The Priory of the Orange Tree

Many interesting ideas and some strong leading female characters, but the plot felt contrived at times or needlessly confusing, with inconsistencies (like distance and travel time), and some parts of the worldbuilding felt too simplistic -- also I wasn't too impressed with the quests for magic objects. Edit : also worth mentionning is that in the 800 pages, there really isn't much happening at the Priory of the title.

Honestly, you don't know what you're missing in fantasy until you read this book. An author who genuinely succeeds in not recreating patriarchy in a fictional world, and then it's a fantastic, gripping story to boot.

I had a lot of fun seeing the disparate plot lines come together in the final battle. How the world is balanced is very obvious, but it was how that affected the world, and how the characters came to realize it that made it interesting. 4.3/5