Prince of Thorns

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jorg is the Prince of Thorns. As a ten-year-old prince he witnesses his brother and mother endure X-rated brutal murders. Meanwhile, he escaped being murdered himself by flinging himself into bushes of thorns so thick, he might have been a fly on flypaper.

It is clear the thorns were as horrid an experience for Jorg as the slaughter of his brother and mother. While he escaped being brutally murdered, it took him years to heal from the near death experience in the thorns. We are given clear images of how brutally he was damaged mentally and scared physically by these thorns.


We are introduced to him at around age 13, in command of a medieval band of robbing and raping brothers whom he kills arbitrarily and as thoughtlessly as those they set upon for malicious sport, yet they do seem to be family to him, setting up the very clear image of a protagonist who would probably challenge Satan for the throne of hell, and Satan may fear the challenge.

All the reviews I read are of this nature. Jorg is evil incarnate. I won't argue with those critiques. The Prince of Thorns is not for young adults. I'd rate it X for evil and violence if books had movie-like ratings.

Mark Lawrence is a good writer. Before reading this book, "Prince of Thorns" I read "One Word Kill". I enjoyed One Word Kill enough to see what else Mr. Lawrence had written. I discovered he has 3 trilogies. Two trilogies folks raved about. But "The Broken Empire Trilogy: Prince of Thorns / King of Thorns / Emperor of Thorns" universally had mixed reviews, and always readers had some negative thing to say about Jorg, the controversial protagonist.

I thought a hated and evil protagonist was interesting for simply being unconventional. I knew this would be a difficult book to write and I wanted to see how Mr. Lawrence did with the task.

I liked it, 3 stars. I didn't struggle with the suspension of disbelief my daughter endured, but I will not be as generous as was Mr. Riordan (Author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians YA series).

I did notice Peter V. Brett gave this series an endorsement (on Mark's web page), so I suspect fans of the The Warded Man, might sit up and at least read a few more reviews.

View all my Goodreads reviews