Book Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree

I finished this behemoth of a book — The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon — and I have SO many thoughts! Keeping them spoiler free because this book is daunting, but I loved going in pretty blind and I’d encourage you to do the same.

Here’s a bit of a timeline of my thoughts as I was reading:

• Pg. 1-74: what is going on?

• Pg. 75-100: IT’S MAKING SENSE NOW!

• Pg. 100-300: I love that this book has dragons

• Pg. 300-400: Sabran’s character arc is a work of art

• Pg. 400: Meg Beck is the MVP

• Pg. 500-600: IT’S ALL COMING TOGETHER

• Pg. 600-800: there is so much action, how did I ever think this book was slow?!?!

I started reading Priory in late January and finished it this past Saturday. That’s about a month and a half of reading, and full disclosure, it felt like a really long time. I think it’ll be a while before I’ll want to pick up a long book like this again, but I must admit that the world building was impeccable.

I’ve heard people compare it to Game of Thrones in the sense that the beginning setup takes a while, but the ultimate plot and character payoff makes the time investment well worth it.

What’s the last long book that you read?