Uprooted

eBook, 439 pages

English language

Published May 18, 2015 by Del Ray.

ISBN:
978-0-8041-7904-1
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4 stars (152 reviews)

“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. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for …

6 editions

Super roman dans son ensemble !

4 stars

J'ai adoré le personnage principal et sa relation avec son amie. Là où il y aurait pu avoir de la jalousie entre Kasia et Agnieszka parce que cette dernière à été choisie alors que tout portait à croire que ce serait Kasia, il y avait à la place de la solidarité et une très belle amitié. J'aime bien (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠✧⁠*⁠。

L'histoire est sympa aussi. Droite au but, le monde sert au scénario et le scénario sert au monde. Le Worldbuilding n'est peut-être pas ultra développé mais il est cohérent et surtout suffisamment expliqué pour que les difficultés et le solutions d'Agnieszka ne ressemblent à des Deus Ex Machina. Donc très bien pour moi, il m'a fait rêver (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)

Pour ce qui est de l'écriture, rien à redire. C'est compréhensible, c'est lisible, c'est pas compliqué à lire et ça m'a fait autant rêver que le monde donc pouce en l'air pour cette …

'Uprooted' by Naomi Novik

4 stars

This book is very, very close to perfect. Novik's prose is stunning. Reading Uprooted felt like watching the Howl's Moving Castle movie again. In fact, this book felt very similar to Howl's Moving Castle, with a bit more of the plot happening outside of the tower.

The characters in this book were stunning. I thought Sarkan was goofy in the best way possible (he's the most serious character ever, lol), and adored Kasia. Even the villain was written so beautifully I felt her connections to the valley in the way I feel connected to my own home. There are so many themes of love and connection in this book that reading it filled me with so much joy. It was genuinely difficult to put down, that hasn't happened to me in ages.

I've read some other reviews for this book (the one-stars seem popular) and I definitely see where they're …

My book of the month!

5 stars

I added Uprooted to my TBR list two and a half years ago when a now-defunct book blog raved about it. I was intrigued by the synopsis and their enthusiasm, but promptly got distracted with other books and forgot all about it. What a mistake! When I finally got to reading Uprooted this week, I absolutely loved every page. Essentially a young adult/adult fairytale, Uprooted is set in a richly detailed land of witches and wizards, malevolent forests, and tiny village communities. Its era is that any-time of Grimm fairy tales and Novik's story, although newly written, has a wonderfully timeless quality.

Agnieszka is a refreshingly different female lead - untidy and clumsy, talented and self willed. I appreciated seeing her mature throughout the novel, but growing in to her own woman - not becoming a painted clone of idealised femininity! Despite men holding the positions of power in this …

what a blast

5 stars

Initially took me a few days to get started (probably too tired), but then finished it in a couple of days. Really fun inner dialog of main character, nice pace and very nice first encounter with this author (I know, I know, I'm late to the party and now have to read all her other books..)

Review of 'Uprooted' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

величезний потенціял, і такі ж грандіозні «діри»... цю казку для дорослих хочеться полюбити — але авторка зробила все, щоби зіпсувати читачеві враження.

п.с. і так, чорти забирай, звідки там хрещення?! ані слова про християнство, чи навіть якісь інші релігії — але є хрещення?! панове писаки, ви вмієте здивувати.

Review of 'Uprooted' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Dark woods, a questionable wizard, a troubled kingdom, a witch learning her power, and a friend.

Novik's work is quick-paced, centered on the heroine, Agnieszka, and how she learns and develops her powers. While contending with callous wizards. Oh, and trying to convince them that, no, really, that dark forest really should be dealt with, and now would be very good, thank you very much.

Features lots of twists and surprises, and much more enjoyable than Novik's His Majesty's Dragon.

Review of 'Uprooted' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

So my "recommended to me" notes for Uprooted were " A feminist twist on an Eastern European fairytale with interesting characters and a compelling magic system" and, it's...mostly as billed. But my personal kryptonite is immortal (or super old) character falls in love with a teenager. It bursts through my suspension of disbelief, my engagement with a book and just makes me want to set everything on fire. To add insult to injury, Uprooted also repeats the "guy is super dismissive to girl and she falls in love with him anyway" trope that I first met in Spinning Silver. In Spinning Silver it was haunting and evocative of the frozen tundra of the setting. Seeing it again from the same author? I think it's just her schtick and it made me not like Spinning Silver as much in retrospect. I resent that a lot.

But there are other parts of …

Review of 'Uprooted' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

This book has many of the fairytale elements I love. However, I devoured the book to distract myself, and in turn got distracted from the book, so I'm not sure if I didn't like some of the action scenes because I didn't follow them or the other way around.
I found myself surprised by loving the magic in this story even though it seems like a very soft magic in terms of the rules for how it works, how random it is for what it can and cannot do. I guess it comes down to very craft-full foreshadowing in that the magic never felt Deus-ex-y.
I love me some tree people though.

Review of 'Uprooted' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Novik can write. So there's that.

This is a light thing, a romance - I don't mean love although there is that too.

It is a heavy thing, monstrosities lurking beneath clear waters.

At first reading it seems to be running in Angela Carter territory, and to be informed by Maria Tatar, Jack Zipes and Marian Warner.

Now I've read it for the second time. It's as if Granny Weatherwax were to have been apprenticed to one of the professors at the Unseen University. Novik does rather labour her binarities : Apollonian vs Dionysian, male vs female, particular vs universal and so on. There's also a sense that the author changes her mind about what to do with certain of her characters; the King and the Crown Prince are set up as actors and then just drop out of the tale. Similarly, one of the court wizards is introduced in …

Review of 'Uprooted' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author's voice has a real eastern European flavor, and it was refreshing to read a voice like that in a fantasy story. The magic and the mythos in this book were all satisfying and fun. The writing was good and solid. I recommend this book.

Review of 'Uprooted' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This seems to be one of those very polarizing books where you love it or hate it, and nothing in between. Personally, I loved it; I started it on the weekend and had about 100 pages left when I had to go to work this morning. Couldn't stop thinking about the plot all the way through work, and couldn't wait to get home again to finally finish it off. Based on the multiple prestigious awards it's won, I'm clearly not alone in this. If you enjoy beautifully written fairy tale stories with a bit of darkness - if you loved Robin McKinley's "Door in the Hedge" for example - you'll likely adore this book. If, on the other hand, you prefer the sunny Disney versions of fairy tales, or you find the Beauty and the Beast romance deeply troublesome, you probably won't like this.

I have to admit the heroine …

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