The Priory of the Orange Tree (edición 2020)

3.8 ( )

Coming back to this one when I have the mental ability to absorb 900 pages of world-building.

This is a weird thing to say about an 800-page book, but...I felt like it was too short. There was SO much plot and SO many characters, there wasn't really time to flesh any of it out nearly as much as I wanted. I didn't feel as emotionally invested as I should have been, with such dramatic moments going down, and I think it's because there wasn't enough buildup to those moments. With such big twists and showdowns, it could have been at LEAST a trilogy. And then we could have time to get to know each character a lot better.

That said, it may be a flaw in me because I know other people loved this book. It's a classic epic fantasy, with dragons, medieval vibe, and lots of $10 words. Only after looking them all up did I find out there was a glossary for those in the back. Oh well. Anyway if you like the really epic stuff, you may like this. Me, I used to love it but I found myself aching for some normal, natural, 21st century dialogue. Not a flaw of the book, though; I know it's an expectation of the genre. ( )

The book is essentially a feminist reboot of Arthurian legend, which explains why the story beats and worldbuilding are a bit derivative.

The majority of main characters are women and LGBTQ folks, and their sexuality is not the defining aspect of their character. Nor is it used for excessive drama - while some relationships that develop come with their own problems, we don't see the fridging of any LGBTQ characters nor oppression as the primary character motivation.

My biggest issue with the book is that the pacing is uneven. The beginning is so slow and ponderous with detail, many of which don't come back later, such as the classist asshole hounding Tane for the first third of the book. ( )

I picked this epic fantasy up because I'd heard a lot of good things about it. Unfortunately, this would have been one time when I'd have been better off paying attention to the negative reviews, because I really didn't like it all that much for mostly the same reasons other people didn't like it. The books does have great world building, but it also has a really boring and slow paced plot coupled with largely unlikable characters that I really couldn't bring myself to care about very much. It also didn't help that I was listening to the audiobook version, and the narrator was absolutely dreadful at doing character voices. Seriously, one of the viewpoint characters, Niclays Roos, sounded as if he was continuously clenching his teeth while suffering from severe constipation. It might be worth reading the print version if you really like world building or are looking for a decent fantasy with prominent LGBT characters, but definitely avoid the audiobook. ( )