Uprooted

by Naomi Novik

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, ambitious wizard, known only as the Dragon, to keep the wood's powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman must be handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as being lost to the wood. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows - everyone knows - that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia - all the things Agnieszka isn't - and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But no one can predict how or why the Dragon chooses a girl. And when he comes, it is not Kasia he will take with him. From the author of the Temeraire series comes this hugely imaginative, engrossing and vivid fantasy novel, inspired by folk and fairy tales. It is perfect reading for fans of Robin Hobb and Trudi Canavan.

• ISBN10: 1447294130
• ISBN13: 9781447294139
• Publish Date: 21 May 2015 (first published 1 January 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 24 June 2016
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Macmillan
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leigha]

A young woman learns about magic in this adult fantasy novel.

My excitement for this book was off the charts. The synopsis was intriguing without giving too many detail. The cover was absolutely beautiful. Yet as I read the novel my excitement quickly disappeared into apathy and boredom. While the setting and world building were intricately crafted, the characters were, well, not.

Agnieszka suffered from Special Snowflake Syndrome. While she initially started training in magic, she soon eclipsed her trainer. She was magical Superman, able to defeat anything. I wasn't crazy about any of the other characters either. The Dragon was a generic, broody love interest. Kasia had a wooden personality and that’s before she literally became wood. The rest of the characters were mostly expendable and unremarkable. While I wasn't interested in the characters, I did really enjoy the setting. The Woods were wonderfully creepy and atmospheric. The story behind the Woods' corruption was intriguing, if a little vague.

tl;dr Uprooted contained a great setting with dull characters. Those interested in fantasy, folklore, and magic may enjoy it.

[shannonmiz]

I.... eh?

[ibeforem]

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley.”

It’s been a long time since I read a true fantasy novel. I had heard a lot of buzz about Uprooted over the last year, and all of it was positive. It was one of the few fantasy novels that I’d see people recommend over and over. And for once, all of the hype is richly deserved.

Agnieszka is a young girl growing up in a village at the edge of the corrupt Wood, which would absorb her village and turn everyone in it into raving, evil lunatics if given half an opportunity. The only thing keeping the Wood at bay is the Dragon. The mysterious wizard appears every 10 years and takes away with him a single girl. She will return 10 years later, unharmed yet never the same. Everyone believes the next girl to be taken will be Kasia, Agnieszka’s best friend.

Except it’s not. The next girl is Agnieszka. It turns out, she has a gift, and that gift is magic.

What follows is part coming-of-age, part quest, and part fairy tale. And it’s all fantastic.

Agnieszka is a compelling lead character. She is timid, but grows more bold. She is unsure, but grows more competent. She is steadfast in her loyalty. Her heart is open, even when it shouldn’t be. And it turns out that she’s not the hero anyone wanted, or ever expected, but she’s exactly the one they all need.

My only complaint about this novel is that there isn’t more of it. I wish it was going to be a series. Or at minimum, a trilogy!

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!

I am a sucker for a good fairytale retelling! Beauty and the Beast happens to be my favorite of all time, so Uprooted has been on my TBR for awhile. Recently, when I was in a reading slump following Sleeping Giants, Uprooted was pitched to me as "Cruel Beauty but good." Since I loved Cruel Beauty I expected to be totally blown away by Uprooted! I had heard that the language was dense and sometimes hard to pick through, but I dove in fully prepared to fight my way to the end if needed.

I think it's important to point out that the synopsis of Uprooted tells the reader approximately 1/10th of what actually happens. Usually I can get a good feeling for what a book will be about based on the blurb. Not so here! The story begins when Agnieszka is (shockingly) chosen by the Dragon (who isn't a dragon) to live in his tower for ten years. She goes with him and finds that she will basically be his servant for the duration of her time there, while also dabbling in magic. Agnieszka at first finds the Dragon (also known as Sarkan) to be a jerk, but slowly discovers that there's more to him than meets the eye. This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, after all.

I liked Agnieszka for the most part. There were times when she ran off and did really stupid things without much reason, and I do have a hard time with dumb characters. I do think her heart was in the right place, though, and that she made the best of difficult situations. I can't say the same for the Dragon. Sarkan is the kind of snarky, arrogant, rude male character that women love for some reason. I'll admit, I like a confident, sarcastic love interest as much as the next person, but Sarkan didn't do it for me. This kind of character also has to have endearing qualities and I didn't really see that with the Dragon.

The romance was weird. Sarkan was pretty much rude to Agnieszka 95% of the time and called her names regularly. When the romance actually did appear it came from out of nowhere and didn't seem to have much bearing on the story, almost as if it was an afterthought.

By the way, they weren't kidding when they said Uprooted was dense. This book somehow moved incredibly fast while also taking forever to push through. It took me a full ten days to decipher everything that happened in Agnieszka's story. There were descriptions of descriptions and the story suffered from way too much detail in one area while there was no detail in others.

It felt as if this story was meant to be two or even three books. There was not nearly enough time for Sarkan and Agnieszka to get to know each other. Their time in the tower before the real threat came was over so quickly that I almost felt like I missed it! This really should have been the first book a the series... The threat of the woods was told in such a way that it was terribly creepy, but again it was there and over too fast. There was also a bit in between these two main plots that felt quickly thrown together as a way to connect the two. It just didn't work for me. The ending was also incredibly abrupt.

I wanted to love Uprooted so much! This story was supposed to be the best Beauty and the Beast retelling (complete with creepy evil woods) I'd ever read. At the end of the day, it was a decent retelling with way too much going on in way too small a word count. I feel like Uprooted could have been fantastic had it been given more time to come together. As it was, it never reached its full potential, in my opinion. I'm sad to say this book was all hype and not a lot of (or maybe too much?) substance.

[inlibrisveritas]

Uprooted has been one I actively avoided since it came out, because the hype was very big and I just sort of wanted it to die down a bit before I tried reading it. I didn’t want a bunch of random reviews praising it rattling around in my head while I was trying to form own opinions. I’m glad I did because I went into this one fresh and curious, and it was so good!

Uprooted is a mix of fairy tale and epic fantasy that had a real dream like quality to it. It is a stand alone novel, but it has a rather complex magic system and some very rich world building. I love the way this is written especially! It has a real fairy tale feel to it and despite all the details it feels “light” and has a really dark whimsical quality to it. I’m actually quite curious to see how the audiobook is because I think listening to it would be really awesome! It does move a little slowly in parts as it takes time to flesh out some of the story and characters, but I think all the character interaction is worth it.

Agnieszka is a messy and strong willed girl who is forced into servitude to the Dragon. I freaking loved their beginning, and how utterly frustrated he is with her uselessness in the kitchen and with organization. I wasn’t expecting the connection between them, and surprisingly I quite liked it. Where he is meticulous and rigid in his methods, she is more free flowing and intuition based and it provides a good balance not to mention a lot of great little moments between them. Agnieszka and Dragon are amazing characters to follow, and I love them both for their differences.I love that Agnieszka doesn’t play by the rules with magic, and thrives in the situational chaos that comes with improvisation.

Uprooted turned out to be quite the treat! I definitely recommend it for those who love fantasy, especially those not looking to add another series to the mix.

[celinenyx]

Random personal anecdote: I've played the piano for over seven years. It doesn't come naturally to me at all. I struggle through every bar of music when I learn something new, and it often takes me over a month to learn a new song. I suck at reading sheet music and figuring out what all those squiggles on paper mean. The structured, scholarly approach to music doesn't work for me at all.

When I was in the middle of Uprooted, I decided to try to improvise a piano piece. Let go of all the sheets and structure, and just see where it takes me. I haven't enjoyed playing this much in years, and I'm learning so much more than I did trying to follow other people's pieces. Just like the main character of Uprooted, I find a new way through the thicket of music every time.

In an indirect way, I have this book to thank for my renewed love of playing music, because it shows how it's okay not to follow the rules and do magic/music/life your own way.

***

What a lovely book. Was hesitant to read it because of all the praise, but it deserves all of it. It took me a little while to get into it, as the beginning was a rather standard fantasy premise. When it goes its own way, it's fantastic.

[Kait ✨]

Uprooted starts like a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and Novik’s writing is fairytale-esque. It is delightfully like a Grimm fairytale: that is, it’s very, very grim. ;) Novik’s eastern European inspired world is fascinating and the evil that lurks is terrifying and compelling. The first 40% of the novel is packed with action, yet the book feels slow-moving and abstract. (It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, and it’s interesting how Novik plays with your sense of time.) The second half of the novel really picks up in intensity and feels much faster. I do wish Novik had better structured the pacing, but her writing style is the one area where I really felt Novik was doing something unique with the genre.

The plot is a bit insane and is kind of a wild ride—even though it is packed with fantasy stereotypes, there’s also quite a few twists and turns to take you by surprise. At times I was not on board with the plot and the characters, but I think that was because Novik’s writing could feel so distant at times, and I wanted more explanation for almost everything that happened. One thing that really bugged me was that Novik never addressed the fact that the Dragon reads Agnieszka’s mind! The fact that Nieszka never reacts to this seemed way out of character.

I’m still not 100% sure about this book, though I think it is more of a 3.5 star for me. But I would recommend it to fantasy fans, because I think it plays with the genre in interesting ways. And I was undeniably interested to the story and was riveted from the 40% mark onwards. Overall: a good read, but not the masterpiece I had expected based on the hype.

[Heather]

Ever 10 years the local wizard comes into the valley to choose a girl to live with him. Usually he chooses the most beautiful or talented. But this year, instead of taking Kasia who everyone knew was going to be the chosen one, he takes her friend Agnieszka because he recognizes her latent magical talent. He isn't happy about having a student especially when Agnieszka can't seem to master any spells.

There is a Wood at the end of the Valley. Monsters live in the wood. The wizard is supposed to protect the people in the valley from the Wood but there isn't really much he can do. If anyone is taken by the monsters, they are dead.

When the Wood attacks Agnieszka's home village and then takes someone that she cares for, she decides to use whatever magic she has to fight back.

The Good

• I have a soft spot for non-World War II books set in Poland. This book is set in a fantasy version of Eastern Europe. The audio version of this book was done with a strong Eastern European accent which was a constant reminder of the world where it was set.


• I like the fact that Agnieszka and the Dragon have very different systems of magic.  At first they don't even recognize the power that Agnieszka has because it is so different than what magic is supposed to look like.


• There is a great story of female friendship here.  That's isn't something that is always seen in fantasy books.


• Spoiler - Highlight to read - She sleeps with someone and then goes on with her life when a relationship doesn't develop.  She doesn't sit around and pine. There is some resolution of this at the end but there isn't a happily ever after.  That is refreshing.

The Bad

• I'm not a person who routinely says that books are too long but this one started to really drag after a while.  I sped the audio up and powered through it.  There was a complex political world that Agnieszka was thrown into and it went on and on.


• The Dragon is always written as annoyed or glaring.  Maybe he just a grumpy fella but don't try to make sympathetic and a potential romantic interest while having him be nasty to the character that you want him to get romantic with.  That's no basis for a relationship.


• There is a point where a prince comes to visit them.  He attempts to rape Agnieszka.  She realizes her power at this point and not only fends him off but almost kills him.  The Dragon then explains this all to her by telling her that the Prince planned to insult him by raping her.  We are into some seriously problematic territory now.  Her personal autonomy doesn't come into consideration at all.  Then it gets worse.  They decide to plant a false memory so he doesn't realize that she was violent towards him.  The Dragon gives her a choice of letting him think that she complied enthusiastically to his sexual advances and they had a great time or that she complied but was really bad at it.  She half heartedly complains about this but no other options are considered.  I mean, if you can implant a false memory why not have him think he got drunk at dinner and went to bed?

Bottom Line

I liked it but it drug on audio.  Maybe read this one instead so you can go faster.  That's sad because the narration was really well done.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story

[layawaydragon]

TW: Attempted Rape.

[Silvara]

Check out my other reviews, discussions and link ups at Fantasy of the Silver Dragon.

I read this in two days. I could have finished it faster if I didn't have to go to work. It was that amazing. And now that I'm done reading it, I'm wishing that it was the first in a series and not a single book.

I loved how Agnieszka and Sarkan interacted with each other. It was funny and perfect, and totally believable. I also liked how close she was to Kasia. Their friendship was shown through everything they did together, and I liked how it changed and yet stayed the same.

The reason behind the Woods being evil and dark was unexpected and sad. And I liked how it all tied in with the world and story-line. All the characters were three-dimensional and the world was vivid and full. Even with as many pages as this book is, and how much happened in it, I wanted still MORE. Not because there was a lot of things left hanging (there weren't.) And not because something bothered me that I wanted to see fixed (it was all good!) But because it was so good I just didn't want the story to end.

I loved the magic in the world, and how Agnieszka saw it compared to the magic users she came into contact with. I also liked how there were no slow bits in the story. Nothing went by too fast either, it was just the kind of book where once you start it you're sucked in and don't want to do anything but read.

There is sex in the book, but only one scene and it isn't too explicit. The only negative thing I can think of to say about the book is that the main character name was a mouthful. Agnieszka. I kept having to call her "Ag" or "girl" in my head when I was rooting for her to do something because I just couldn't remember how her name was spelled or settle on a shortening of it for myself that I'd remember.

If you haven't read this book yet, you need to!

This review was originally posted on Fantasy of the Silver Dragon