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

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.5

I was really enjoying it for the majority of the time I was reading it, and then the last act kinda made it start falling apart for me. As I’m reflecting on the book as a whole now, I think I’m liking it less and less. This book gets really high ratings typically and so my rating could be a little extra negative because I had high expectations which weren’t really met. My expectations were also high because when a book is as long as this one is, it should be for good reason. Overall, I don’t think it was a waste of my time to read it, but I do think it’s a bit overhyped and would by no means emphatically recommend it to all.

So here are some of my qualms with it:

The politics.

The various countries pulled very heavily from the real world, which was made very clear through their climates, names, and directional relation to each other (Inys=England, Mentendon=Netherlands/NW Europe, Seiiki=Japan, 12 lakes=China, Yscalin=Spain, Esyr=Syria/Iraq/Iran, Lasia=Central Africa). That’s fine to do, but then I feel like there’s missed opportunity to explore the east vs west dynamic in a deeper way or in general have some more complexity with the politics since there’s a lot of real world political drama that could be pulled from.

None of the political drama really builds up because it’s all too easy for even an inept ambassador like Loth. He gets to Yscalin and surprise! There’s someone on the inside to help him. He goes to 12 lakes to negotiate what should be a really tricky alliance between East and west and surprise! The unceasing emperor agrees right away.

I also wanted more gender dynamics coming to play in the politics. Like it’s great that Inys is a matriarchal Queendom but I wanna know what that’s like in a world where the rest of the rulers in the world for the most part are men. And if we’re in a world where the patriarchal standards of our world don’t apply, what’s that like? That could’ve definitely been an interesting exploration through the perspective of the men at the priory.

The villains.

I think more work was needed on building the nameless one/the fire-breathers as the big villain

and why Kalyba fights for that side

. What are their motives? Where did the nameless one really come from and why? He just erupted out of a mountain with the aim to fuck shit up full stop? And let’s go deeper with the red plague and what purpose it serves to our villains!

there’s a hint of that with king ingoso and his ~special~ plague, and I think that should’ve been explored more.

Also the big villain reveal and tell all mid-battle

from katalyba

is an annoying trope and in this case the stuff revealed isn’t all that interesting or deep.

The romantic relationships. 

I can’t really think of a romantic relationship that occurs in this book that I love.

For Ead and Sabran, I think a lot of that is due to Sabran being a pretty flat character, but also there was very little buildup to it to the point where it felt out of nowhere. Or worse, it felt like the f/f relationship was a shiny object that was relying on the excitement of there being queer love representation without the follow through of making it a ~good~ love story. Their love story should’ve really started building before Sabran got married, but then maybe it would be too similar to Roos and Jannart.

Other romances felt equally underdeveloped and for less important characters so really forgettable.

Truyde’s and Sullyard’s felt unnecessary, as did their deaths since I was by no means invested in them enough for their deaths to have an impact. Lintley’s scene when he asks for Meg’s hand could’ve been so good but I remember thinking I must’ve missed some more sections about them as buildup? Side note: at the end when Loth goes to find Meg and Lintley has his big head injury thing, loth just says “he is gone” and I was confused if he was referring to lintley being dead or informing Meg that the nameless one is dead. I suppose it didn’t feel that important to me if lintley was alive or dead in the end anyways.

Niclays and Jannart probably had the best/most interesting romance, which is good since that was really the only thing Niclays’s perspective had going for him.

His tiny little character arc/redemption at the end that’s snuffed out so fast when he learns Truyde is dead? Meh.

Character development.

There isn’t a single character from the book that I really got invested in or had super strong character development given the length of this book. No one feels particularly real to me. My section on relationships was getting long so I left it to just the romantic ones, but here I will say that I can’t think of any non-romantic relationship that felt well developed either.

I’ve heard the politics are more complex and there are more and better romances woven into the standalone prequel, so I’ll probably still give that one a read to see if there will be some redemption in what I was disappointed with here.