fluffy_comet 's review for:

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
3.5
adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
What started out as a beautiful feminist reshaping of the classic sweeping fantasy novel got bogged down by too much worldbuilding (I cannot believe I'm saying this as a worldbuilding lover???) and too many characters. 130 characters in 800 pages? That's a new character every 6 pages. Absolutely bonkers. The characters were loveable and the ending bittersweet; but like many things in this book, the ending was dragged out a few chapters too long. Felt it truly for lost in the weeds towards the end - specially when the author suddenly relied on mantages for important fights, had a character make EXTREMELY SUDDEN mindset changes 3 times in a row within 3 pages, referred to a character (Tané) we've known from THE FIRST PAGE as a completely different word/name, and took way too long for the main conflict to pay off. I should not have 70 pages left and wonder when the fight they've been eluding to for the last 730 pages is going to start! Other than those (honestly large) issues, I did enjoy the book and grow to live the characters. Mostly. 
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