Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Il priorato dell'albero delle arance by Samantha Shannon

192 reviews

crystalunvrs's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Xenophobia, War, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Body horror, Blood, Slavery, Murder, Miscarriage, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

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

Moderate: Abortion

kyleighf's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring 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? No

5.0

Did this take me a while? Yes. Do I enjoy fantasy? Not particularly. Should you read this? Yes. 

World building was long and drawn out and at times in the first 200 pages I’d wonder how the heck I was to remember so much detail. Maps and timelines and more maps and a glossary(!) and an index of people. Plus 4 different narrators with subtle indication of who was at the forefront each chapter. 

This book was a test of my strength, memory, will, stubbornness, but it will forever be worth it. 

Some of the BEST LGBTQ+ representation I’ve read, and that’s not even close to the focus of the story. It’s refreshing to read about a sapphic couple who are not a plot point in the story but treated as any heterosexual couple would be. 

I think this was the first time I put down a book to start another in the middle which is part of why it took so long, but I’m so glad I powered through. 

Characters are fleshed out, the character development is immaculate and to die for. The ending leaves you satisfied but curious. Everything wraps up sensibly and doesn’t feel forced. Pieces intertwine and disconnect and intertwine, it’s very satisfying to watch the threads build a tapestry. 

Here’s to (eventually) reading the prequel. Not anytime soon, but eventually. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Child death, Murder, Blood, Body horror, Death, Grief, Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gore, Pregnancy, and War

blackthornfaery's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad 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

4.25

Spoiler

incredible!! i felt so immersed in the story the whole time, and the food!! the food descriptions nearly rival red wall feasts! I just wish it didn't toggle between quite so many pov and don't quite understand why da tan didn't eat any of the orange tané brought to heal ead... surely it would've helped their efforts for sabran to wield magic with them? i was fully expecting the fruit to be the reason for her fever in the days before the battle.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Incest, Medical content, Pregnancy, Violence, Body horror, Classism, Death of parent, Infertility, Miscarriage, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual content, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

internationalreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging funny mysterious reflective tense 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? Yes

3.5

I’m frustrated because I liked a lot about this book - the world building! The queer love story! The way all the seemingly separate storylines came together! - but the way the author treated religion and politics was a huge miss for me. There is no way

Spoiler

anyone who was raised to believe certain thousands-years-old truths, let alone a queen and nobles whose entire existence is based on those truths, would believe that their religion is all a lie immediately. Similarly, all of the political leaders coming together incredibly easily to fight the Nameless One at the end, after thousands of years of political estrangement??

We could have had a much more interesting read on those two fronts.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and War

booksjessreads's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense 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? No

5.0

Genuinely don't even know where to start for a review of this book. Just. Wow.

This is my first high fantasy book and I loved every single page. Despite being initially intimidated by its size, I absolutely sailed through it because I was addicted. Every single page had me hooked. I have not felt the thrill of reading a fantastic book for a long time and it made me feel like a giddy child wanting to find out what happened all the time.

The writing is phenomenal. It has such detailed, yet comprehensive world-building and it doesn't feel forced, or like the author is info-dumping. Furthermore, the world that Shannon has crafted is just wonderful. There is so much lore in this world and it has been so intricately thought out. It felt so immersive and learning about the world was not tedious and only served as interesting to me as the reader.

The characters are so well thought-out and completely human, believable and three dimensional. There is great character growth and I think my favourite thing about this, was that despite being told from 4 different points of view, each character felt relevant and I liked them all. I hate it in books where you have multiple POV's and one or two feel irrelevant or they are just unbearable narrators. This never happened and the story was enriched from every perspective. 

A sapphic and feminist work of art that has dragons in, I mean, what more could you want?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Death, Miscarriage, and Violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, and Death of parent

ninczo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and War

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Death of parent

jodean's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Murder, Grief, Deportation, Blood, Abandonment, Death, and Confinement

Moderate: War, Sexism, Medical content, Infertility, Medical trauma, Misogyny, and Death of parent

Minor: Infidelity, Child death, Domestic abuse, and Drug use

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

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

incest/rape:

Spoiler

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

Spoiler

kalyba and galian

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_dina's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Grief, Infertility, Death, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Torture, Violence, War, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Religious bigotry, and Pandemic/Epidemic