Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

84 reviews

sarasbookmark's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Incest, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Torture, Dementia, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic

dalek_caan's review

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I loved this book so much. I wasn't sure what to expect with how much hype it got, but I'm so glad I went in not knowing what to expect. For a book this big, the fact that it kept me engaged the whole way through is amazing. It was so worth it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Incest, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Homophobia and Lesbophobia

gabbyeleene's review

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Infertility and Pregnancy

Minor: Animal death and Death of parent

dreadspawn's review

adventurous mysterious 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? No

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Gore, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Alcoholism, Incest, Infidelity, Sexual content, Death of parent, and Alcohol

clovetra's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i find this book so hard to rate. on one hand, this is probably the best fantasy book i’ve ever read, and i immediately want to read the prequel. on the other hand, i did find some issues with this. anyways im gonna break my thoughts down & maybe that’ll edge me into a decision:

- i loved ead. i would marry ead if she was real. i love her. her overall characterisation was sublime, and although her ending is bittersweet, it is overall good.

- sabran underwent one of the best arcs i’ve read. going from a mean, arrogant, stubborn women to a

forgiving, understanding and someone open and actively causing change

was amazing to read. her ending was perfect, as was her dialogue. no notes

- i found myself getting… bored at times with tané. i like her sure. but compared to ead’s main story, not as much happened here. her story only really felt as though it picked up like 65% into this book. which for a book that is 800 pages….. that’s too long

- loth was ok! like it was written well, but i didn’t grow beyond anything to just liking him, and found his story often to be a waste of time

- roos can go choke. i don’t care. i don’t even care if the intention was to have a main character so insufferable. i hated him & his chapters and i wish him pain and suffering even though he’s not even real.

i would say the overarching plot was so intriguing. it felt perfectly paced, and had plot twists galore. so much kept changing, so i was constantly on the edge of my seat. i saw a review saying this book rambled a lot and honestly, i disagree! this book absolutely needed the pages it did. it would not be as good of a book as it is. i mean yeah it could’ve been split into multiple books but i felt like it defo needed all its pages. 

but, it wasn’t perfect. for one, so much was going on all the time, meaning i would forget shit. like this is the first book ive actively had to note take just to grasp. that also ties in with the fact nothing is explained!!!! i mean obviously a lot is explained, but many crucial foundations to this story are not explained, and either thrown into the glossary & timeline. that is all fair & dandy, but i should not have to search ur book to remember who crucial characters are! sure if they’re random side character A ok u don’t need to explain them, but when you don’t explain what the fuck virtuedom even is, or the dukes court (i don’t even remember the name oh my god). like i still could not remember who was the duke spiritual, a crest, a goldenbirch, or combe. like please set some foundations. ur big bad should not be explained in the fucking glossary!!!!!!!!!!!! also come on not explaining simple things like what an ichneumon is. (edit: google is confusing me as to whether these are even real. but seriously what happened to death of the author. i should not have to consult anything BUT the text to know what’s going on imo).

that is the biggest “issue” imo holding this book back for me. it just expects you to be aware of how its world works. like yes should i have glanced at the glossary & timeline before beginning? yeah. did the glossary & timeline also have a shitload of spoilers? YEAH. like ??????

i very much did love this book, i would literally die for ead, sabran & tané, and wanted to cry when i realised i was done. but idk the lacklustre worldbuilding foundations were infuriating. goinng further with the worldbuilding e.g. the story of cleolind, the priory, etc. was great! the layers needed to build up to that though were…. lacking. 
edit: i lied even tho i said this book did flop in parts i actually don’t care because this book made me so emotional & it feels wrong not having this as a 5-star based on how much it made me feel

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Deportation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Dementia

nic3's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

3.5

The world building and mythology in this book are immense. The different countries feel different and made sense. On the other hand the pacing of the various stories was inconsistent, with some areas laboured and others skimmed. Overall the plot was compelling, but there were some technical aspects that let it down. I would still recommend it to others however. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Vomit, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

iammmartina_'s review against another edition

adventurous emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Infertility, Miscarriage, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Gun violence, Infidelity, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

_ao_'s review

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

My criteria for a 5 star book means it moves me to tears, so I can't give 5 stars to Priory of the Orange Tree. But it's sweeping and lore-rich, with a ton of bad-ass women leading and supporting the story. Give yourself some time to read this baby, and you'll find something to love about it. 

Also, I would have liked a tiny bit more in the way of an epilogue.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Miscarriage, and Xenophobia

Minor: Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Infertility, Infidelity, Rape, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

kappafrog's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

What a great fantasy book! It had been a long time since I sunk my teeth into an epic fantasy book, and this was definitely worth it. I almost gave up on it early on because the formal-fantasy language was a bit irritating, and the opening chapters give you an onslaught of unfamiliar character and placenames. However, once I got into the story, it read really well.

There is a wide variety of characters here of different shades of moral greyness. At first I really didn't like Sabran, but she grew on me over time; and as the book went on, I felt more mixed about Ead. Tané grew on me some as the story went on too. All of the characters in the book, including the many queer and female characters, were complex and multi-layered. Loth, Margret and Chassar were the most consistently likable, while Roos was the hardest to like but still sympathetic at times. Even the disgusting Kalyba was not a one-dimensional villain. The Priory was not what I expected, and I loved the evocation of different landscapes and cultures with clear inspirations from our world. The book's length felt merited since there were a lot of different political, magical, and character aspects to explore. I felt like my investment in the story and its characters really paid off. Shannon is not afraid to kill her characters, so there were real stakes at every point in the book. The finale was epic and also gave us enough time to spend with each character in the aftermath of the climax.

All in all, this was a great re-introduction to epic fantasy for me. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys high fantasy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Medical content, Alcohol, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, and Child death