean's review

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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.

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mald626's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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ankiaisreading's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional lighthearted 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

4.5

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madalina0_0's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny hopeful 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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bree_h_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

literarypenguin's review against another edition

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adventurous 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

5.0

I loved everything about Sorcery Of Thorns!!! The cover and the blurb enticed me so much and I am glad that I took the dive into this amazing fantasy!

First off I have to say the magic system in this book is perfection! I was so intrigued by it and everything that I learned about it made me more and more interested. I loved that every sorcerer had a mark representing their magic and each of their magic had different spells they could perform. Such a great magic system, a book with a great magic system has my full attention!

The characters, the characters were so amazing!! Each and every character was a good one and not one of them was unlikeable to me. Elisabeth was such a strong character, her story was engaging and I loved the change we saw in her from the beginning to the end. You could see a visible change in her and she continued to change even when the story ended. She also wasn't a stereotype of didn't drift toward any typical female stereotypes which I greatly appreciated Margaret Rogerson for! Nathanial was also a great male character and foil to Elisabeth. Learning his tragic story about his family and why he was so closed off to people made you understand him a lot more as the book went on. Even Silas was a great character, I loved learning about him and why he was so indebted to Nathanial and his family.

The writing and setting were superb, everything about this book was great! I look forward to reading the next short book based in this world and I have a feeling I will enjoy that as much as I did this one!

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