Reviews with content warning for Slavery - Enraizados

Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Enraizados by Naomi Novik

9 reviews

timbsy's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

astrangewind's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings

acechemicals's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

ladyethyme's review against another edition

Go to review page

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

I would honestly give this a negative star if I could. The fact that this is catered toward YA readers for me is absolutely revolting.

Tedious and mediocre storytelling. The pacing was a complete slag. Some of the narrative itself was written relatively well, everything else in this book suffers.

Completely flat and one dimensional characters. Mary Sue main female character, a VERY special snowflake, with absolutely no explanation as to how her magic even works. She just speaks the words and somehow it happens. But she's so clumsy! And plain! And has super special magic powers! Where have we read this before…🙄

The entire magic system is honestly completely ridiculous.

Emotionally absent and abusive love interest, with literally zero chemistry between the protagonists. He's a completely arrogant, entitled, abusive, narcissistic asshole for no apparent reason, other than the fact that he wants to be one.

'The Dragon' continuously insults her, berates her, yet she she falls for him. Literally forces her to wear things she doesn't want to, she's sick and exhausted but he forces her to clean up her own vomit, and serve him without any instructions or help whatsoever. Se literally crawls on her hands and knees back up to her tower room. And he forced her to do this.

But she falls for him. Because "reasons".

He snarls and insult her, call her names, and then forces her to kiss him. The sex scene comes out of absolutely nowhere; it is so inappropriate and disturbing to the point I really wonder about this author's mental health.

Abuse is not romantic. I don't care how many authors try to make it sexy and romantic. It's not.

Content Warnings