A review by emmacartlidge
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Did not finish book. Stopped at 81%.
 
Realised I couldn't finish this when I accidentally started reading 100 pages ahead of where I was and didn't notice for a solid 15 minutes. That's how unclear the plot and writing are.

This book has so much potential and I like the way the author writes dialogue. She is clearly also very creative in terms of building fantasy worlds and comes up with cool concepts.

But actually reading feels like I'm just skimming over the words and not understanding the point of anything the characters are doing. There was no end-goal to the story, we just follow the protagonist as she does stuff and learns things. Nothing was explained well either. If you asked me to describe what this book was about in a sentence all I could say would be "some girl investigating some suspicious guy".

That brings me to the characters. The only one I liked was Silas. Everyone else just seemed so surface level and really flat. Elisabeth is the quiet girl, Katrien the loyal best friend, Nathaniel the mysterious hot boy, etc. They have no real uniqueness or depth.

The entire thing also reeks of "happy coincidences". I know this gets explained later in the book, but it feels less like a mystery and more like a plot device.