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A review by wodime
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
3.75
suffers from all the issues i usually have with high fantasy -- it's too long, the pacing is inconsistent, and it mostly sacrifices character depth in favour of a huge cast -- but it's nevertheless a pretty fun take on high fantasy. a climax as bonkers as it is incomprehensible (positive).
that said... i found the gay shit in this book pretty unsatisfying. sure, the major relationship in the novel is sapphic, and another major character has a dead boyfriend; but my major issue with priory on a non-genre level is how its queer relationships feel completely untethered from broader queer desire. like, obviously i don't expect characters in a secondary-world fantasy novel to be gay or lesbian or bi in the same way as a person in our real world, when those labels are products of a particular time and place. but there's that, and then there's wanting characters to have a clear pattern of same-sex attraction. neither ead nor sabran express any desire for other women, only a lack of desire for men, and even that felt ambiguous to me; and niclays's sexuality seems to start and end at jannart. in both these cases, queerness only exists in the context of a particular relationship, rather than being its own thing. which is disappointing! i get why this wouldn't be an issue for everyone, but by god, did it bother me.
that said, the old-man yaoi still kicked my ass 🥹 niclays...........
that said... i found the gay shit in this book pretty unsatisfying. sure, the major relationship in the novel is sapphic, and another major character has a dead boyfriend; but my major issue with priory on a non-genre level is how its queer relationships feel completely untethered from broader queer desire. like, obviously i don't expect characters in a secondary-world fantasy novel to be gay or lesbian or bi in the same way as a person in our real world, when those labels are products of a particular time and place. but there's that, and then there's wanting characters to have a clear pattern of same-sex attraction. neither ead nor sabran express any desire for other women, only a lack of desire for men, and even that felt ambiguous to me; and niclays's sexuality seems to start and end at jannart. in both these cases, queerness only exists in the context of a particular relationship, rather than being its own thing. which is disappointing! i get why this wouldn't be an issue for everyone, but by god, did it bother me.
that said, the old-man yaoi still kicked my ass 🥹 niclays...........