Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

302 reviews

iammmartina_'s review against another edition

adventurous emotional slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Pregnancy, Confinement, Murder, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, and Abortion

Minor: Infidelity, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

revolverreads's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

To read or not to read, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the lack of plot or character development, or to take arms against everyone who called this the feminist Lord of the Rings. If the bells haven't rung yet, we split the mammoth "Priory of the Orange Tree" by Samantha Shannon to be read over the course of two months, and never have we been so badly catfished (not even by our Hinge dates).

The standalone novel is intended to be considered high fantasy, but this description is highly misleading. For a book with dragons, you barely get them. For a book with LGBTQ representation, you barely get it. For a book that's meant to have epic battles, you barely get them. This book has the potential to be great; the core ideas are strong. However, any scene that approaches being interesting fades to black.

One of the problems with this book is that it follows multiple perspectives. This isn't inherently an issue, as other series successfully use multiple viewpoints to drive the narrative forward. However, in this case, we get no time to become attached enough to care about what happens. It's that attachment to the stakes and the impact on the characters that leaves you feeling happy, devastated, or shocked, and Priory of the Orange Tree provides none of that. This book would have benefitted from being a series, allowing the audience to see the character development and actually care about what happens. 

There are so many different characters and locations that it's almost jarring, especially because some are meant to be crucial to the plot, like bringing down a big, bad evil, yet we barely get a page about them. But the greatest crime of all is naming your villain "the Dark One" and not taking a moment to give them an actual name beyond this generic code name. Throughout the novel, it's repeatedly emphasized that you need to fear the Dark One, but no actual history is provided. If he's just going to blow fire and singe someone's laundry, he's not the greatest evil ever—he's basically a medieval dryer at that point.

Frustratingly, it promised so much, but good plot ideas are useless if they aren’t expanded on. If you would like to commiserate along with us, check us out at Revolver Reads: A Bookclub Russian Roulette on your podcast platform of choice, or simply @revolverreads on Instagram and let us know what you think. If you’d like to email us any future book suggestions for our roulette wheel, feel free to send them to [email protected].

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Infertility, Child death, Alcoholism, and Death

chimichannika's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

2.75

three stars is generous tbh and I ended up changing it to 2.5 to be more honest about it 🫠 I have so many thoughts on this book (a few good, quite a few nuanced, and many critiques) and maybe will try to condense them to an appropriate review length; if I do so successfully I may come back and lengthen this review later but tldr… priory I yearn for the book you have the potential to be 🥲

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Gore, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, and Violence

Moderate: Incest, Cultural appropriation, Gun violence, Animal cruelty, Vomit, Xenophobia, Miscarriage, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Excrement and Infidelity

addssubract's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Death, War, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Cursing

zgreyz'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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

berrytart's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.0

i really like this book, the mix of western and eastern dragons was an amazing idea!

Sabran did annoy me for quite a while but she grew on me!

i will be getting the prequel, i absolutely love the world-building in this book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Miscarriage, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Infertility, and Violence

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Torture, and Death of parent

sarah_bookshelf's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

A re-read, but it's been around 5 years I think. Really loved diving back into this world and still being delighted getting to know the setting and the characters, as well as being surprised all over again by the directions the plot takes! There is a little too much book (esp when you're stuck between pages 500 and 700) but the world building is so rich that I can forgive. Can't wait to read A Day of Fallen Night!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, War, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Xenophobia, Torture, and Pregnancy

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic

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

_ao_'s review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.75

My criteria for a 5 star book means it moves me to tears, so I can't give 5 stars to Priory of the Orange Tree. But it's sweeping and lore-rich, with a ton of bad-ass women leading and supporting the story. Give yourself some time to read this baby, and you'll find something to love about it. 

Also, I would have liked a tiny bit more in the way of an epilogue.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Xenophobia, Miscarriage, and Death

Minor: Infidelity, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Violence, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Infertility, Vomit, Animal death, and Pregnancy

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