Uprooted

Product Information

Agnieszka worries for her best friend, Kasia, who is the most beautiful girl in the village. Everyone is sure Kasia will be snatched up by the Dragon at the next Choosing. Instead, much to her surprise, Agnieszka is chosen to serve the Dragon, and that's when she discovered how dark and frightening the world really is. WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL •NAOMI NOVIK, author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.

I wrote this review 5 years ago at the age of 17. I don't think my opinion of this book has ever changed. I still do maintain my stance as to why I thoroughly disliked reading this book, but now that I'm at a much older age than I was before, I'd like to give a disclaimer to not let the extreme profanities my 17-year-old self had wrote to translate through your opinion of the story, characters, etc. You see, Uprooted tries to to lure you in with it's rather gorgeous and intriguing front cover, and admittedly, I was rather excited when I'd read the plot. But now, I feel like I've been totally conned. Conned out of five hours of my precious reading time, but most importantly, time out my life.

Become a Member

The writing style for me was below average. It was mediocre, tiresome and there was absolutely nothing special about it. There were so many unnecessary paragraphs in the book, mainly consisting of pointless descriptions that I quite easily could have done without reading. all of that and there’s nothing overt that i can point to and say “ that’s where it lost me. that’s what i didn’t like.” it wasn’t that it was unenjoyable or a chore to read, it just never made my readerheart sparkle. hmmmm...you are a tree, you have leaves. You grow branches...You are a tree...grow...grow...You are a tree and have leaves and branches...You are a tree...hmmm

That was the end of the story: no one went into the Wood and came out again, at least not whole and themselves. Sometimes they came out blind and screaming, sometimes they came out twisted and so misshapen they couldn’t be recognized; and worst of all sometimes they came out with their own faces but murder behind them, something gone dreadfully wrong within.” Let's see how Raising Caine, The Grace of Kings, and Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard fare, shall we? :) It made me smile because it sounds a little like the premise for Cruel Beauty (which I loved) and A Court of Thorns and Roses (which I didn't love), but it's better and different than either of those. There's a touch of the romantic (and the heart-poundingly sexy), but Novik is both a tease and someone not concerned about being PG - which made the book infinitely better on that front than either of the other two mentioned. 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. The beginning of the story started out really nicely in a whimsical fairytale sort of way. I thought this will be the next best thing to add into my Favourites shelf. But by the time I reached past 5 - 8% I had already lose my interest and started to wish that I had never, ever bothered with this.

although i know, with my logic-brain and my experiences and my readers’ advisory training, that not every book is going to “work” for every reader, i always feel a little bit guilty, a little bit broken, when a wildly popular book i had every expectation of loving falls short for me. a b c Nepveu, Kate (10 June 2015). "Naomi Novik's Uprooted Isn't The Book I Expected — It's Better". Tor.com . Retrieved 12 November 2022. Sooo this just got awkward cause all I remember are the cons. But there are pros, I just can't really remember them. I mean, it couldn't have been that terrible, I did finish it, so there's that. Also, the story is good but I just didn't like how it was told. And the Wood is creepy (not buts here). Yeah...I'm shutting up now.

I'm glad," I said, with an effort, refusing to let my mouth close up with jealousy. It wasn't that I wanted a husband and a baby; I didn't, or rather, I only wanted them the way I wanted to live to a hundred someday, far off, never thinking about the particulars. But they meant life : she was living, and I wasn't. Novik here delivers a tale that is funny and fast-paced, laced with hair-raising battle scenes and conspiracies; it also touches on deeper ecological concerns we grapple with today.” — The Washington Post This is one of the few books in the last year that managed to captivate me. From the opening paragraph this story grabs and hauls you off into the wonders of darkly wooded world and just as sincerely holds you captive. Ms. Novik did everything right here. There’s no learning curve, as the story starts small, simple, and yet captivating. The the reader is introduced to a pleasant and likable young woman, whose life is drastically altered, not in some horrible way, but rather in an unexpectedly nice way. Such things don’t usually happen in fantasy stories. Nice characters, nice places, pleasant events—almost sounds boring, only it isn’t. Quite the contrary, I was far more fascinated and riveted by this not-miserable place and kindly people than in any other fantasy book I’ve read in decade.

Success!

And Ag-noying (my new name for her) is just so...so...ordinary! At seventeen I was still a too-skinny colt of a girl with big feet and tangled dirt-brown hair, and my only gift, if you could call it that, was I would tear or stain or lose anything put on me between the hours of one day.You don't say! Instead of being tired, though, I actually looked forward to learning the magic and discovering how all of it worked, or didn't work in her case, and I plainly enjoyed the dichotomy as it revealed itself. Words and reason versus song and intuition. So. Yeah. Already prejudiced against the Strangle-Trees ( or whatever they're called) in this story. Content advisory: strong scenes of death and violence, including war and supernatural violence. Some sexual content, mildly explicit. Left to his own devices, he would never have chosen her as his new companion, but Agnieszka has magic, and the King's Law states that any found with the talent must be trained, so choose her he does.