A review by oddduck
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.5

I have Very Mixed Feelings about this book.

To start: I love the premise. The idea of librarians (keepers of knowledge) and sorcerers (users and perhaps finders of knowledge) being at odds with each other is so fascinating. There's so much room for conflict and plot and drama. I also enjoy stories in which characters realize what they've been taught all their lives isn't necessarily the Sole Truth and then have to learn to think for themselves. I vibed with a lot of the basic elements, it was moreso the execution that I did not, but we'll get to that.

Nathaniel and Silas are excellent characters and the BOOKS!!! Love me some sentient books. The books were also so diverse in appearance, personality, and use. Five stars all around for the sentient books. I also adored Nathaniel. He is the only character in this book that made me laugh (numerous times!). He's got just the right mixture of dry humor and resigned "of course this is happening, why wouldn't this be happening?". And he's smart and flawed and kind of dragged into helping Elisabeth by repeated exposure. He's got principles, but he's willing to have his mind changed, and he cares about his people so much. He's clearly still mourning his family, including his father, despite why his father died. And his relationship with Silas. I mean, the end really speaks for itself:
Silas changes his entire nature because Nathaniel cares that deeply for him.
Silas is just a great character though. Quiet, unassuming, prim, and fastidious. He also knows exactly what he is and goes out of his way to make sure Elisabeth knows it too, even if it scares her and means she's less friendly with him. I think that's also why Elisabeth and Nathaniel's insistence that the Silas they know is who he really is works so well. Because they know. Nathaniel has known Silas his whole life and after what happens with his father, he truly understands exactly what Silas is. And he chooses to believe Silas can be something else.

I also got very excited over the casual queer and disability representation. Elisabeth describes Katrien as completely uninteresting in romance (clearly aromantic, or at least aro-spec) and Nathaniel is explicitly bi. Utterly delightful, for both of them. And I loved that it just wasn't a big thing, like at all. Elisabeth literally does not care, beyond confirming that there is a possibility Nathaniel might be into her. And on the disability side of things, Wick and Hyde are so cool. I was thrilled that they were both in positions of significant power, especially Wick, who is visually impaired (which some would argue is an impediment for working in a library). But no! She's the deputy director of the Royal Library! And she uses braille! Excellent. Plus Hyde is explicitly said to be hard of hearing and relies on lip reading. And his hearing is not magically cured when
Ashcroft possesses him. In fact, Ashcroft struggles, because he's not hard of hearing and thus doesn't have the skills Hyde does.
And the ending.
The fact that Nathaniel has lasting damage and a permanent disability from the fight that even magic couldn't fix?
Love it.

In all, I really liked the end of this book. I figured out the plan at a good point. All the seemingly random details were reprised in a satisfying and/or exciting way. All the loose ends were nicely wrapped up. It was a satisfying end, and almost made me rate this higher. But there's just some stuff, especially at the beginning, that I think could have been done better (or not at all).

Elisabeth was not a very strong protagonist for a lot of the book. Especially at the beginning, she felt very reactionary, which is a bit strange since the two big events that kick the whole story off are her deciding to sneak in to see the sorcerer and her deciding to fight the malefict. I think it's because Katrien is the instigator of the first part and, well, if the malefict hadn't already been unleashed, she wouldn't have had to make that decision either. So it's like yeah, she chose to do these things, but it wasn't totally her, which makes her feel a little less autonomous. By the end, she was making decisions and deciding what she wanted, which made me like her a lot more. At the start, I also got some "not like other girls" vibes, which I personally can't stand. Again, the got better as the story progressed, and I did like how practical and down to earth she was, and her unwavering love of books (even as her relationship with her position as a librarian changes) was very endearing, because honestly same.

The romance was okay, but not standout. I adore Nathaniel, as discussed above, and think he's a very solid love interest. I just would have liked to see more bonding moments between Elisabeth and Nathaniel (especially ones that aren't "holy crap we might die"). I love enemies to lovers and while this was more of a one-sided enemies to lovers (because let's be honest, Nathaniel doesn't not consider Elisabeth an enemy the way she does pretty much until the fight with the fiends when they first get to Brassbridge), the development was still satisfactory. Elisabeth gradually learns to trust Nathaniel, and once we reach that point, there's not a whole lot in the way of continued development for their relationship. She's kind of just like "oh I want to kiss him" and then they do that. I don't know. I would have liked more scenes of them just hanging out, maybe taking a break from planning, and talking to each other. That really would have helped the make-out scene before the climax kicks off feel less out of left field for me. (Like seriously, if Silas hadn't interrupted them, would they have actually had sex? Because I'm sorry, they do not know each other well enough for me to believe that's a healthy step for their relationship at this point.)

The sexism/misogyny from the doctor seemed out of place? Well, the whole "Elisabeth is mentally unstable and hysteric" subplot was just weird and gross, really. Like, until this point, there doesn't seem to be that old fashioned sexist attitude in this world. You could make the argument that Warden Finch has it, but I think his feelings more stem from disapproving of raising Elisabeth in the library in the first place and also that she (and later Katrien) keep pranking him and such. He doesn't like her for things she's done, not the fact that she is a girl and/or is doing something he doesn't consider proper for a young woman. Historically, doctors did treat women the way Elisabeth is treated and did in fact claim that novel reading was bad for women, but I argue that this is fantasy. We can just discard oppression with prejudice if we want. And I understand why Ashcroft did this. Discrediting Elisabeth is a smart move. But there were other ways to do it that didn't involve any of this. I strongly disliked this part.

My final main issue is that the plot felt manufactured at times. Like, it was clear that this was something the author had decided was going to happen and thus forced it to work. Again, the end did not feel this way (after the ball) but there were several points before that where it did. The "Elisabeth is mentally unstable and hysteric" subplot is one of these instances, as was the "Elisabeth is obviously innocent because she bravely fought off those fiends, thanks newspapers" bit, the "Elisabeth gets a job at the Royal Library" part and the "let's expose the villain at the ball" decision. Like, I get it. But also it doesn't quite work for me. There's just too many coincidences and they feel too easy. Again, the end comes together really well, but getting there was a little hard for me.
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