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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
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:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Pregnancy
Minor: Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Dementia
I've read many people complaining about the length of the book and how slow of a read it can be. But let me tell you how I ate this whole thing up in less than a week.
The Priory of The Orange Tree is that kind of book that just sucks you in and keeps you entertained for a long, long time if you don't pay attention to the clock's ticking.
I loved getting all cozy, with a warm beverage next to me and high fantasy music playing in the background and just delving into the plot. My copy of the book is full of little notes and underlined words, because not only it kept me busy with the well-structured plot, but it also taught me many new words. An excellent read for any English learning, fantasy, and queer fiction lovers out there.
I'm only a little sad that the book won't have a continuation, but my imagination is developed enough to make up potential endings for my favorite characters.
Kudos for the LGBTQ+ and POC representation. Kudos for outlining characters that do not need a love interest or a traditional ending to be happy. Kudos for the feministic values that are so well-defined. This book is bold, courageous, brilliantly written, and memorable.
The Priory of The Orange Tree is that kind of book that just sucks you in and keeps you entertained for a long, long time if you don't pay attention to the clock's ticking.
I loved getting all cozy, with a warm beverage next to me and high fantasy music playing in the background and just delving into the plot. My copy of the book is full of little notes and underlined words, because not only it kept me busy with the well-structured plot, but it also taught me many new words. An excellent read for any English learning, fantasy, and queer fiction lovers out there.
I'm only a little sad that the book won't have a continuation, but my imagination is developed enough to make up potential endings for my favorite characters.
Kudos for the LGBTQ+ and POC representation. Kudos for outlining characters that do not need a love interest or a traditional ending to be happy. Kudos for the feministic values that are so well-defined. This book is bold, courageous, brilliantly written, and memorable.
adventurous
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
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:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
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
Ead, Sabran and the court politics were by far my favourite parts of book.
Roos was okay - I did begin to find him more and more insufferable as time went on.The pirate subplot felt bizzare and out of place so that didn't help
Loth seemed to be on constant random side quests everywhere - Some of which were more enjoyable than others but I did really enjoy his sections.
Overall I enjoyed this. I felt like it tried to cover too much at times while missing things I really wanted to know.
Changed settings/characters between chapters really through me off I feel this may have worked better with a few less side quests
Roos was okay - I did begin to find him more and more insufferable as time went on.
Loth seemed to be on constant random side quests everywhere - Some of which were more enjoyable than others but I did really enjoy his sections.
Overall I enjoyed this. I felt like it tried to cover too much at times while missing things I really wanted to know.
Changed settings/characters between chapters really through me off I feel this may have worked better with a few less side quests
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Good but not great. A bit slow for me and it felt like the focus was on the wrong parts of the storyline
This book would appeal to a hamster with ADHD.
It's not that I didn't enjoy the book, but there was just so much happening all at once all the time. Shannon crammed four viewpoints and a plethora of subplots into this monster of a book, leaving very little time to develop any one of them. While foreshadowing was present, most of the subplots were not developed enough for me to carry any emotional weight.
This book has been compared to Game of Thrones, perhaps because of the number of deaths that occur. The vast majority of those deaths didn't seem to hold any other purpose than to make the reader sad and truthfully, I didn't care about any of them except one.
To Shannon's credit: she does an excellent job of treating sexuality in a mature and tasteful manner. I appreciated how she was mostly upfront about the sexual orientations of the characters, rather than leaving them as a twist. I was slight frustrated when what I had interpreted as a platonic relationship between one of the viewpoint characters and the queen erupted into a romantic relationship, mostly because I am still looking for strong, deep friendships to match Sam and Frodo in my fantasy fiction.
I did enjoy coming back to magic trees and magic stones, two of my favorite tropes. Unfortunately, there wasn't much room for those tropes to breathe between everything else that was happening.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but it was a bit crowded for my taste.
It's not that I didn't enjoy the book, but there was just so much happening all at once all the time. Shannon crammed four viewpoints and a plethora of subplots into this monster of a book, leaving very little time to develop any one of them. While foreshadowing was present, most of the subplots were not developed enough for me to carry any emotional weight.
This book has been compared to Game of Thrones, perhaps because of the number of deaths that occur. The vast majority of those deaths didn't seem to hold any other purpose than to make the reader sad and truthfully, I didn't care about any of them except one.
To Shannon's credit: she does an excellent job of treating sexuality in a mature and tasteful manner. I appreciated how she was mostly upfront about the sexual orientations of the characters, rather than leaving them as a twist. I was slight frustrated when what I had interpreted as a platonic relationship between one of the viewpoint characters and the queen erupted into a romantic relationship, mostly because I am still looking for strong, deep friendships to match Sam and Frodo in my fantasy fiction.
I did enjoy coming back to magic trees and magic stones, two of my favorite tropes. Unfortunately, there wasn't much room for those tropes to breathe between everything else that was happening.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but it was a bit crowded for my taste.
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:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes