Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

El Priorato del Naranjo by Samantha Shannon

130 reviews

revolverreads's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

To read or not to read, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the lack of plot or character development, or to take arms against everyone who called this the feminist Lord of the Rings. If the bells haven't rung yet, we split the mammoth "Priory of the Orange Tree" by Samantha Shannon to be read over the course of two months, and never have we been so badly catfished (not even by our Hinge dates).

The standalone novel is intended to be considered high fantasy, but this description is highly misleading. For a book with dragons, you barely get them. For a book with LGBTQ representation, you barely get it. For a book that's meant to have epic battles, you barely get them. This book has the potential to be great; the core ideas are strong. However, any scene that approaches being interesting fades to black.

One of the problems with this book is that it follows multiple perspectives. This isn't inherently an issue, as other series successfully use multiple viewpoints to drive the narrative forward. However, in this case, we get no time to become attached enough to care about what happens. It's that attachment to the stakes and the impact on the characters that leaves you feeling happy, devastated, or shocked, and Priory of the Orange Tree provides none of that. This book would have benefitted from being a series, allowing the audience to see the character development and actually care about what happens. 

There are so many different characters and locations that it's almost jarring, especially because some are meant to be crucial to the plot, like bringing down a big, bad evil, yet we barely get a page about them. But the greatest crime of all is naming your villain "the Dark One" and not taking a moment to give them an actual name beyond this generic code name. Throughout the novel, it's repeatedly emphasized that you need to fear the Dark One, but no actual history is provided. If he's just going to blow fire and singe someone's laundry, he's not the greatest evil ever—he's basically a medieval dryer at that point.

Frustratingly, it promised so much, but good plot ideas are useless if they aren’t expanded on. If you would like to commiserate along with us, check us out at Revolver Reads: A Bookclub Russian Roulette on your podcast platform of choice, or simply @revolverreads on Instagram and let us know what you think. If you’d like to email us any future book suggestions for our roulette wheel, feel free to send them to [email protected].

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Infertility, and Blood

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

nineinchnails's review against another edition

adventurous 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? It's complicated

4.75

i will definitely be rereading this at some point! partly because there was a lot of stuff i didn't fully understand but mostly because i enjoyed it so much. i don't think i've ever read such a rich, sprawling epic fantasy contained within one novel. the characters were complex and interesting but i wish we got a little more focus on tané and loth. they both felt less fleshed out to me than ead and roos. the only other thing that kinda bugged me was how rushed the ending felt in comparison to the rest of the book. i expected the final battle to be drawn out longer than it was so it felt almost anticlimactic but it was still tied up pretty neatly. my main priorities in fantasy are character development and worldbuilding and those elements were near perfect!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Alcoholism, Homophobia, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, War, and Classism

Minor: Incest, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Pseudo incest

nectar_'s review against another edition

adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Pregnancy

Moderate: Infertility and Xenophobia

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

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

mice_are_nice's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Violence, Medical content, Religious bigotry, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Sexual content, Torture, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Alcoholism, Infidelity, Vomit, and Dementia

tousledtreasure's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional fast-paced

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

4.5

I hoped I could rate it higher, but even though the story gets executed so very well in the first 650 pages and aside from the amazing premise and interesting characters, the later 150 move way to fast along. The first parts get drawn out so long, that you expect the story to have a similar well build finish, but in this case there was more focus laid on the world building than the resolution.

I believed it to be way too convenient, that the Emperor of the empire of the twelve lakes just was in the mood for change to set himself above a ban for outsiders, that was executed for years to the point where those who wash ashore get executed due to their foreign origin. Or that Tané who all throughout the book was wary of change and those of the West, who despised her gods, flew to the West just like that. Some plot points would've needed more time to get resolved. I'm surprised to say it, but I wish the book was longer.

But on the positive, I really enjoyed the Authors worldbuilding and will read her other books in this series. I'm very impressed with her ability to control such a large cast and portray the characters without watering them down. 
Overall this story is great but not perfect.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, and War

Moderate: Religious bigotry

Minor: Alcoholism, Incest, Grief, and Classism

lmfry's review against another edition

adventurous 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Confinement, Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Medical content, and Gaslighting

Minor: Suicide and Vomit

kelisabeth's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Deportation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

katiezet's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful reflective 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

4.5

I am really glad I committed to finishing this book. It is a very satisfying read, and it is very entertaining. I will warn readers that it is pretty slow for the first 200 pages of world building/character introduction, but by the end I had 200 pages left and was wondering how in the world they would address everything that they had set up in the plot. It picks up a lot as you go along, and you will fall in love with the characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism