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A review by accurry
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I was so close to DNFing this book several times but it managed to keep me just interested enough to see what happened.
The author clearly put a lot of love and effort into world-building, so I’m very loathe to speak ill of it but there was just so much info dumped and so many side character names and titles that I couldn’t be bothered to remember. Doing a quick skim, there are SEVENTEEN named characters in the SECOND chapter alone. No one can be expected to remember having all those names thrown at them so quick and so soon. That’s also not mentioning how often I flipped back to the maps so I could figure out where the heck any of the places are in relation to each other (some of which I guess weren’t important enough to even put on the map?)
There was also a lot of dense descriptions that didn’t need to be there. There was actually three outfit changes across two pages at one point. This book could have been so much shorter if it didn’t have THIS degree of fluff. Don’t get me wrong, paint a picture, set the scene, but it doesn’t need to take up this much real estate
I also didn’t come to care much for the characters. Ead was pretty good, Sabran was a (literal) royal bitch at the start and, while she did improve, the start didn’t endear me to her. Loth’s a nice guy and all but boring. Also got deus ex machinaed out of being killed by a cockatrice, which fell flat. I wanted to love Tané so much but somehow the dragon rider also had a relatively uninteresting arc. My favorite character wound up being Niclays, which is wild, because he’s got so many character flaws. He’s selfish and cynical but I guess I found him realistic and interesting
Until he wasn’t. He got pretty well shelved in the last half of the book except to come up to drive the plot forward. In fact, he literally slept through the final battle. He didn’t do anything, things mostly happened to him. We also seem to have forgotten he had a bum ankle in favor of his latest injury, as a random note.
Now, the dragons. They were the story’s main antagonists but didn’t really manage to be a problem. Despite that role, we rarely see any wyrms. Aside from one or two instances, they kinda cause distant destruction to places our characters don’t spend time in. I kept wondering how we had all this time for bedding queens, attempted coups, traveling entire oceans, mountains, deserts, so on and so forth, with such a looming threat. They were more looming than threat. The final battle against the Nameless One (why is he the only unnamed dragon? Pomp and circumstance?) was fun but not long or particularly difficult. Come to think of it, I don’t think any of the main characters were injured except Tané. The Nameless One didn’t live up to hype. His second in command was more interesting. Also, I think there were five High Westerns and we didn’t even meet one of them. He’s just noted to exist and then noted to have been slain at the end.
This book could have been so much shorter and I’m glad to be done with it. It’s not the worst in the world but I, personally, find it overhyped. I won’t be picking up any of the others in this series and thank goodness this can be a standalone
The author clearly put a lot of love and effort into world-building, so I’m very loathe to speak ill of it but there was just so much info dumped and so many side character names and titles that I couldn’t be bothered to remember. Doing a quick skim, there are SEVENTEEN named characters in the SECOND chapter alone. No one can be expected to remember having all those names thrown at them so quick and so soon. That’s also not mentioning how often I flipped back to the maps so I could figure out where the heck any of the places are in relation to each other (some of which I guess weren’t important enough to even put on the map?)
There was also a lot of dense descriptions that didn’t need to be there. There was actually three outfit changes across two pages at one point. This book could have been so much shorter if it didn’t have THIS degree of fluff. Don’t get me wrong, paint a picture, set the scene, but it doesn’t need to take up this much real estate
I also didn’t come to care much for the characters. Ead was pretty good, Sabran was a (literal) royal bitch at the start and, while she did improve, the start didn’t endear me to her. Loth’s a nice guy and all but boring. Also got deus ex machinaed out of being killed by a cockatrice, which fell flat. I wanted to love Tané so much but somehow the dragon rider also had a relatively uninteresting arc. My favorite character wound up being Niclays, which is wild, because he’s got so many character flaws. He’s selfish and cynical but I guess I found him realistic and interesting
Until he wasn’t. He got pretty well shelved in the last half of the book except to come up to drive the plot forward. In fact, he literally slept through the final battle. He didn’t do anything, things mostly happened to him. We also seem to have forgotten he had a bum ankle in favor of his latest injury, as a random note.
Now, the dragons. They were the story’s main antagonists but didn’t really manage to be a problem. Despite that role, we rarely see any wyrms. Aside from one or two instances, they kinda cause distant destruction to places our characters don’t spend time in. I kept wondering how we had all this time for bedding queens, attempted coups, traveling entire oceans, mountains, deserts, so on and so forth, with such a looming threat. They were more looming than threat. The final battle against the Nameless One (why is he the only unnamed dragon? Pomp and circumstance?) was fun but not long or particularly difficult. Come to think of it, I don’t think any of the main characters were injured except Tané. The Nameless One didn’t live up to hype. His second in command was more interesting. Also, I think there were five High Westerns and we didn’t even meet one of them. He’s just noted to exist and then noted to have been slain at the end.
This book could have been so much shorter and I’m glad to be done with it. It’s not the worst in the world but I, personally, find it overhyped. I won’t be picking up any of the others in this series and thank goodness this can be a standalone
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Violence, War