Review - Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Series: Standalone

Genre: Fantasy

Age Group: Adult

Hardcover - 435pgs

Source: Purchased

Published: May 2015

Add it // Buy it

Rating: 5/5

“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 his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose. 

Even though this book sounded interesting to me, I never expected to fall head over heels for it the way that I did. This book kept me on my toes and was the perfect magical fantasy story with just a touch of romance. I was really impressed with the turns this story took. From the description I was expecting most of this story to take place in the tower, but the story was much more complex than a simple fairy tale retelling.

The world is expertly built. Not only is the magic rich and interesting, I loved watching Agnieszka learn the magic and how she brought her own personality to her magic. The world is stunning. I wish this story was a series to continue to explore the world and spend time with the characters except this story was perfect.

The best part of this book was Agnieszka and Kaisa's friendship. I was continually impressed how Novik changed this story and subverted my expectations. The one thing she never waivered from was their friendship. It was an essential and grounding part of the story for both characters.

To put it simply, I loved this book. I haven't felt the kind of whole hearted joy at the end of a book like I did for this one in a long time. I can't wait to read more from Novik and will be picking up more of her books in the future.