The immediate and visceral danger the Wood presents throughout the book makes this book an especially intense, seat-of-your-pants read. The Wood is an aware, thinking entity, and nowhere and no one is safe from its reach, not even the royal family living in the faraway capital. Eat the wrong berries, come into contact with the wrong tree, bush, or creature, and you either become a rabid monster or fodder for the grossly distorted and foul heart trees that serve as the Wood’s anchor points. I loved the Wood-it is a dark, creepy, terrifying, horrific entity whose ever-encroaching presence neither the villagers or we the readers are ever allowed to forget. The Grimm fairytale-ness of Uprooted is fantastic. As Agnieszka becomes entangled in a life-or-death game of political intrigue, she and the Dragon have to contend with the power of the Wood, capable of reaching into faraway capital and the palace itself. As Agnieszka’s strength and power grow, the Wood too grows ever more daring and bold, seeking to expand beyond its borders, swallow the villages, and expand beyond the mountain range. The Dragon, a cantankerous, acerbic, and fussy academic, makes for a difficult housemate, yet he continues to defy Agnieszka’s expectations when he insists on teaching her magic. On the day of choosing, no one is more stunned than Agnieszka when the Dragon, defying all expectations, picks her instead, the girl who loves roaming in the outdoors and can’t go five minutes without making a mess of her clothes. However she and everyone in her village knows he’s going to choose her best friend Kasia, including Kasia herself, the smartest, prettiest, and bravest girl of them all. Seventeen-year-old Agnieszka is one of the potential girls the Dragon might pick this year. All the villagers are grateful for the Dragon’s presence, but no one knows what he wants with these girls, what does with them, or why they never come home. The Dragon is a powerful wizard, the only defense the villagers have against the monsters and plagues that emerge from the Wood to corrupt and claim the land as its own.

When her time’s up, she never comes back home, instead heading off to the cities.

My thoughts? Are mixed.Įvery ten years, the Dragon chooses a girl from one of the villages on the outskirts of the Wood, and for a decade she lives with him in his tower. So I went and put a hold on it at the library. Napoleonic battles? Not so much.) But Uprooted has been this year’s standalone fantasy novel that seemingly everyone on the Internet was raving about, and then I saw several of my favorite authors had provided blurbs. I hadn’t intended to read Uprooted -I’d read His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik’s first book in her fantasy/alt-history series a couple years ago, and while I liked her writing just fine, my reaction to the book itself was lukewarm.

Uprooted naomi novik review