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vereadsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
1.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Confinement, Rape, and Sexual assault
helliepad's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
It has everything I wanted to read for the past few months– fairytale elements, evil cop-killing crop-poisoning forest, real dirty grungy heroines, homoerotic bestfriendship between two women that isn't fraught due to another guy, mothers both young and old, wizards in towers, wizards who fuck, wizards who don't fuck but do fuck around, wizards who found out, princes who are stupidly arrogant and dead , princes who are noble and dead , multiple nuanced queens, magic rivers that end nowhere, baba yaga's footnotes, rotten fruit you can't help but eat, extra large praying mantises , the first forays into video calling technology, the indescribable power of people never leaving their homes despite danger and the threat to life, and rehabilitation after great environmental disasters.
10/10 would recommend and read other of Naomi Novik's works honestly
10/10 would recommend and read other of Naomi Novik's works honestly
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual content and Sexual harassment
Minor: Abandonment
lydiazwag's review against another edition
Main plot was dull and unengaging. Romance was also dull as well as really toxic and gross. 17 year old mentee who has basically been kidnapped by hundreds of years old emotionally abusive, cold wizard mentor who basically kidnapped her. And you're telling me they're falling in love?? No, ew! Also, he's boring.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, and Sexual harassment
brittbee07's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
I really wanted to love this book, but the pacing was all wrong, and the book was too long.
Right from the start, I was able to predict the major plot points well before they happened. I don't mind this in a story, I like to be able to work bits and pieces out, but it felt like I was able to work every major plot point out before it happened because the points weren't original.
The characters were okay. The relationships were okay. The climax was okay. It was, honestly, just an okay book overall. Nothing special.
Right from the start, I was able to predict the major plot points well before they happened. I don't mind this in a story, I like to be able to work bits and pieces out, but it felt like I was able to work every major plot point out before it happened because the points weren't original.
The characters were okay. The relationships were okay. The climax was okay. It was, honestly, just an okay book overall. Nothing special.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Death of parent, and War
elanuruysal's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Sexual assault, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Vomit
timbsy's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Sexual assault, Sexual content, War, and Classism
Minor: Slavery and Vomit
sonderwolfreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
This book does a good job of subverting classic Western fairytale tropes, while bringing older and lesser-known fairytale elements to a new audience. It has a good balance of plot elements, and doesn't let its sub-plots shove their way into the spotlight when the main plot is what needs to move forward. Its protagonists are smart but can't see the big picture until near the end, and its antagonists see the whole chess board but lose their grip on the little things that keep a game going. It's a compelling opposition, and it makes the reader consider the value of both large and small scale aspects of life and mortality. Some characters and plot elements that felt unresolved even when the text explicitly specified what happened to them, but otherwise this is a very good book well worth reading.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Minor: Sexual content and Sexual harassment
There is very little sexual content, most of it is fade to black and the sexual harassmenthotwaterbottle's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.75
As someone who grew up reading endless variations of fairy tales and folk tales, I absolutely love Uprooted as a new addition to an old genre.
Novik crafts a story that feels right at home with other fairy tales: a farm girl, a wizard who lives in a tower, a malevolent forest. As a result, it includes fairy tale trappings that can disorient a modern reader: magical items that suddenly appear, a main character working off of instinct rather than strategy. It's also a story that doesn't shy away from the ugly bits that don't make it into songs, like the deaths of foot soldiers whose names you'll never learn.
Particularly memorable:
- The descriptions of the many awful ways the Wood twists its victims
- Kasia and Agnieszka recognizing and working through the complicated feelings regarding who is chosen
- Agnieszkafiguring out that the Dragon is all bark, no bite and then doing whatever she wants
Novik crafts a story that feels right at home with other fairy tales: a farm girl, a wizard who lives in a tower, a malevolent forest. As a result, it includes fairy tale trappings that can disorient a modern reader: magical items that suddenly appear, a main character working off of instinct rather than strategy. It's also a story that doesn't shy away from the ugly bits that don't make it into songs, like the deaths of foot soldiers whose names you'll never learn.
Particularly memorable:
- The descriptions of the many awful ways the Wood twists its victims
- Kasia and Agnieszka recognizing and working through the complicated feelings regarding who is chosen
- Agnieszka
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Sexual assault, War, and Injury/Injury detail
astrangewind's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Uprooted comes alive on the page, the magic seeming to come alive on my fingers where they touch the page, alive. Novik's ability to translate the ephemeral into tangible - Agnieszka's magic likened to gleaning the forest for berries, and Sarkan's to academia - is unparalleled. I almost believed I could cast a spell myself after looking up from the pages.
So, too, do Novik's characters come alive, leaping with life. It's hard to not love Agnieszka's scrappy defiance, Sarkan's dry wit, Kasia's unwavering devotion.
This book begins by recounting a tale of the Dragon taking a girl from the valley into his tower every ten years, but Uprooted is not so simple. The story starts with the Dragon, but then winds itself through the valley, the whole of Polnya, into the Wood; then folds back on itself, layering life and violence and beauty and corruption into an intricate web. Just when you think the story is getting good, just when you think there's going to be the climax, there's still dozens to hundreds of pages left, leaving you thinking, What could possibly happen next? And then you peel back layer after layer, finally settling down onto the mossy forest floor, looking at the sun dappling through the leaves, boughs heavy with fruit.
There's a reason this book isn't a 5.0 for me, though: the love interest. I'll spoiler tag it, but it's really not that much of a spoiler:Agnieszka and Sarkan. The story goes that the Dragon kidnaps a girl from the valley and locks her up in his tower . How am I supposed to jive with that? That's not even mentioning that fact that he is 8 times her age. When they meet, she is seventeen goddamn years old, and he is at least 150. How do I know that? It's brought up more than once. When they finally sleep together, he even protests, saying that he's way too old. Honestly, that makes it even worse, like he's absolved of all blame just because he mentions the one-hundred-year age gap, but goes along with it anyway. Even though I love them both as characters, and by the end I was aching to see them together, it doesn't sit right with me to read the really old guy falling in love with the mature-for-her-age child. (Besides, Kasia was the obvious choice for Agnieszka , anyway. Why are we so afraid of putting gay people in our fantasy?)
That said, this is a truly beautiful book, and I enjoyed it very much.
So, too, do Novik's characters come alive, leaping with life. It's hard to not love Agnieszka's scrappy defiance, Sarkan's dry wit, Kasia's unwavering devotion.
This book begins by recounting a tale of the Dragon taking a girl from the valley into his tower every ten years, but Uprooted is not so simple. The story starts with the Dragon, but then winds itself through the valley, the whole of Polnya, into the Wood; then folds back on itself, layering life and violence and beauty and corruption into an intricate web. Just when you think the story is getting good, just when you think there's going to be the climax, there's still dozens to hundreds of pages left, leaving you thinking, What could possibly happen next? And then you peel back layer after layer, finally settling down onto the mossy forest floor, looking at the sun dappling through the leaves, boughs heavy with fruit.
There's a reason this book isn't a 5.0 for me, though: the love interest. I'll spoiler tag it, but it's really not that much of a spoiler:
That said, this is a truly beautiful book, and I enjoyed it very much.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Violence, and War
Moderate: Animal death, Sexual content, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Confinement, Slavery, Vomit, and Classism
loveat1stwrite's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I really enjoyed this book. The prose, world building, and plot were so well developed.
This doesn't get the full 5 stars because Sarkan gives me the ick and he becomes a love interest. There is a really underdeveloped romance that includes him, but it didn't ruin the experience for me. My icks aside, a huge part of his character is that he has commitment issues and doesn't ever want to put down roots. So the fact that his relationship is underdeveloped is kind of the whole point of this flaw.
I really adored the main character, her perspective on life, and how she handles the "big bad" of this novel. Uprooted really plays with genre expectations. Good and Bad, chivalrous vs. conniving... they're their but they might come from non-traditional sources. I think you have to keep an open mind going into this book, but it is a fantastic read.
This doesn't get the full 5 stars because Sarkan gives me the ick and he becomes a love interest. There is a really underdeveloped romance that includes him, but it didn't ruin the experience for me. My icks aside, a huge part of his character is that he has commitment issues and doesn't ever want to put down roots. So the fact that his relationship is underdeveloped is kind of the whole point of this flaw.
I really adored the main character, her perspective on life, and how she handles the "big bad" of this novel. Uprooted really plays with genre expectations. Good and Bad, chivalrous vs. conniving... they're their but they might come from non-traditional sources. I think you have to keep an open mind going into this book, but it is a fantastic read.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Alcohol