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

adventurous inspiring lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I feel cheated after reading this book: a long book with a very little payoff to the reader. This is a fantasy story of opposites: east and west, good dragons and bad dragons. It’s also a story about tradition, prophecies and expectations - and the way these things affect the POV characters’ lives.

We follow four POV characters: Ead, Tané, Loth and Niclays, but not in equal measure. At first the chapters are divided evenly between East and West (since 2 of the POV characters are from East and 2 from West), later in the book that structure is abandoned. The main POV characters (Tané and Ead) seem to be better at things than the people surrounding them: a student that is top of her class and a magician secretly protecting the queen. And I can’t stress this enough how I did not care about the other two POV characters. Something was missing and I could not connect with the characters, and especially towards the end they seemed to lose the little personality they had managed to gather in the beginning of the book.

The story is classic fantasy material: an ancient evil rises and the protagonists must work together to stop it. The other thing about this book that is too familiar is that just when things are starting to look up for the character, then disaster strikes. It’s a bit predictable and annoying. Considering the story, I found the choice of POV characters and the events this book focuses on a bit strange. There were many interesting elements I would have liked to know more about, but they were barely even discussed (like what was going on in Yscalin). Then there are things that seem like they are going to play a part in the book but are abandoned (like the rivalry between Tané and Turosa). There are same-sex romances in this book, but they too are strangely executed.

Why the hell is this book called The Priory of the Orange Tree, when barely nothing takes place in the Priory?

My main gripe about this book was the pacing. Sometimes scenes that feel important to the plot are written like: blink and you'll miss it, and then there are pages after pages of something trivial. It got a lot worse towards the end: 500 pages of barely nothing happening, and then everything happens all at once. 

The villains in this book could have been interesting, but we barely see some of them (the king of Yscalin for example), the others (e.g. Kalyba) are too busy doing monologues, and the Biggest and Baddest Villain of them all and the reason why all of this is happening is defeated just like that. We barely even get a description of it!

The ending was so confusing and over so quickly that I think that the author must have realised that she had written 500 pages already and hadn’t resolved anything. And in the end, everything got resolved so easily, the POV characters instinctively knew what to do, the evil was defeated and everyone lived happily ever after. What a disappointment.
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