The Priory of the Orange Tree Review

The Priory of the Orange Tree

Author: Samantha Shannon

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Synopsis:

In a world where travel between East and West is forbidden and punishable by death, the dragons stir from their thousand-year-old slumber, endangering all of humanity should they wake. The only hope lies with the line of Berethnet queens, who much each conceive a daughter to carry on the line. However, Queen Sabran has not done so yet, and the entire kingdom of Inys is growing anxious. Meanwhile, Ead Duryan, a lady-in-waiting loyal to the Priory of the Orange Tree protects Sabran with her forbidden magic. 

In the East, Tané trains to become a dragonrider, a dream that she has held since childhood. However, a decision made within a few minutes may change the course of her life and the others around it. She must make a choice as to what to do, and soon.

My Thoughts:

First of all, this book seems like a mix between Eragon, Seraphina, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Throne of Glass. Those are some of my favorite books/series, so I had high expectations for The Priory of the Orange Tree. However, it didn't exactly live up to my expectations. It wasn't as good as the other series that it seemed to resemble, but I did still enjoy it.

In the beginning, it was a little slow before the action began, but after that, I didn't think that it was boring or slow at all. It was also a little confusing at the very beginning of the story, because there were so many different names and histories and religions and places but it did get a little bit better after a while (although by the end of the book I was still a little bit confused about some things). 

I enjoyed the worldbuilding (although, as I said above, it was a little bit confusing) and I especially liked how there were so many different cultures and religions in the story, which made it more exciting and interesting. The cultures and religions were really well developed so I liked that as well. I also liked the different personalities of the characters, and how there were a number of gay relationships and it was just a casual thing instead of a big deal.

One of the things I didn't like was that there seemed to be several "main conflicts" within the book and a lot of them seemed built up to be this big climax and a big deal and then it was resolved really easily and I just kind of felt like I had been let down by the conflicts being resolved much too simply.

Overall though, I did really enjoy this book. I think that it's a great read for teens, but it is long (over 800 pages) so you should only pick it up if you enjoy reading longer books. I don't know if I would reread it, but I certainly liked the time I spent reading it.

My rating: 3.5/5 stars