Reviews with content warning for Violence - Sorcery of Thorns

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

86 reviews

cady_sass's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This is overwhelmingly okay. Is there anything inherently wrong with it? No, not really. I just didn’t care for it. I was bored almost the whole time, the characters and plot did nothing for me. The world building was non existent in the way of backstory, by the end i still didn’t really know why anything happened the way that it happened. If it wasn’t for book club I probably would’ve DNFed. Now, give a whole book about Silas? THAT I would read and probably love.

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raypaws's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

4.0

very memorable and so many loveable characters!

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inkdrinkers's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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? No

5.0

This was everything I hoped for and more.

Elisabeth Scrivner has grown up in the halls of magical libraries. Left on the steps of one as a baby, she's grown up with the sincere desire to be like the wardens overseeing her librarian apprenticeship - stalwart, true, and with swords strapped to their sides, ready to protect the world from the magical grimoires caged in the halls of the library. She knows magic is horrifically terrible, something to be protected from, but when a grimoire is released from a library, transforming into a monster and leaving Elisabeth implicated in the crime of setting it free, she must turn to Nathaniel Thorn, a sorcerer she knows better than to trust, but the only man who can help her stop the very end of their world.

LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK. Funnily, this entire thing took me a year to read. That's unheard of for me, and I feel weird even putting that in writing because this isn't a bad book. In fact, it's so good I couldn't bear to pick it up again because I knew it would end. Is that dramatic? Maybe a little, but I found myself so completely captured by this story and the characters inside of it that I just couldn't fathom not having them after I was done. Then I got word there was a sequel coming as a novella and I rushed to pick my copy back up, realizing I could finally finish it without going, full-spiral, into a post-book slump. This is my first book by Margaret Rogerson and I think it's solidified her as a favorite. This is YA in its truest form, wonderfully adventurous, heart-wrenchingly emotional, and full of characters that you can't help but love.

I LOVED Elisabeth. My big (6'0 feet!!!!) bull-headed angry girl. She does so much in the span of these pages and grows into a beautiful character that I just want to grab her and kiss her forehead at the end. I've never read a book where I felt so feral and protective over the main character, but this one did it to me. Nathaniel is truly one of the best book boyfriends in current YA, he's grumpy and sarcastic and entirely too snappy for his own good, but he melted my heart with every twitch of a smile he had in these pages. And SILAS!! There is nothing more to say than Silas is the absolute best demon there ever was, and I would 100% ruffle his little white cat ears.

Finally, I really can't write this review without saying how quickly it brought tears to my eyes. There's something so healing about the way representation in young adult has grown from side characters to open discussion about sexuality. It's not a major plot point, there's no grand reveal or silly plot tied to it about secrets or hiding, it's just there on the page and accepted so easily. You can claw this book from my cold, dead, hands - I love it dearly, and I really, truly would recommend it to everyone.

Content warnings: forced institutionalization/confinement, violence (with swords!), body horror (light, in regards to demons), death of a parent/grief, misogyny (sprinkled throughout), panic attacks (briefly on page around 70% through), gaslighting (present throughout, done by the villain)

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hannahbailey's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? Yes

3.5

TW: death (of parent, child), blood, violence, grief, injury, body horror, forced institutionalisation, misogyny, murder, confinement, torture, panic attacks

There are lots of strong points to this book, including a well-developed main character. The fantasy setting and magic system were interesting and had potential, but they were never fully explained. Sadly what lost me was I felt the book was being pulled multiple ways between grimoires and libraries and sorcery and power. If the author had gone with one or the other, but kept the plot the same, I think this would be a much stronger novel. That said, the grimoires element was something I'd not seen done before and that was interesting enough to keep me reading. Another book I think would translate really well on screen as a TV series.

The love interest, whilst interesting at first, changed his tune too quickly and became a character used for comic relief throughout the novel. This felt strange and unnecessary to me. Although the book has a dark academia/fantasy vibe, it wasn't dark enough to require so many quips from the guy to lighten the mood. The situations were serious but not depressing, so the humour was unwarranted (and unwanted) for me. The trigger warnings do seem very dark, but the fantasy setting and YA genre disconnects them from reality and they are less horrific in the context of the book. This is still a very strong YA novel and a younger reader may not pull it apart as much as I am prone to do.

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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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sydapel's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful slow-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? It's complicated

3.0

Really wanted to love this a little more, as I was a big ol fan of Elisabeth's story and character arc (more tall women with sword skills in YA pls!!). However, I didn't feel like the world building was done as well as it could have been and Nathaniel was a little confusing as a love interest. Hoping for a second book though.

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