Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

by Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads 
Title: Sorcery of Thorns
Author: Margaret Rogerson
Genre: YA Fantasy
Format: Hardcover
Length: 456 pages
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publish Date: June 4, 2019
Murder, False Imprisonment, Violence, Death
Bisexual, Asexual
TBR Readathon: Favorite Color
ATLA Readathon: Hopeful Book
Hogwarts House Battles: Recommended from a Friend

Okay, well I think Rogerson does an amazing job with her world-building skills, because I felt like this was totally believable and enjoyed it so much. Oh, and I also ended up trying out the book tabbing for the the first time ever, and I had a lot of fun with it?

Also cue shameless bookstagram plug. You should totally follow me because I have no idea what I’m doing half the time.

Elisabeth Scrivener is an orphan that grew up in the Summershall Great Library. She’s super taller than almost all of the other apprentices and stronger than them too. She has a strong connection to the Library, and the different grimoires that live there. Sometimes they show her things that they don’t show the other librarians. She’s special.

Nathaniel Thorn is a sorcerer, and belongs to a long line of necromancers. He isn’t one though, because he doesn’t want to be evil, but he’s a smart ass and totally sarcastic and I’m pretty sure he’s pretty hot too.

Silas is Nathaniel’s assistant… more like servant, and he’s not what it seems. He’s so funny though. I kind of like him. Just kidding, I really like him. There’s so much more that I could say about him, but it would be like spoiler territory and I don’t want to do that.

“He bound me to his service directly after it happened. He was only twelve years of age. The ritual was surely frightening for him, but of course, he already knew me well.”

Silas

Katrien is Elisabeth’s only friend in Summershall, and she’s so great at getting into things she should be, but I haven’t seen her get in trouble yet, so she’s pretty amazing. We don’t see her as much since Elisabeth doesn’t spend the majority of this novel in Summershall, but she does make various appearances and helps a lot with Elisabeth’s and Nathanial’s plan.

Um, okay magic libraries that have living grimoires and shit!? That’s freaking amazing! Didn’t mean to swear, but like… wow that was so cool. And the grimories have their own personalities, that match the authors of the books. It’s absolutely hilarious, and it makes me wish that I could grow up in a Great Library like Elisabeth did.

Oh, and she gets framed for sabotage even though she totally tried to save Summershall and then finds out that she’s really a victim of such a huge conspiracy, and wow. Drama, man.

The young woman, identified by an anonymous source as one Miss Elisabeth Scrivener, demonstrated uncommon courage and vigor in holding off her demonic attackers, going so far as to save the life of a helpless bystander… She is believed to have arrived in Brassbridge as a suspect in the acts of sabotage on the Great Libraries, though we must question the Magisterium’s wisdom in naming her a suspect when this vicious attempt on her life suggests the precise opposite. It is clear that the true culprit hoped to silence her using any means possible…

News Article

Told you there was drama.

Katrien even though we only kinda see her in the beginning but she’s already one of my new favorite side characters because she has no fear.

“You might as well do it,” Katrien said from the mirror. When all three of them looked at her, she shrugged. “Provoking the kingdom’s most powerful sorcerer, turning Elisabeth loose in a ballroom… what could possibly go wrong?”

My girl Katrien

The sass in this book is hella strong, and I love it.

I marked so many funny quotes and I can’t even imagine how long my review would be with just quotes or passages that I found funny without any of my thoughts because I really have nothing else to say about it. Well, maybe I do but not super thought provoking or anything.

Finch. He is the WORST. I swear he had a grudge against Elisabeth for a reason. Not even worth my time.

“The inflammation of your brain, Miss Scrivener,” he explained patiently. “It is quite common among women who read novels.”

Physician hired by Chancellor Astor

I think a lot of my novel reading friends would have a few things to say about this line, am I right though?

Really the mindset of these people that felt like magic was evil because sorcerers used it and not all grimoires were nice was just mind-blowing.

Magic, she thought. That is what magic looks like. And then, before she could stop herself, It’s beautiful.

the first time Elisabeth saw Nathaniel use magic

It’s crazy to me that the Wardens of the Great Libraries basically shunned all magic and said it was evil, which was why they kept all of these dangerous grimoires out of the hands of any sorcerers and magisters and whatever, but like… magic can be beautiful and be used for good! Didn’t Harry Potter teach them anything?

Ink wept from open sores, gleaming wet down its shoulders, and old scars scored its leather-bound hide. Nathaniel gazed down at it with a troubled expression. Feeling sick to her stomach, Elisabeth recalled the warden’s explanation upstairs.

“This is wrong,” she said. “It isn’t a practice dummy, to be beaten with weapons while it suffers in chains.”

Seeing the Malefict in Chains

All her life, Elisabeth has been brought up to know that magic is evil, and that these grimoires have to be kept in chains and caged away forever. But the more she goes on through her journey, the more she is able to open her mind to what is really out there.

The library no more belonged to Ashcroft and his plot than Elisabeth belonged to the unknown parents who had brought her into this world. It possessed a life of its own, had become something greater than Cornelius had ever intended. For these were not ordinary books the libraries kept. They were knowledge, given life. Wisdom, given voice.

This is how libraries are supposed to feel like, and wow. I wish that this was a real concept that we could see in our world. Maybe it’s good that we can imagine it, but I would love to be at home in a library surrounded by books that had their own personalities, getting to know them and their quirks.

So yeah, this was good. Too bad this was a library book though, so I had to untab everything and I apparently didn’t include everything that I tabbed because hello. It was good though!

15 thoughts on “Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson”

    1. Thank you so much, Mel! And thank you so much for writing an awesome review 🙂 I also think its good to share reviews that don’t always match my own, so I’ll be doing that as well. Maybe someone said something about the book that I didn’t catch, or just a totally different point of view, and I feel like those should be shared 🙂

      Oh gosh, Silassssssss was my favorite okay? Like… I don’t know what it was about him. I could totally see this becoming a movie or something. I wonder if Rogerson is going to stick with standalones, or possibly make a duology or something like that. So far both of her standalones haven’t disappointed.

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  3. I absolutely adored this book! I love her world building so much! I need to start tabbing too…because when I go to write my reviews I always think I need to include this and can never remember where they were!

    Awesome review!

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    1. I’m so glad to hear that, Mere!!! Hahah yeah I tried it for this one, and thank gosh it helped me a lot. I think I’ll start tabbing on my own books though, because it took longer to take them off when I was done lol. That way I don’t have to take them off when I’m done writing my review if they are mine 😀

      Thanks again so much!

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  5. I really want to try tabbing my books! It looks like so much fun – although a lot of work, too, tbh – and I’d also love annotating my copies, but alas, I feel weird writing into books. The only book I kind of annotated was Dickens’ Little Dorrit, and only because I needed to be able to look up things for my thesis. (I didn’t annotate the two other books I used, and it was HARD to find what I needed at all times.) I’ve been thinking I should try annotating a book I’m rereading and love enough to revisit. Anyway, I loved your review and I’m happy you loved this! It didn’t fully work for me, like I mentioned on twitter, but it was still an enjoyable read. 🙂

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    1. So I kind of didn’t even feel like it was work because I was so like “omg I need to remember this, let me tab it.” and it ended up working! For some reason, I felt like it made my experience a little bit more enjoyable because I could visually see where I was having the most thoughts and what kind of thoughts I was having throughout the book besides what’s in the back of my mind lol.

      I have NOT written in any of my books – yet. I kind of did with Red, White & Royal Blue but it was very minor. I DID highlight it though so I could easily find the part that I tabbed, since with this book, I had to reread the paragraph again to remember which part stood out to me.

      Thank you so much, Veronika ❤ and I can't wait to see if you do end up start annotating or tabbing your future books. If it ends up working for you, with the read for fun books I mean.

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  7. I loved the format of this review, especially the section for content warnings and representation! It was super enjoyable to read and I liked the breakdown of everything. I also liked the quotes you used.

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    1. Thank you so much ❤ I've been making a conscious effort to always put content warnings and diversity rep at the beginning before my reviews so it's easy to find. I always look for that when I'm looking at reviews or posts about books, so I figured I should start with that myself 🙂

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