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A review by rynaissanceenby
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
When I first picked up this book, I thought to myself, "There's no way this book actually needs to be this long," and at 800 some pages, it's definitely the longest book I've read in some time. But I could not have been more wrong about how deserving it is of it's length. This book deserves every page it has,.
If you are looking for classic high fantasy, look no further. This book has dragons and magic and swordfighting and alchemy and everything you would expect from fantasy, but none of it feels overdone or boring. Shannon finds so many completely natural feeling ways to put new spins on various tropes. The world is incredibly rich, and I felt like I just wanted to live there forever and learn the secrets of every corner. The mythology was compelling and the way that different areas of the world interpreted events in different ways sent a clear and interesting message about unreliable narrators and the flaws of historical accounts.
Every character that's introduced feels so three dimensional and real. They all exist in shades of grey. There are pieces of them you love, pieces that make you cringe, and pieces that make your heart hurt for them. With the sheer number of characters in this book, it seems like it would be hard to keep track of them all, but all the major characters are characterized so well that they remain relatively easy to keep track of. The slight exception to this being that if one of the points of views had a long break, it sometimes took a bit of work to remember who all the important characters were there. The lesser characters are a little bit harder to keep track of, and I'm pretty sure there are some connections between the various storylines that I missed because I didn't realize, "Oh, I've heard that name before." I think this is compounded by the extensive use of fantasy names, though Shannon cleverly uses more common nicknames to help alleviate some of that (e.g. Kate short for Katryen).
As a queer person, I am always looking for representation, and I definitely found it in this book. Most of the time when I'm reading a book, there comes a point were I think to myself, "This story could really be more queer." One of my favorite moments reading this book was when I had this thought, and then about two chapters later it got beautifully queer. I really appreciate that the queerness (and how acceptable it is) is a small plot point, but it doesn't take over the story.
I was really impressed with how well the perspective switches were handled. There were a lot of moving parts, but I never felt like the story was being told in the wrong order. Clearly there was a lot of care put into when to give the reader various pieces of information.
I think my only major gripe is that sometimes it feels like things work out a little bit too conveniently for the protagonists. There are just a few too many coincidences that make what should be challenging problems a bit of a breeze. This also seemed to accelerate near the end of the story. Almost as if the end of the story was coming, so the characters didn't have time to face adversity in certain circumstances. Instead things just conveniently worked out. The main characters did also seem to have some amount of plot armor. I appreciated Shannon's willingness to kill off side characters, even important ones, but it was hard to actually believe the main characters were in danger after they had already narrowly escaped so many close calls.
Overall, I absolutely adore this book and this world. I don't give very many books 5 stars, but this is absolutely a 5 star read. I will be heartily recommending it to every avid reader I know for a long time to come.
If you are looking for classic high fantasy, look no further. This book has dragons and magic and swordfighting and alchemy and everything you would expect from fantasy, but none of it feels overdone or boring. Shannon finds so many completely natural feeling ways to put new spins on various tropes. The world is incredibly rich, and I felt like I just wanted to live there forever and learn the secrets of every corner. The mythology was compelling and the way that different areas of the world interpreted events in different ways sent a clear and interesting message about unreliable narrators and the flaws of historical accounts.
Every character that's introduced feels so three dimensional and real. They all exist in shades of grey. There are pieces of them you love, pieces that make you cringe, and pieces that make your heart hurt for them. With the sheer number of characters in this book, it seems like it would be hard to keep track of them all, but all the major characters are characterized so well that they remain relatively easy to keep track of. The slight exception to this being that if one of the points of views had a long break, it sometimes took a bit of work to remember who all the important characters were there. The lesser characters are a little bit harder to keep track of, and I'm pretty sure there are some connections between the various storylines that I missed because I didn't realize, "Oh, I've heard that name before." I think this is compounded by the extensive use of fantasy names, though Shannon cleverly uses more common nicknames to help alleviate some of that (e.g. Kate short for Katryen).
As a queer person, I am always looking for representation, and I definitely found it in this book. Most of the time when I'm reading a book, there comes a point were I think to myself, "This story could really be more queer." One of my favorite moments reading this book was when I had this thought, and then about two chapters later it got beautifully queer. I really appreciate that the queerness (and how acceptable it is) is a small plot point, but it doesn't take over the story.
I was really impressed with how well the perspective switches were handled. There were a lot of moving parts, but I never felt like the story was being told in the wrong order. Clearly there was a lot of care put into when to give the reader various pieces of information.
I think my only major gripe is that sometimes it feels like things work out a little bit too conveniently for the protagonists. There are just a few too many coincidences that make what should be challenging problems a bit of a breeze. This also seemed to accelerate near the end of the story. Almost as if the end of the story was coming, so the characters didn't have time to face adversity in certain circumstances. Instead things just conveniently worked out. The main characters did also seem to have some amount of plot armor. I appreciated Shannon's willingness to kill off side characters, even important ones, but it was hard to actually believe the main characters were in danger after they had already narrowly escaped so many close calls.
Overall, I absolutely adore this book and this world. I don't give very many books 5 stars, but this is absolutely a 5 star read. I will be heartily recommending it to every avid reader I know for a long time to come.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Death, Miscarriage, War, and Violence
Minor: Incest, Adult/minor relationship, and Suicide