SaltyDragon's Book Journey
Another popular fantasy with good ideas and horrible execution.
The religion stuff was cool. If only there had been any actual thematic depth to "what if the world's religions represented different branches of interpretations and traditions rooted in a common history?" Or "Western dragons are scary fire monsters and Eastern dragons are wise water gods, interesting."
But she does not go any futher than what I just said, in all of this tome's 800? 900? pages. That's almost an achievement on its own.
My biggest complaint by far is the lazy, sloppy orientalism in the world building. Oh, the water dragon people of THE EAST have a closed-door foreign policy and address one another as "honourable so-and-so" and have names that vaguely sound Japanese? Nice. Great job. There is even a bigger empire (pseudo-China) and a little peninsula (oh is that us? pseudo-Korea!). The desert people of the SOUTH ride tiger-like animals and burn incense at mystical mosque places and sell spices at markets? Jesus f-cking Christ. What was her research, Aladdin? This is just a couple of notches above naming a Chinese girl "Cho Chang." And I need all the white people raving about this book to see that.
The author has a cowardly little disclaimer about how all the cultures and places in this book aren't real so please don't come for her little white British self! I bet she thought she was so woke because she challenges the authority of the obviously British/European religion through the obviously SWANA/Middle Eastern religion. The main white characters best friends were BOTH BLACK, OKAY?? SHE'S WOKE!! I bet she was fully patting herself on the back for including all the cultures, like a college brochure with dragons. But guess which culture gets all the political intrigue and nuances at least somewhat fleshed out? It's not the polite dragon worship people or the mysterious and dangerous spice people! It's the white feminist fever dream matrilineal Britain--I mean Inysh!
SaltyDragon commented...
39w
SaltyDragon commented...
38w
The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)
Samantha Shannon
© 2025 Pagebound
SaltyDragon commented...
39w
I feel such relief reading your review and all of these responses! I’ve sat on my own review for months because I’ve been trying to grapple with why this book is so beloved but it was such a disappointment for me, and this gave me the energy to finally post it cause your review resonated so much.
The religion paragraph cracked me up. The concept of different interpretations was so interesting but then….nothing was done with it? And then Ead completely abandoned the Priory for this white queen …. the SECOND WE GOT TO THE PRIORY!!! Ugh.
Why build this diverse world if we’re going to spend the majority of our time in this white lady’s court on the most minuscule, boring details that are totally irrelevant to the plot or the characters? Reading your review made me think: “Was this book a diversity check box?”