Uprooted

by Naomi Novik

[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.