Reviews with content warning for Blood - O feitiço dos espinhos

In a world where Libraries are giant buildings that house magical texts, our main character, Elizabeth, unravels the mystery if why they keep being attacked. The love interest, Nathaniel, is canonically bi . Similar vibes to Howl’s Moving Castle.

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rinku's review against another edition

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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? Yes

3.5

The ideas and concepts behind Sorcery of Thorns were so interesting and the beginning was so intriguing but sadly towards the end, the book was lacking some things so that I could only give 3.5 stars.

Like I’ve said, I really enjoyed the main idea. Elisabeth is an apprentice at a library with Grimoires, living books that are sometimes friendly, sometimes straight up evil. After being accused of a murder she didn’t commit, Elisabeth is brought into the capital by the magician Nathaniel and his demon companion Silas. There, she learns that she’s part of a bigger conspiracy that threatens the fate of her world.

It was so sad to see how Elisabeth not only had to adjust to this new situation but how judgmental all the people were towards her. Here, I liked how Rogerson integrated modern concepts, like paparazzi, into a medieval setting. There were other interesting concepts introduced, like different dimensions. I feel like many of those idea had so much potential but not all of this potential was used. Other things I quite enjoyed were the action scenes.

In contrast, some moments of the story were quite predictable, like

Ashcroft being the (stereotypical) villain. Until the end, I was still not sure what his motivations were

. Also, we had the typical dancing ball. Some moments didn’t make too much sense for me, like how at the beginning, Finch doesn’t believe her even though you can clearly see that Elisabeth was in a battle. This was probably because

he just wanted to get rid of Elisabeth

, but there could’ve been maybe a better explanation why Elisabeth had to leave.

All in all, the pacing of the story was quite good but towards the end, it became a bit slow because some miscommunications happened which was annoying. Compared to this, I found it clever that

the libraries built one big summoning circle

. I have to admit that I don’t remember so much about the final fight since for some reasons, I was zoning out a lot while reading it.

What I furthermore liked about this book was the writing style. It portrays the emotions of the main character well, describes magic and everything else quite vividly and creates atmospheric settings, like the libraries or the Thorn Manor. What I noticed though is that the German translation that I’ve read had some grammar mistakes and missing words.

When looking at the characters, I liked both Nathaniel and Elisabeth. Elisabeth was sometimes a bit too naïve for my taste, e. g. believing that Ashcroft’s doctor would actually help her. There was some chemistry between them, and I appreciated that the romance was more on the slow burn side – because we meet him in the course of the first pages, I was afraid that I would be an insta love. What was also great was the development of the characters. Another character I liked was Silas. He’s so interesting and you should never forget that he’s a demon, no matter how nicely he acts.

Overall, I have the feeling that more could have been made of Sorcery of Thorns. With the world and the characters, there’s an interesting basis but the plot just lacked some things for me.

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tulilipz's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-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

4.5

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_ladypearce_'s review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

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

5.0

This book made me feel so much. I was incapable of doing anything because my brain was occupied by this book.

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bookish_slagathor's review against another edition

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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? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I'm always skeptical when it comes to YA novels and have a tendency to avoid them, but thanks to me buying this on a whim and my friend who also needed someone to read it with her, I finally managed to finish this book. And now I want more!

Margaret Rogerson has an amazingly beautiful and flowing writing style and a knack for bringing her characters to life. It was a joy to read her novel and I will be definitely looking into her other works after this.

Not to mention that this book has a capable female MC, the sweetest romance that I've read in the past few months (or maybe even in the past year) and an exciting story with strong feminist vibes to boot. Definitely something I would recommend getting your teen child, but also something I'd recommend for adults as well. It's just so good!!!

In any case, this book convinced me to try and be a tad bit more open minded when it comes to YA literature. Some books may surprise me with their maturity.

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sammymilfort's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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nadiaherondale's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.75

Rogerson manages to create an amazing world within just one book, which some authors can't do with a trilogy. The plot was captivating, as the writing and the characters felt strong. I especially liked Elisabeth's independence from societal norms having been raised in the library and Nathaniel was a great love interest, plus Silas, who might be the best character in the whole book.
I think the only complaining I can do is that the finale felt a bit rushed, and that I wished this was a trilogy or a duology, not because I wanted this particular plot to drag into another book (100 more pages I think would have been sufficient) but because I want to read more about the characters.

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noveltay's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted 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? Yes

4.0

I liked this one more than her other books!! It was good, characters were loveable- even the one you weren’t supposed to love. It would have been nice to get more of an epilogue than we got, but also leaving the ending up to the reader is cool in it’s own.

My only real complaint was how long the chapters were, made it slower to read for me personally.

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