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

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book was soooo beautiful. Every part of it was stunningly crafted - the world, the characters, the story, the prose. It is very long but every word feels both necessary and worth reading. It never felt slow or dragging, despite the length and amount of pages it takes to set the stage. The details of the world are unveiled at just the right pace to not feel overwhelmed, but to always have a clear sense of what is happening and what the world looks like.

The only minor issue I had was that the deaths along the way felt kind of… pointless. It was like an editor said “something needs to die” and Shannon just went “fine this guy has no purpose, I’ll abruptly kill him off here.” Similarly all the major fights/battles were somewhat abrupt - over before I could get really excited about them. For such a high stakes war it felt like there was very little sacrifice and not quite enough struggle in the final battle to pull out victory.  Buuut that’s honestly a minor quibble because the book is really about how they GOT to the final battle, and that was indeed very intricate and difficult.
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