herdarklibrary 's review for:

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

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I have such mixed feelings about this book. I adore Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season series so had high hopes, I’d also heard some amazing things and I did enjoy some parts, however I’m still not sure if it was for me.

Priory is so long, let’s start there. I think the sweet spot for books is 350-500 and this book is over 800 pages which is intimidating and while reading I really felt the length. The writing is beautiful but it’s slow and I found it very difficult to keep going.

I thought the world building and characters were amazing! The world itself is very well thought out and I loved the contrasting POVs but at the start it did confuse me at times going through the different perspectives. 

Bits I loved:

• Women training to be badass warriors!
• Dragons ofc
• Queer Romance
• It’s a Queen’s world 

Were all these bits able to make me love this book? I’m not sure, the overwhelming feeling that I had through reading Priory was: when will it end. I came very close to giving up. But I really do think it’s a good book, I just don’t think I’m the right reader for it.

I am going to give the prequels a go but I’ll have to build myself up to the bigger of the two.