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A review by kaabtik
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
A behemoth of a book, The Priory of the Orange Tree really set expectations high from the get-go. While it was enjoyable, many parts fell flat to me and ended up being okay rather than extraordinary.
For starters, the story has four narrators, whose different backgrounds and views all tie together to give the reader a view of the expansive land. That's already a lot but in fantasy, especially of this intricacy, it is to be expected. However, despite having four POVs, most of the story revolves around the comings and goings of the West. Ead's POV is definitely the cornerstone of the book and it shows. The author writes the subtleties of court drama well, and really amps up the slow burn romance. That is the author's strength and I commend her for it. But, the story is supposed to have four POVs — four voices, four stories. The POVs set in the West is colorful and full of drama yet those set in the East — dragonriders! trials and tribulations of coming of age! DRAGON RIDERS!!! — became boring. Boring in the sense where a lot of the important events are mentioned to have happened already, and the audience is left connecting dots. Which is okay if it serves the story, but there is little character development (at least for Tane) that happens on-screen before they have to rendezvous with the Westerners at the great confrontation scenes. This was especially disappointing to me as I was looking forward to the Easterners' POV and saw that the two chapters that Tane was the main POV had the same opening lines "The water trials passed by" twice, but with a slightly different description — "like a long dream" in page 136 and "like a haze" in page 175. I don't know if it was the author's intention but it felt careless (to some extent lazy) to Tane's POV, despite her having (in my opinion) one of the more action-packed POVs of the four.
That being said, I didn't really care for the characters as much as I expected. In theory, Niclays was someone I would've hung on to, what with his background, his banishment, and his morally grey narrative. Again, he is a victim of the lack of exposure, and what little time we spend reading about him to give him his much needed character development, feels like a filler for when there is nothing going on in the West.
I did really enjoy the romance between Ead and Sabran. They weren't kidding when they said this was slow burn. A couple hundred pages in and there's barely any embers and I was truly invested with their relationship. Ead and Sabran have a lot of really good lines on their own but even more so together and for that I pushed through reading the rest of the book.
The Unceasing Emperor of the East was a really minor character that was in the very end of the book but honestly I was hooked on his every word. He was similar to Sabran in many ways yet his background of being in the East and having afucking EMPIRIAL DRAGON to consult was just !!!!!
Overall, I feel as though more than a third of the book is a lot of intricate world building that many don't end up being really that important in the end. It was unnecessarily thick for the conclusion to be a very classic confrontation show of unity. And yes, much of my disappointment was the lack of Eastern dragons. It shows, I know but it was probably the most interesting part of it allalso the fact that Tane was a dragonrider, dragon-heart, the sole survivor of a fire in her village, had the twin gem embedded in her side, having the blood and the face of Neporo and she has barely any screentime.
For starters, the story has four narrators, whose different backgrounds and views all tie together to give the reader a view of the expansive land. That's already a lot but in fantasy, especially of this intricacy, it is to be expected. However, despite having four POVs, most of the story revolves around the comings and goings of the West. Ead's POV is definitely the cornerstone of the book and it shows. The author writes the subtleties of court drama well, and really amps up the slow burn romance. That is the author's strength and I commend her for it. But, the story is supposed to have four POVs — four voices, four stories. The POVs set in the West is colorful and full of drama yet those set in the East — dragonriders! trials and tribulations of coming of age! DRAGON RIDERS!!! — became boring. Boring in the sense where a lot of the important events are mentioned to have happened already, and the audience is left connecting dots. Which is okay if it serves the story, but there is little character development (at least for Tane) that happens on-screen before they have to rendezvous with the Westerners at the great confrontation scenes. This was especially disappointing to me as I was looking forward to the Easterners' POV and saw that the two chapters that Tane was the main POV had the same opening lines "The water trials passed by" twice, but with a slightly different description — "like a long dream" in page 136 and "like a haze" in page 175. I don't know if it was the author's intention but it felt careless (to some extent lazy) to Tane's POV, despite her having (in my opinion) one of the more action-packed POVs of the four.
That being said, I didn't really care for the characters as much as I expected. In theory, Niclays was someone I would've hung on to, what with his background, his banishment, and his morally grey narrative. Again, he is a victim of the lack of exposure, and what little time we spend reading about him to give him his much needed character development, feels like a filler for when there is nothing going on in the West.
I did really enjoy the romance between Ead and Sabran. They weren't kidding when they said this was slow burn. A couple hundred pages in and there's barely any embers and I was truly invested with their relationship. Ead and Sabran have a lot of really good lines on their own but even more so together and for that I pushed through reading the rest of the book.
The Unceasing Emperor of the East was a really minor character that was in the very end of the book but honestly I was hooked on his every word. He was similar to Sabran in many ways yet his background of being in the East and having a
Overall, I feel as though more than a third of the book is a lot of intricate world building that many don't end up being really that important in the end. It was unnecessarily thick for the conclusion to be a very classic confrontation show of unity. And yes, much of my disappointment was the lack of Eastern dragons. It shows, I know but it was probably the most interesting part of it all
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, and War
Moderate: Miscarriage
Minor: Torture