#sometimes I enjoy parts of this book!

[alectology-archive]

Mat dug in his saddlebags as Lan withdrew. He pulled out Rand’s banner, the one of the ancient Aes Sedai. He’d gathered it earlier, thinking perhaps it might have some use. “Somebody hoist this thing up. We’re fighting in Rand’s bloody name. Let’s show the Shadow we’re proud of it.”

Aw hey this makes for a nice contrast against Mat finding Rand holding the Dragon Banner in TGH and resenting him for it versus him raising it to fight on his behalf for the last push during the battle <3

[baghassavocados]

Either it's because I'm a triple A battery (AroAce AuDHD) or those two really didn't have chemistry.

[aelinfireheartgalathynius]

As an elder SJM fan (I've been reading her books as they came out since TOG) I would like to let the wider fandom know that every time a new SJM book comes out, including fan-favorites, a vocal part of the online fandom talks about how her writing is getting worse, the book was disappointing, the characters were all wrong, etc. Every single time, without fail.

[celestie0]

when ppl get too caught up in the accuracy of situations in fanfiction or if things are super realistic or as they should/would be in real life etc etc im like. my tumblr user in christ. it's fanfiction.

[keyofjetwolf]

So far 2024 has seen me knocked flat by a cold, but hey, enabled my first book of the year to start and finish!

[obsob]

ik you use to draw a lot of harry potter...i was wondering what your opinion of it is now?

this

[napping-sapphic]

I’m not cut out for even slightly more intense health issues than my usual stuff yall so here’s my will for when i die of feel too bad disorder: i’d like to dedicate my few life achievements to all the sapphics out there and also they can have all my stuff i guess

[autism-alley]

if any of y’all know of a pjo/pjo show crit friendly discord server hit me up or so help me i might make one myself

[imblocking-you]

Percy Jackson show coming out literally is like digging down and unearthing my roots, it was so formative for me, been there through a lot of transitions and phases, through meeting the most important people in my life now, getting to know myself and the world around me, life was so great, but i've grown up and come to know that life continues to be great.

The world doesn't end at 17.

[fitzrove]

[shaking and biting] but what does it MEAN. what does it SAY what is the THEME

[hooved]

if i start calling odo she/her occasionally you better get with it

[hylialeia]

I never did write and post my thoughts after I finished reading Priory of the Orange Tree but given I've been thinking about the state of the fantasy genre a lot lately - across YA, adult, and "new adult" categories - I figure now is a good time to do that.

I didn't particularly like this book.

And I find this weird to write, because unlike most books I end up disliking, Priory was consistently well written in a technical sense, had a narrative voice I generally navigate towards, and consisted of some genuinely impressive worldbuilding and well-thought-out fantasy concepts.

Yet it took me months to finish it. I even hit a point where I almost DNF'd the entire thing, I was so surprised by my lack of motivation to continue. This book hooked me, presented me with something interesting, and then... completely flat-lined.

While a lot of this could have just been media burnout on my end (you can never really account for how your own personal mood and context when you start something new), I at least know for sure that my lack of enthusiasm had nothing to do with the novel's length. In fact, one of my technical criticisms of Priory is that I think it would have benefited immensely from splitting its story into a series and extending things, fleshing out more of the characters in each of their respective settings, as well as allowing for a lot more build-up towards the climax and eventual intersection of the characters' storylines.

As it stands, those are the areas that felt the most rushed and underwhelming to me. There were several potential instances of conflict throughout the novel that the narrative brushes over or ignores in a way I found particularly disappointing. In a book that grounds itself in examining religious bias, propaganda, xenophobia, and sexism, there were surprisingly few deeper conflicts or tense moments between our main characters. This became especially apparent by the end, when widely accepted histories (and religions) are turned on their heads and most of our POV characters carry on without any sense of fallout, betrayal, or lasting hurt. Each and every character puts aside their personal biases and histories in a way that should feel admirable and satisfying, but instead felt less than believable and even... underwhelming, given the speed with which it was done and the potential (fascinating!) conflicts that those agreements squandered.

I couldn't help but feel that the characters of Priory were either half-baked or intentionally watered down for the purposes of being palatable. Tané, Niclays, and Sabran were (in my totally subjective opinion) the most interesting characters by far; it doesn't escape me that they were also the ones who did, said, and/or thought some of the more uncharitable and even downright terrible things within the novel. Tané's inferiority complex and self-sabotaging nature, Niclays's mixture of pessimism, cowardice, and bitterness, and Sabran's privilege and willful prejudice, all served to make them more fascinating to me. They gave me clear character flaws that made their respective stories more interesting, flaws that stoked my desire to see them improve (or deteriorate) on the course of their character arcs. I found myself disappointed when those arcs became rushed in the final act, those flaws never proving a sufficient obstacle to their dynamics or growth.

Ead and Loth were sadly the worst case scenario. I wanted desperately to like them, but every POV chapter they had seemed to be written by an author terrified to make them in any way unlikable, or even portray them as in the wrong. Ead ends up being completely right about everything; the falseness of Sabran's history, her religion, and her country. Her only missteps result from a lack of information, which she quickly overcomes or is the first to genuinely discover, thus erasing any feeling of culpability that otherwise may have been implied; I never feel any legitimate moments of shame, grief, horror, or regret on her part, because the author never gives her legitimate reason to feel those things. Niclays is interesting in his betrayals and moments of cowardice, and the moments where he overcomes them are all the more meaningful for having seen him falter. Ead, arguably our main protagonist, never really gets something similar. She doesn't make any mistakes, and this is the greatest disservice Shannon could do to her as a character.

I barely know what to say about Loth, mostly because he only began interesting me when he encountered Tané - a dynamic that was cut woefully short and could have been absolutely fascinating if it was deeply explored. Prior to this moment (which had to be in the last 10% of the book, if I remember correctly), Loth is "a walking camera" (quoting a friend). He has characteristics with potential; religious, loyal, and dedicated... but considering the entire basis of his faith is overturned by one of his closest friends, he has shockingly little reaction or issue with this. Due to the important of larger plot happenings, Loth has to dust himself off and just postpone his reaction to the utter disassembly of his religious background for another time - which we are then never able to see. His reactions to most everything are basic, reasonable, minimal, or even dull; he could have paralleled Sabran in his religious prejudice, even showed some effects of his society's religious fanaticism, but he never really seems to - at least, never in a way that truly feels like it's testing him. For all intents and purposes, Loth feels like a character who should be making snap judgments and loads of mistakes, but instead is relegated to keeping those thoughts to himself (even hiding them from the reader) and soldiering on.

Priory was mostly recommended to me based on the impressive scale of its worldbuilding, which was definitely a cut above the rest. I thought Shannon had a firm grasp on her setting and some legitimately excellent imagery for it. I've been made more appreciative of this by the analysis in Global Medievalism by Helen Young and Kavita Mudan Finn, which dissects how Priory (and others) takes the predominantly white interpretation of medievalism and medieval fantasy expands it in a way that's far more inclusive and also far more interesting than much of our modern day "high fantasy" media. I'm not without my criticisms, however; the worldbuilding is another area where the pacing hurts the story, as we only have one 800 page book to get to know the seemingly important settings in which these characters live. That may sound like a lot, but it's perilously little; balancing those vivid worldbuilding details with a packed plot and character arcs meant that, at any given time, one aspect was always getting the short end of the stick.

While I appreciate Shannon's attempts to write with a feminist approach to high fantasy, I think her efforts highlight an issue I have with many similar approaches. Primarily, I find it difficult for a work to address, untangle, disassemble, and analyze misogyny in a setting where they... don't really show it. We're in a state where I think many of us have become (understandably) distrustful of media claiming "realism" or "historical accuracy" to defend its portrayal of violence and various types of oppression, but lately, I've noticed the response to that gratuitousness (in the cases where these things actually are gratuitous instead of just uncomfortable-yet-intentional, that is), is to avoid these things in the narrative almost entirely. That's all well and good; you don't have to include racism, misogyny, ableism, or imperialism in your fantasy world, especially when your desire is to write an alternative escapism to these things.

But when a piece of media is striving to say something about those topics, as I assume Priory does since its driving conflict results from a history of dismissing women's bravery and sacrifice against evil and instead granting the reward of their efforts to a man, then I have to admit, I feel somewhat underwhelmed when the women in the story never face any of the trials I myself deal with in real life. Their male colleagues seem consistently respectful with rare few exceptions; women across the series are allowed to occupy roles from respected advisors to knights trained in combat. Sabran herself seems to be one of the only women deeply impacted by familiar misogynistic mindsets, as she's constantly pressured to marry a man and produce offspring for the continuation of her line. Yet even this could almost be argued to be a special case within the world, since this pressure results from the religious belief that the continuation of her line (through her, the queen, the matriarch) is keeping the main antagonist at bay. This area felt like it wanted to be a subversion to much of the gritty, "realistic" fantasy that plagues the market, but to me, it felt more like indecisiveness. Is there misogyny in this world or isn't there? Is there homophobia in this setting or not? The answer could simply be yes, no, or even somewhat, but instead it felt like a "maybe".

Overall, Priory of the Orange Tree fell flat for me, maybe because my expectations were too high, or maybe because I just wasn't in a place to really dig my teeth into it. Mostly, though, I believe it fell flat because Shannon failed in what I believe to be the most important area of focus in a work: character. I would have traded worldbuilding, plot, imagery, and much more for a cast of characters that felt more intensely raw and complex, that were more unabashedly real in their flaws even if they risked becoming unlikable. Sitting at a 5.5/10

[lesbienneanarchiste]

I feel like every time I read a dud book that's been recommended to hell and back and is super hyped, I'm inevitably like

[orcelito]

So I rearranged my bookshelf a bit for fitting trigun on my shelf...

Top shelf is still my persona shelf. It's way too established to change that. But I moved my assorted other fav manga volumes to the bottom shelf, leaving room for This...

It didn't Quite fit all the way, but it's close enough. This shelf is composed of my three top favorite mangas of all time, which are Also the only 3 series that I own in totality. Specifically bc theyre my favorites & I care enough about them to want to own them all lol

It's... really really nice to see them all in one place like this.

And of course. The trigun ❤️ completely worth the money I spent on them.

[honeytearays]

Man I could have a blog just about the things I see/read as an editor sometimes I question people 😭

[inthereellife]

Why do authors do this thing where they make a great hilarious wonderful delightful protagonist for the first book- and then never make that a character a POV character ever again for the rest of forever. Like-

The Locked Tomb Series by Tamsyn Muir

The Montague Siblings Series by Mackenzie Lee

The Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner

And I’m sure there’s more. But like…why do they do this?? 😭 I know they get disappointed when the following books gets less hype- once the POV character is revealed anyway- but surely they knew that was inevitable?

Authors should absolutely write what they want and I get that. But damn does it suck when the first book is like, the best meal you’ve ever had, and for the rest of the books you have to like, lick the plate for scraps of whatever’s left of your favorite thing from the first book.

(That’s not to say that there aren’t other good things about the following books. But there’s a lot of good books with good things in them. But each of the first books in the series above introduce such a fantastic protagonist that the readers fell in love with that character and- for me and a lot of other readers- those characters is what pushed those books from “good” to “favorites”. So like, yeah the following books may be good wonderfully written books, but when you take away what made Book 1 a favorite, its only natural that your reader’s investment is going to fade.)

EDIT: I failed to mention when I wrote this that I gave up on Harrow the Ninth early. This was apparently a Mistake because I’m being told that finishing the book might change my mind about including it in this list. So I’m gonna do that!