A review by saprat
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

adventurous mysterious

• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

this book is a funny one, because i hadn't really expected it to be that good. i mostly started reading it because i saw someone online compare it to black butler, and as the victim of a middle school black butler phase, i was curious. the similarities are pretty obvious and it's definitely not a coincidence; there's young snarky orphan who is in charge of his estate by himself, his demon butler who takes his role of butler far more seriously than you'd expect, and then there's even a sword-wielding love interest named elizabeth just with different spelling! despite these similarities, however, i actually found myself enjoying this? despite nathaniel obviously being the ciel stand-in, he still felt like his own character; a little less harsh and little more playful than ciel, maybe. silas was frankly very similar to sebastian, but i can't even be that mad about it, because the relationship between nathanial and silas was definitely a highlight. the author very clearly understands exactly what about ciel's and sebastian's original relationship was interesting, clearly understood what about it made it work. silas was the perfect balance between genuine demonic heartlessness, and genuine care for nathaniel; even if it's similar to sebastian, that's still a pretty difficult thing to do! and frankly, besides the aforementioned similarities, the book felt really original; it certainly has a much different tone than black butler, and the system of libraries and sentient books was really fun and creative! i also particularly liked elisabeth as a character; besides the sword-wielding and the shared name with the black butler character, elisabeth shares very little else. she was fully her own character, and a very good one at that! something about elisabeth being an average and polite girl, while also being rather gung-ho and preferring to meet most if not all her obstacles with brute force, was extremely delightful! she seems so unassuming at first, so her typical approach to any and all problems being violence was sooo entertaining. (this is so incredibly niche, but she really reminded me of the main character from the rpg midnight train.) the dynamics between the three main characters were really entertaining, and i really enjoyed the relationship between elisabeth and nathaniel. the plot was fun and fast-paced, and the book was a little silly in the way that fantasy adventure ya tends to be, and i don't fault it for that. this book was a pleasant surprise; it's not anything groundbreaking, but very entertaining for what it is!