Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

El Priorato del Naranjo by Samantha Shannon

130 reviews

justgothenough's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy

Moderate: Alcoholism, Miscarriage, Blood, Grief, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Deportation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

mscalls's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark inspiring reflective sad tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

allymiranda's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

5.0

I have been yearning for a book like this my entire life. I need MORE!!! The characters felt so strong, and the imagery is so vivid. I want to live in these lands and be with these beautiful ladies fighting dragons (and loving dragons!). The only character I could never get behind was Roos -- I wanted to just skip his chapters. I didn't empathize with him and saw him as just a way to move certain plot points along. I almost wish I cared about him more, but he kept making such bad choices! But the Sabran and Ead chapters, I will be re-reading until the end of time. If the Great Kwiriki loves me this will become a movie and there will be more of Sabran and Ead!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Miscarriage

Minor: Alcoholism

The only animal cruelty is dragons and (very minor) horses.

achay91's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Miscarriage, Toxic relationship, Blood, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Gore, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy

Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization, and Alcohol

volsungreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Infertility, Mental illness, Xenophobia, Blood, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Abortion

georgialee01's review against another edition

adventurous challenging slow-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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Miscarriage, Violence, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Death, Gore, Infertility, Sexual content, Blood, and Pandemic/Epidemic

_persephone's review against another edition

challenging hopeful 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, and War

Moderate: Miscarriage and Pregnancy

Minor: Alcoholism

hannahpings's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring fast-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

3.75

i grappled with the rating on this one a little bit, because in terms of likability and recommendation, this book is a solid four to five stars: i loved it! i was engaged the whole time! i dragged my feet finishing it because i was sad it's over! i still am!

at the same time though, for me it's cursed with having been a good book that also could have been better. overall, priory's pacing is good––it comes out swinging and still manages a good amount exposition, the action is well-timed, it's engaging every step of the way––but there are significant gaps and skips throughout, and especially so in the final third. journeys that once took immense narrative tolls and lasted close to 40 pages are reduced to quotidian, one-sentence tasks that seem to exist only because not mentioning them would render the plot unadvanceable. characters make choices that, while you can see how they might make sense given the adequate development, are complete opposites of their intentions up until that point without the text taking the time or putting in the work to achieve that development. things that are given immense weight and word counts early on are not held to the same standard later and are treated like whims, if they're acknowledged at all. (the story's climax is overly convenient too, but it was an emotionally satisfying one, even if a little more mess was to be desired.)

samantha shannon has created a worthy fantasy epic; it's a wold i don't want to leave, a necessary addition to the genre, and one both accessible (even for folks who don't like fantasy or who may be revisiting it for the first time in years) and that made me excited to have to flip to the map or appendices every few pages. all the same, it's hard not to feel that by the end of the book, shannon was ready to be done with it, and glossed over chunks of the narrative accordingly. priory is a story and scope worthy of three, 300–400-page books, and it's hard to understand why it wasn't given the adequate time to breathe and grow into itself.

ultimately though, that's not my decision, and in the end i'm still happy with what we got: something relatively well-written, intercultural and anti-hegemonic, compelling and whose characters it's impossible not to root for, and to whose world i can't wait to return.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Death, Gore, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Suicide, Torture, Trafficking, and Death of parent

incest/rape:

one character adopts and raises a baby boy as her own, acting as and ultimately becoming his mother. when he gets older, she decides she is interested in him both romantically and sexually, pursues him, and he rejects her advances, telling her he would never consent to either. she is a shapeshifter, and takes on the appearance of the woman in whom he is interested. under the impression that she is someone else, he begins a sexual relationship with her, they marry, and she has a child. she then reveals her true identity to him.

if you would like to know the characters, they are

kalyba and galian

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aksmith92's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring 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? No

4.5

Samantha Shannon is a phenomenal writer! I love the prose - her descriptions of people and events work for me, and I love storytelling through the eyes of vastly different people. I read A Day of Fallen Night a month or two ago and couldn't wait to get my hands on The Priory of the Orange Tree - the first book in the series. Although this one was written first, I decided to read A Day of Fallen Night - the prequel - to start since I wanted to go chronologically, and because I read that if you read this book first, you would already know a decent plot twist in the prequel. All-in-all, for some reason, I just LOVED A Day of Fallen Night, even if we were still left with a bit of a mystery. I REALLY enjoyed this one, but it didn't tug on my heartstrings as much as the prequel.

Regardless, just like the prequel, this book follows four narrators, all from different parts of the world (two being from the "West"), that Shannon sets up for us. Each area - East, South, West, has its own religion and customs, which were very intriguing to read about. We have the West, which has a pretty cutthroat religion about someone named Galian who slayed the "Nameless One," a wyrm that came to destroy the continent about 1,000 years ago. They view him as the Saint. Then, we have the South, which actually believes that his love, Cleolind, is the one who slays the Nameless One. They call her the Mother. The East is disconnected from the bigger Continent by water, and they worship dragons, different from wyverns who follow the Nameless One. It was so intriguing to read about these different cultures and how they intersect. 

I think the characters are built amazingly, and I really feel like I'm in their world. Like the prequel, a lot of this novel is setting up the characters, world-building, and plot, and therefore, it may feel slow for some people in the beginning. Additionally, there are a decent amount of characters and sub-plots to follow throughout, which may be confusing in the beginning. For these reasons, I shied away from giving it a full five stars. The beginning was just tough for me, but after about 15-20%, I hit the ground running and became fully immersed. 

I really enjoyed the magical system, the connectedness of the continent, and others questioning their faiths based on new information. While it didn't seem totally realistic that folks from certain religions would be more than happy to accommodate others (sorry, the real world just sank in too much to find it believable), I will say I thought that the characters were strong and layered. The plot made a lot of sense, and I was excited to see it in this way as opposed to A Day of Fallen Night, where we are mostly left with more questions (which is totally acceptable for a prequel). I just had such a great time reading this and have fallen in love with this series. I can't wait to read more once other books are out!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Miscarriage

Moderate: Alcoholism

fanboyriot's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Read For:

Dragons

Slow Burn

Fantasy Map

Sapphic Romance

High Fantasy (but make it queer)

I definitely have some mixed feelings about this book.  I wanted to love it but it fell more flat for me than anything else.  It was just kinda meh.  It wasn’t bad but I also just didn’t fall into the hype about it either.  I was a bit bored at times, honestly.

While the worldbuilding/setting was done really well the characters overall just lacked personality.  I found myself confused as to who was who for more than half of the book, which might be more of a me thing than anything else, but even then I just didn't really care for any of them.  I am much more of a character person than a world-building person.

Then there were some chapters that just dragged out, and while in the beginning, it was fine.  It's high fantasy and that's expected to get to know the world and everything but it was no better by the last chapter.

However, I didn’t totally hate this book either.  I really liked how the Queen was the one running things.  It was super nice to read a high fantasy without it being majorly sexist or borderline creepy.  Plus it had some queer relationships as well, a sapphic relationship being the main hype of the book besides the dragons.  And lastly the dragons, I loved how they were written into the story, how they interacted with their riders, and the bond they shared.

Overall, if you're a fan of high fantasy and want to see some queer rep within the book then I recommend this to you.  However, if you’re more like me, where contemporary books have taken over your tbr, then I probably wouldn't recommend it to you.

POV: Switching, Third Person

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Rep: Queer MCs, Queer SCs, Sapphic (main), Achillean (side), Aspec MC

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Outing, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Excrement, and Dementia