The Challenge Factory discussion

Sarah & Xeyra - Prince of Thorns

Hi! Thanks for signing us up. I was able to finish the other book I was reading yesterday. Just let me know where you're at and the pace you'd like to go and I'll get myself caught up.

Hey Sarah, sorry I didn't check in earlier, I've been a bit busy. When do you think you want to begin and how do you want to do this? I left off at Chapter 6, I believe.

No worries! I wasn't sure where you were so I accidentally read a little bit ahead of you. I stopped at chapter 13, but can pick up anytime.

Do you want to read like a hundred pages a week and discuss as we go along?

Sarah wrote: "No worries! I wasn't sure where you were so I accidentally read a little bit ahead of you. I stopped at chapter 13, but can pick up anytime.

Do you want to read like a hundred pages a week and dis..."
Yeah, I think we can do that. We should mention as we discuss which chapters we're discussing just to avoid inadvertently spoiling each other. :)

Great idea! I'll be sure to mark down the chapters as I go.

My first non-spoiler impression is that Jorg is one of those rich kid spoiled brats who likes to make others hurt because he can. I'm not sure if I'll be able to be sympathetic towards him in this novel because so far I want to slap him silly multiple times and I'm only a few chapters in.

Yeah- he's definitely not a sympathetic character, but I'm actually finding him a breath of fresh air from typical protagonists. He is what he is, he owns it, and he doesn't apologize for it. What I'm interested to see is why these grown men are all following around and taking orders from a little boy. I'm hoping theres some reason for it more than "he's a prince," because he treats them terribly.

I've been reading a bit more slowly than anticipated but I'm hoping I can get some more pages in this weekend. I'm currently in chapter 15. Jorg is a bit of an interesting character in that I'm not quite sure how to take him. I am used to genius children characters who tend to act more adult than they should but even then they have some identifiable characteristic that makes them seem their age, regardless. Jorg, in his flashbacks, seems to have the kind of anger and cold intelligence of someone older. And I understand losing his mom and brother can lead to trauma, and I can understand anger but not so much where his rage and indifference to pain in others or morality came from.

I do feel like it'll be interesting seeing him confronting the new obstacles he'll have at the Castle, from his father to his father's mysterious mage advisor, because I'm not sure if I want Jorg to succeed in his goals or get humiliated into... well... some humility.

Yeah I see what you're saying about Jorg acting older than he is. In my head I've kind of attributed it to the fact that his gang is a bunch of older men.

I don't get the feeling that he is the kind of character that will be redeemed in future books. His indifference to pain and affinity for cruelty I think is what he learned from his father. His father accepted a peace offering from Count Renar even though the people killed were his wife and son. I think Jorg thinks that if a queen and prince are only worth a bit of gold then regular people are worthless and their suffering doesn't matter.

I also wonder about the headaches he keeps talking about and if the author is going to lead up to the conclusion that Jorg is insane because of something that's wrong with his brain, left behind maybe by the hooks that held him in the bush? Just a theory. It seems an odd one for a fantasy story but who knows. The headaches might be irrelevant and just a side effect of the guilt on his conscience.

So I'm a bit behind (still) but I'm around chapter 27.

I want to comment on Jorg's first confrontation with his father after 4 years. So I'm not particularly sympathetic to our erstwhile protagonist, because he's a bit of an asshole, but I cannot help but root for him during that situation, even though earlier I was hoping someone kind of taught him a bit of humility. But his father endeared himself even less to me, so Jorg's side it was. What a fun way to *end* that tug of wills. LOL at destroying the super special tree while he was at it.

I do feel like there was a wasted opportunity with Sageous and his hints that Jorg was being manipulated by an outside force, which seems to be immediately resolved afterwards. The doubt and character and plot development something like this could have given way to seems wasted, because it'd be interesting if Sageous ended up not being an enemy or being an enemy, yes, but at least it'd be something we might have to wait a bit to figure out. Instead, we resolve it immediately by having Sageous identified as the dream witch thingie and immediately chased off.

We'll see what happens after this group of degenerates comes back from trying to conquer the unconquerable.

Hey Xeyra- I'm actually behind you at this point!! I didn't read your whole comment because I was trying to avoid spoilers, but I'm going to try and catch up and take some notes along the way. So no worries about pacing- I can slow down/speed up as needed.

As despicable as Jorg is, I love the backstory behind his gang and how they came to be assembled. I still need to see how the guard captain fits in, but overall I'm enjoying it so far.

Well I just got caught up tonight, and yes, the scene with the tree was epic!! Though I agree that Jorg is not sympathetic, he is carving out a place in my heart. He's an asshole, but he's an entertaining asshole. I guess maybe I'd find him more villainous if the people he was killing were more innocent themselves. But it seems like everyone in this book is guilty of something.

And Sageous does feel like a wasted opportunity but I get the feeling he'll be back. It's mentioned that he is the one that grew that tree with his own blood, so I think he'll want revenge or that twist will be revealed some other way.

Major Spoilers ahead for Chapter 30:
(view spoiler)[I am so devastated about the Nuban!! (I really wish the author had given me a name to call him instead of that.) He was turning out to be my favorite character next to the honorable Makin, and now he's gone. I know the author is trying to show us that Jorg puts no one above his own goals and is weeding out his own weaknesses, willing to make sacrifices, etc. but come on!! It wasn't a sacrifice that moved me in any way it was just disappointing. (hide spoiler)]

I will probably keep forging ahead a bit and making my notes as I go, but take your time.

Here I am again! So I cheated a little and went all the way to the end.

So I think these notes are for Chapter 40ish and beyond.

First of all- who'd have thought there could be a villain in all this worse than Jorg? His father is an ass, and I hope the rest of the series is leading to the point where we get to see Jorg kill him. Wow that makes me sound awful.

Secondly, I loved Jorg's plan to get at Count Renar. I was a little disappointed with how the encounter with Corion ended. I wonder if we will ever get an explanation as to Jorg's luck or if we are just supposed to take it at face value?

Final impressions: I like the idea behind Jorg, but he really is irredeemable. He's all too willing to cut off his nose to spite his face. None of his so called "brothers" were important enough to save or to just not sacrifice in name of his cause. I guess their loyalty is attempted to be explained by his genius and promises of victory and gold, which I suppose he fulfills in the end. But I just didn't buy it that all these men were so loyal to him they'd lay down their lives for him, except for maybe Makin, and the Nuban. The rest of them were total castaways to Jorg and they should have treated him the same way.

I am excited to see if Gorgoth and Gog stick around and what kind of trouble they'll get into in the future. I'm not really sure why they stuck with Jorg either other than to escape Gelleth though.

I'm so sorry it took me so long to reply to you. I actually finished this a few days ago but I've been busy and ended up not visiting GR after. I'd also like to apologise for not being the most active reading partner; I've been having a bit of a reading slump and letting many other things distract me, so I was hopeful reading a book in a Buddy Read might motivate me more, but I ended up being quite slow reading this one.

Anyways, I agree with all your points, though I did end up enjoying Jorg by the end. I just decided to read this book without quite thinking about the morality of the actions of its characters, so I ended up being quite amused at everything. Heck, I was even pissed on Jorg's behalf when he got himself stabbed by his dad, who'd have thought?

My issue with the book, though, was basically that action happened without much buildup and sometimes without much explanation either. There seemed to be a few set pieces of scenery and things had to happen in there so they did, but there wasn't really any real buildup.

For example, Jorg gets stabbed by daddy dearest, then survives and recovers, then is apparently out of strength but still manages to free Makin from prison and they escape and suddenly we're going for Count Renar, we're there at some tourney, Jorg participates in it, suddenly he goes for Renar, confronts Corion, gets lucky, then suddenly we're at Renar's fort and he's being taken prisoner and voilá, Jorg's a King now. It all happened so damn fast in the last half of the book I got whiplash.

Corion's death was so damn anticlimatic, but I'm choosing to take this as a trope inversion/break choice instead (whoohooo, we have a newer, badder bigger bad who's been manipulating Jorg for years and is super powerful! And he dies within 5secs. Fooled you!).

It's cool! Life and reading slumps happen.

I agree with you - you had to take a minute and re-read some of it just to make sure you were getting it right. Like oh, it's not Sageous, it's not Dad, it's not even Count Renar. It's Corion.

As for how he died.. I've been reading a lot of historical fiction lately where the heroes are only saved by luck. A slip in the mud. A well timed kick from a horse. So when it happened I think I just shrugged and moved on.

Overall I did really love it though and it sounds like in the end Jorg matures so I will probably read the next one.