Uprooted Kindle Edition

' Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. 'Occasionally right when you read the first few pages of a book you know intuitively that you will love it. That is how this began for me. I KNEW right from the first paragraphs that I was going to crawl into this world and not come out until the story was complete and maybe not even then.I got lost in the world created between the covers of this story. It’s a new kind of fairytale where the hero isn’t perfect, handsome and sweet. Our hero the Dragon is a cranky Wizard who is all logic, solitude, prickles and thorns.' But there was something unnatural in his face: a crow’s-nest of lines by his eyes, as though years couldn’t touch him, but use did. It wasn’t an ugly face, even so, but coldness made it unpleasant: everything about him said, I am not one of you, and don’t want to be, either. 'Our heroine Agnieszka is the complete opposite of him. She is utterly clumsy, always a mess, stumbles into trouble completely by chance and saves herself the same way with intuition and feeling.' “You’ll have to marry a tailor, my little Agnieszka,” my father would say, laughing, when he came home from the forest at night and I went running to meet him, grubby-faced, with at least one hole about me, and no kerchief. He swung me up anyway and kissed me; my mother only sighed a little: what parent could really be sorry, to have a few faults in a Dragon-born girl? 'She is an absolute contradiction to his life and he hates that he picked her to come with him to the tower. But no one was more surprised than Agnieszka on the picking day because she had known her whole life that her best friend Kasia was the special one and would be chosen. She was unprepared for her new life in every way.The main villain isn’t your normal everyday bad guy either. It is hard to describe the villain accurately as it is more of a presence in the wood. The forest is a living breathing character in this story and it has evil in it, evil that is forever pushing the boundaries of the forest outward. If you aren’t careful you might travel to close to it and be snatched up yourself…once the forest has you it will never let you go. The corruption can go down into your very soul and those that have walked out of the forest are not the same people as those who walked in. *cue spooky sounds*- "There was a song in this forest, too, but it was a savage song, whispering of madness and tearing and rage."Uprooted has a very soft Beauty and the Beast feel to it, but do not be confused this is not a retelling of that story. This is a new fairytale full of wonderful imagery, magic, mystery and a touch of creepiness to it. No character is flat, every single important character in the story is intricate and complicated with feelings and motivations that are unfurled slowly throughout the story. This is a true journey through the world and each discovery is more interesting than the last.While there were so many things I absolutely adored in this story one of the main ones was Agnieszka learning how to use her magic and in turn how she was able to blend her magic with the dragons. Some of the most beautiful imagery in the book came out of them learning to work their completely different types of magic together to weave sometime even more beautiful, intricate and stronger than they could alone.' …our workings caught on one another, magic gushing into them. The rosebush began growing again, roots crawling off the table and vines climbing out the window. The bees became a humming swarm amid the flowers, each of them with oddly glittering eyes, wandering away. If I had caught one in my hands and looked closely, I would have seen in those eyes the reflection of all the roses it had touched. But I had no room in my head for bees, or roses, or spying; no room for anything but magic, the raw torrent of it and his hand my only rock. 'I don’t want to give too much of the story away because the journey is so worth it and should not be spoiled. Agnieszka’s devotion to her family, friends and valley made her one of my favorite heroines. She saw people for the imperfections that they have and loved them fiercely anyway. The relationship between Agnieszka and her best friend Kasia was absolute what a female friendship in a story should be. I loved them together and I am so greatful that the author didn’t make everything between them as friend picture perfect but it was real. Kasia’s fate in the story was unusual and fit perfectly into this fairytale.There are more characters and plots a foot but you must read it to find out about Prince Marek, who reminded me slightly of a more ¿likable? Gaston and I spent most of the book deciding if I absolutely hated him, just sorta hated him or possibly liked him. I did at least understand his motivations, no matter how misguided and selfish they seemed at times. Along with a King, a Queen, a Falcon (really another Wizard) and some other magical people to boot. So many fantastic characters I can’t even begin to touch on them all.This is everything I look for in a new Fantasy and while the entire story wraps up quite nicely I was sad when I looked and saw that this currently is a standalone novel. I would really enjoy spending more time here if the author is so inclined. Note: Even though the heroine is 17 don’t let that fool you this is not really a YA story (there is a non fade to black sex scene) and all the death and creepiness/horror factor I would say not really for anyone under the age of 16.Naomi Novik is now on my radar and I’m sure I’ll check out some of her other works.

It has been a while since a book captured me this much. I m kind of sad this isn't a series. Great world building and fantastic main character. Of you haven't read this yet you should. (Although beware, this book is hard to put down)

So I…didn’t love this as much as I wanted to. I was super intrigued by the concept of a Polish fairytale retelling! I had also read For the Wolf (which I believed used this as a comp title), and also Novik’s A Deadly Education. Even though I wasn’t a fan of either of the writing styles in those books, I had hoped that at least the story here would make up for it.It tells the story of young Agnieszka, who grew up with her friends and family in a small village surrounded by evil Woods. In order to keep the sinister magic at bay, a wizard known as the Dragon comes every 10 years to take a girl from the village. Agnieszka is chosen, and they battle the Woods’ evil together when it threatens to corrupt her village, and the people she loves.So, I enjoyed the beginning. A lot. It really sucked me in, made me want to know more…then once she got taken by the Dragon, it just fell apart for me from there. I admittedly lost interest about halfway through, but decided to push to the end anyway (also because my coworker kindly lent me her copy and I at least wanted to return it to her and say I finished it). I loved the concept. The writing was certainly beautiful at times, if not very info-dumpy and meandering.The characters and magic system lacked life, for me. I felt like none of them really had distinct personalities except for the Queen and the Dragon, and though I knew a little bit of our MC, I never really felt connected to her. It was written in first person so I should have been able to experience everything alongside her, instead of feeling like I was watching from a distance.The thing that got me the most was the supposed “romance”! I love romances! But this did not do it for me at all, sadly. The Dragon was an entirely unlikeable character (and not in the sexy bad-boy type way) AND he was hundreds of years older than Agnieszka (though he “looked young”…I’m not a fan of big age gap romances in general), AND he was really nasty to the MC. Verbally and emotionally abusive, even. I saw no reason why she was so attracted to him, except for Stockholm Syndrome. They had zero chemistry. I want to root for the characters to get together in a love story. I didn’t know WTF was going on here and why they were supposedly in love. I just kept picturing The Dragon (who isn’t really a Dragon) as a wrinkly old curmudgeon.I know Naomi Novik’s stories are loved by many, but perhaps her books are just not my thing, as much as I may love the concept.

Oh God, this book! It frustrated me no end, I had to force myself to keep on reading and it was so boring at times, I nearly fell asleep (which would have been a good thing).Let’s get on with it, shall we?The book is about a 17-year-old (or 18-year-old – frankly, I don’t care) girl who lives in a valley that is both haunted and protected by The Dragon. Haunted because every 10 years he visits the valley in which Agnieszka lives in order to pick a girl of his choice. He takes each girl with him to his lonely tower at the end of the valley and only releases her again after ten years. The only reason why the villagers continue to tolerate him is because he is a powerful wizard that keeps The Wood at bay. The Wood is a dark forest with a will of its own and it plans to devour every living being.It doesn’t take much imagination to figure that our main character is the next girl the Dragon captures to take with him. Naturally, she is surprised because she doesn’t think of herself as special, for the Dragon "always took the most special one, somehow: if there was one girl who was far and away the prettiest, or the most bright, or the best dancer, or especially kind, somehow he always picked her out.“ So the Dragon picks our main character this time. But she isn’t special! *gasp* She is just an ordinary girl, "a too-skinny colt of a girl with big feet and tangled dirt-brown hair“. But The Dragon picked *her*! Does that mean she is special? Surely, it must all be a big misunderstanding!Six pages in (not kidding, the quotes above are from pages 4 & 5) and I could already tick off two of my most-loathed tropes:1. special snowflake2. the pairing of a guy belonging to a high social class, wealthy, good-looking, mysterious + girl from low social background, who considers herself ugly and normal but somehow turns out to be special after all.Let’s continue on to the really problematic parts:First of all, the Dragon takes the girls by force. They don’t want to go with him but they have no choice. It’s the same thing for Agnieszka. It also doesn’t take much imagination to guess that the Dragon and she will have a romantic relationship. I don’t support any kind of relationships (especially romantic ones) that are based on physical/ emotional abuse, hate, or non-consent from either party. That’s what the Dragon does. He abuses Agnieszka emotionally, calls her names & insults her at every given point throughout the first half of the book. About a week after he abducted her, the Dragon accused her of being a wizard spy and "shoved [her] hard against the bed and bent low. […] His fingers were resting on [her] neck; his leg was on the bed, between [hers]." This is a physical attack but the author chose to load it with sexual tension and I just felt sooo uncomfortable. Sexual violence is a real thing, there are people who suffer from it on a daily basis and it has no place in a healthy relationship. Why did the author choose to use these exact words?? Again, this made me feel very uncomfortable.Another scene that caused me great consternation and raised eyebrows was when the main character is sexually assaulted by the prince of the kingdom who comes to pay a visit to the Dragon.The prince traps Agnieszka in her room, kisses her several times against her will and reaches for her skirts (p. 42). We get some insight into the character's thoughts and she literally thinks: "For that matter, I’d probably have been willing myself, if he’d asked me outright and given me enough time to get over my surprise and answer him: I struggled more by reflex than because I wanted to reject him.“ (This is taken straight from the book and occurs as early as chapter 3!).Oh BOY, that last sentence was absolutely the limit. She struggled more by reflex than because she wanted to reject him?? What is going on?? This gives the notion of her enjoying it or at least not minding a sexual assault. Bad. Very bad. I felt like puking. The media is already busy enough distorting the truth of sexual assault/ rape survivors, we don’t need fantasy books targeted at teenage girls to add to that.This is what brings me to my next point. Agnieszka confesses the attack to the Dragon and one of the first things he says is: “What were you thinking? Why did you put yourself into that ludicrous dress if you didn’t want to seduce him?” This is literally victim blaming. He blames her choice of clothing for the assault. In fact, he has more bad things to say about her than about her attacker. Yeah, right, as if there weren’t enough men who routinely use “if she didn’t want to get raped, she shouldn't have worn such short/ revealing clothes” as an excuse. NO!There was also no gradual development in their relationship. The Dragon literally goes from indifference to “hot and burning desire”. That’s about a third into the book. A THIRD! He only views her as a nuisance, calls her “puling” and spends his time insulting her. Completely believable.Agnieszka so often felt like a damsel in distress, she has no self-respect. She thinks of herself as a “mud-splattered scullery-maid”, continues to belittle herself, thinks of the Dragon as her “lord” and when I read: “I hadn’t even known those words were in me to be spoken; […] I would never have thought of speaking so to my lord, the Dragon”, I just wanted to scream “GIVE ME A BREAK!” Oh God, how I hated her attitude.Some things that didn’t make the cut for my review:- the Dragon has no personality whatsoever and let’s not talk about any form of character development- apparently the main character is so clumsy, she can’t go a single day without scorching, ripping or staining her clothes and at one point she even manages to wander in “with a clump of rice pudding on top of [her] head—[she] had accidentally hit a spoon with [her] elbow and flung some into the air—” I mean, PLEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASEEEEEEEEE- there was some really weird thing going on where it’s not direct speech and when other characters wouldn’t hear Agnieszka's thoughts but then the Dragon would reply to her (eg. 'I was increasingly aware of the weight of stone around us, of silence. It felt like a tomb. "It is a tomb,” he said.).What was that all about?? Avoid, AVOID.

I was eagerly waiting to start this based on some rave reviews and mentions of some prestigious awards that the book has won. I just recently finished reading The Mirror Visitor and was blown away by that gem, so after one unique fantasy I was dreaming to get into some more magic and romance and adventure and thought that this one would be a perfect book to dive into after the previous one.Unfortunately, I was very disappointed.The premise itself ( village at the edge of the woods, magical powers, a dark wizard etc.) is all well and good, and I like that sort of fantasy environment.Now the writing itself though, I was doing a 'facepalm' after 'facepalm', and yes, yet again, another 'facepalm'. Nothing flows, first-person prose made me cringe so many times.First-person perspective is hard to get right in the first place and the last book which I found to have believable and comprehensive First-Person view was The Hunger Games book trilogy. However in this one, I honestly thought that I was reading a teenager's attempt at writing fan fiction, instead of a professionally published and edited literary piece composed by a fully grown professional writer.Sentence structure was choppy and in some places I had to concentrate just to try to understand how the writer was imagining a certain scene since the sentences were not well written, or at least not written in a way that portrays a scene logically. Therefore, it would have been wiser for the writer to opt for third-person perspective.Character wise, I was disappointed to discover that the main character did indeed embody a cliched female protagonist of a YA novel. I was honestly expecting more.The 'I'm a 17 year old special girl with magical powers' thing has been overdone to oblivion and frankly I should have known better, but again, was feeling hopeful and optimistic about this one based on all the Awards and marketing.So maybe, the main protagonist would have appeared more real if she was in her mid 20's instead? In her interests, and the depth of her personality she wasn't developed enough for my liking.Though I found that I liked the male protagonist, The Dragon and found him interesting enough.Supporting characters could have been further developed as well.The romance angle - I have seen this type of romantic story play out ten times better in half a dozen other books with better character development and world building. A mediocre effort in my opinion. A dark romance is refreshing and intriguing, only if done right and well written.So in conclusion, it felt more to me like the marketing department did a far better job at selling the book then the writer at actually composing it. The cover is beautiful so it'll still look nice on my shelf.No offense to the writer at all, but I have really read much better fantasy/romance/magic stories.

A wonderful folktale inspored fantasy I thoroughly enjoyed this tale. I will say I can understand why this wouldnt be for everyone as its written like a Young Adult book and the girls in the story dont get to much depth. For me I enjoyed the world to much and could forgive the lack of depth to the characters as its written like a folktale.One of the things I loved and I saw a reviewer point out is how the two main characters are together its quite like how belle and the beast are in beauty and the beast, where ones stubborn and ones grumpy and the friction between the characters that creates which I loved. I liked that Agnieszka seems to always be a mess, its not even that she cooks and gets most pf it over her its even things like standing in a dress in no time itll have mud on it or get a rip in it, this flaw of hers is a nice constant "flaw" of hers throught the story that has every one around her annoyed/ exasperated. The fact that this is a stand alone works in its favour as the book has a nice fast pace to it though this does sacrifice a little bit of world building with regards to explaing the magic or more about the wider world it really isnt missed. Agnieszka doesnt need to know how the magic works though little bits and peices are revealed to give a bit about how it works which was enough for me i feel the slight mystery of it helps with the folktale vibe of the story.

I should know better by now. If I pick up a book way too many times, it's a lost cause. Especially since the first picking up happened sometimes in 2019. And it took me six days to read 400 pages - seemed like 800, to be honest.Let's start with the characters. The reason why I couldn't continue reading was because of the Dragon, the so-called hero of the book. I was perplexed as I saw another reader saying how much they laughed at this book. I have not cracked one smile, my friends, not a one. So he's an a-hole to rival all a-holes - for the hell of it, it seems. No real reason, truly. I think he just woke up in the morning and thought, 'Today, I shall be an even bigger a-hole than yesterday.' That must have been his life goal.Moving along. Agnieszka. Oh dear, where to start with her? So, she wasn't supposed to get chosen. Why? Because she's not pretty. It's always the pretty ones that get chosen by the Dragon, to live ten years with him - we find out, toward the end why he does it - then go free, like sophisticated butterflies because the Dragon educates them or whatever. Point is, they are no longer simple village girls. So, Agnieszka gets chosen because she has powers the Dragon decides to bring forth.This is where I would always put it aside, then try continuing, always failing. I think what was really disappointing was the so-called 'love story' between these two. I quickly realized that this author's definition of 'love' differs from mine and hey, to each their own! I think, this time around, I managed to continue reading it - painfully slowly - because I have put aside the silly idea of ever liking these two characters and of falling for them, as a couple. The idea, itself, wasn't the worst I've encountered but by God, the author's writing style makes it seem like I'm reading a never-ending book. I swear, I had one hundred pages left and, even though I kept on reading, it became harder and harder to care, to reach the big conclusion because it felt like more and more pages were magically popping up, after the initial one hundred.I think the only character I liked was Agnieszka's best friend but her name eludes me, so sorry. Anyway, I can't say I recommend it but you can give it a try, if you like.2.5 stars.

I chose this book because one of the book bloggers I follow (Chelsea at The Suspense is Thrilling Me) was raving about it and we have similar taste in books. Anyway, I absolutely adored it and now Naomi Novik is one of my favourite authors.When I began reading Uprooted it reminded me at first of a cross between Beauty and the Beast and Howl's Moving Castle. It starts, very cleverly, with the tale of a village by a wood, guarded by a Dragon who chooses a maiden every ten years to take back to his tower. Our heroine, Agnieszka, is confident he won't choose her, because she's messy and clumsy and outspoken - surely he'll pick her pretty friend Kasia instead?The first trick the author plays on us is that the Dragon is actually a very powerful wizard, and the plans he has for those girls he's taking from the village are not quite what everyone believes...As the story develops it grows into something different, into its own fairy tale, about a Wood that corrupts and why, and the battle between what lives there and those who want to raze it to the ground. Rather than having a beginning, middle and end, Uprooted is almost episodic, detailing Agneiszka's adventures as she learns to work with the Dragon to help her people and solve the mystery of the Wood's power.Uprooted is a YA fantasy with crossover appeal, and while there is a bit of a romance it is mainly about Agneiszka's journey as she learns more about her surroundings and herself. It is a thoroughly enchanting story and I loved the characters, especially Agneiszka and Sarkan, and the unusual ending, which I won't spoil for you. The only parts that left me cold were the battle scenes, because that's not my thing, and sometimes Agneiszka seemed a bit immature - but then Uprooted is YA and I'm not the target audience!One of my favourite reads this year!