Uprooted

by Naomi Novik

[HekArtemis]

3 stars. I really enjoyed this story, the Wood was wonderful, the lore was interesting. All of it was great except... It is based on Beauty and the Beast so of course it has to include the girl falling in love with the "beast" who has essentially captured her. There are ways around this - I understand Aliette de Bodard decided to focus on the idea of consent very closely in In the Vanishers Palace (future read so I am not entirely sure), and I personally can think of several ways this can be worked with, so it can definitely be done. Novik instead chose to make her Beast/The Dragon be an absolute arsehole to Nieshka, constantly insulting her, yelling at her, growling at her, through the entire book. And there isn't even character growth to trick us into thinking he was just misunderstood all along - nope he is just an arsehole and is still insulting her and growling and scowling away right up to the end of the story.

This unfortunate choice has made me bump my rating down, it would have been 4 or maybe even 4.5 otherwise.

I look forward to the day I read a Beauty and the Beast retelling that has Beauty kill the Beast at the end and live happily ever after in his palace, which she has claimed for herself of course. I think that could have worked quite well in Uprooted, pity Nieshka was written to fall in love with her abuser. Oh well.