A review by thoseoldcrows23
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

adventurous slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

 I wanted to like this book so bad, but it just didn't work for me. I probably should have DNF it a long time ago, but I kept convincing myself to push forward in the hopes that it would get better and it just never did. 
Let me begin by saying I understand why so many people love this book. Shannon's writing is very readable, and I think that the trappings of old school fantasy are potent enough and the execution competent enough, that for many people it's going to be incredibly engaging. However, I found the process of reading this book to be painfully tedious. For a 800 page book I feel like very little actually happens. The plot is pretty generic and so much of what happens is just people traveling from place to place or people sitting around and talking. This probably wouldn't have bothered me if I had liked the characters more, but I found most of the main characters to be rather boring and shallow, and none of the side characters even felt like people. They were just cardboard cutouts who the author would trot out when the plot necessitated having another person present, and then they would completely disappear from the story when they're present wasn't directly needed. 
As for the world building, I think that's probably the most interesting part of the book. The problem though is that the same bits of lore are repeated over and over and over again, and we’re constantly reminded of bits of world building that we've already been told. It became very tiresome very fast, and my interest faded quickly. 
Despite all these problems I pushed through the book, hoping that I would eventually come to see what everyone else seems to see and fall in love with it, but alas it never happened. I found the ending of the book to be completely unsatisfying and the solution to the issue of the big bad to be very predictable and unoriginal. 
I'm so bummed that I didn't like this more than I did, but it just wasn't for me. 
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