The Priory of the Orange Tree

We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs

I normally start off my reviews with just one quote but this book is filled with so many that I may indulge in a few more within the rest of my review. Priory of the orange tree is an epic fantasy, something I think a lot of readers fail to realise when picking up this book causing them to expect something it is not. But for me, it was exactly what I expected it to be. I fell in love with long plotted high fantasy books as a kid and this book did not fail to meet those expectations.

When history fails to shed light on the truth, myth creates its own.

Love and fear do strange things to our soul

I do not sleep because I am not only afraid of the monsters at my door, but also of the monsters my own mind can conjure. The ones that live within

No woman should be made to fear that she was not enough

Be silent and learn something

This book showed so much promise but seemed to constantly drop the ball. Tension would be built effectively but all the payoffs were terrible. The writing of battles and fights was almost incomprehensible, so you had no clue who was where or doing what, and then suddenly things would be over. We seemed also to miss out on critical information eg. why did Roos suddenly turn from potential assassin out on the seas, to giving them the knife and information on how to kill the Nameless One? In one paragraph he was seeting at Ead, eager to kill her, and then... he was on her side? It didn't make sense. So much promise and an incredibly built world, fantastic characters, but it consistently fluffed its lines.

DNF @ 250 pages/ 30%


Reading Notes

p.250/30% mini review:

1. Where. Are. The. Dragons.
Seriously, where??? How am I 200+ pages in and dragons have been barely present? Also, dragon names: Fýredel? Cool, epic-sounding. The Nameless One... what? Really? The most evil and murderous dragon is called the Nameless One??? I'm seeing a trend... (He Who Must Not Be Named, the Evil One, etc.) How original.

2. Sabran is so damn annoying. She is actually the worse person in the book. How can someone so vain, selfish, and stupid ever be the queen of a country and figurehead of a major religion is beyond me. Why is most of the focus on this character? Her kingdom is easily the most boring one out of all of them.

3. There's been a minor character death so far that was so underwhelming, I had to read the passage twice just to make sure he was actually dead and not just chilling. I liked this character, but I didn't get to see him enough to develop strong emotions upon his dying (very anticlimactically, btw). He died too soon in the story to have any emotional effect whatsoever, which seems rather pointless.

4. The fact that most of the time we're stuck in the West with Sabran is really disheartening. The East is by far more interesting, but we barely spend any time there. Tané and Niclays have potential as characters, but no, I'm forced to read about snooty Sabran 90% of the time.

5. Am I really going to read 800+ pages of this...? I'm questioning my sanity.

[Edit: No, no I won't. I dropped this book so fast after p. 250. I refuse to keep reading even though, according to some, “it gets better after 50%!!” No, don't care.]

6. If anyone dares compare this to The Lord of the Rings, please give them a stern talking to. LOTR is a masterpiece in every shape and form, and it is definitely unfair to attempt to compare anything else to it, but the fact that Priory of the Orange Tree has been called the “feminist LOTR” is such an insult to the latter. Just.... just don't go there if you don't want your book to be pulled apart and destroyed because of this poor comparison. There is nothing in Priory that remotely resembles LOTR.