Uprooted in Reading with Style

Dec 26, 2020 ☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ rated it it was amazing

Q:
“You intolerable lunatic,” he snarled at me, and then he caught my face between his hands and kissed me. (c)
Q:
He looked grander than the king’s ballroom, and perfectly improbable. (c)

What would happen if many fairy tales crossed over into each other? Looks like this is an experiment in that. We got allusions to:
- The Dragon tales (you know, the princesses being taken by dragons and kept for some or other sort of nefarious or not exacyly nefarious purposes)
- The Beauty and the Beast
- a tiny bit ...more

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Aug 27, 2015 Charlotte rated it liked it · review of another edition

So remember that time I read Crimson Bound and absolutely hated it? This was pretty much the exact same book but with a prettier cover. Okay, maybe not the exact same book but a lot of it was very similar and I ended up disliking this one almost as much.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik is a standalone adult fantasy novel loosely based on the Beauty and the Beast fairytale with a handful of other stories mixed in. It follows a 17-year-old village girl called Agnieska who lives in a valley ruled by a wizar So remember that time I read Crimson Bound and absolutely hated it? This was pretty much the exact same book but with a prettier cover. Okay, maybe not the exact same book but a lot of it was very similar and I ended up disliking this one almost as much.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik is a standalone adult fantasy novel loosely based on the Beauty and the Beast fairytale with a handful of other stories mixed in. It follows a 17-year-old village girl called Agnieska who lives in a valley ruled by a wizard called the Dragon. Every ten years the Dragon takes a girl to his tower to be his slave and this time everyone expects him to take Agnieska’s beautiful best friend Kasia. Obviously he doesn’t and so Agnieska is whisked away unprepared into a completely new life.

Now, after I read that synopsis I was expecting Uprooted to be about the relationship between Agnieska and the Dragon after she is taken to live with him. I was expecting romance like A Court of Thorns and Roses (another fairytale retelling I didn’t get on with) and a lot of back story as to why he takes these girls. I didn’t get any of that. The plot hasn’t really got a lot to do with that side of things at all and is actually about a sinister enchanted Wood that is slowly devouring the Kingdom, rather like the Forest in Crimson Bound. I couldn’t get my head around a lot of the magic and I didn’t understand the threat enough to ever really feel anything other than confusion. There were hints of the story I wanted but it went in a direction that I didn’t like and I found myself getting frustrated at the lack of romantic development between the two main characters.

The romance is flat and unbelievable but worse than that it glamorizes emotional abuse which made me really angry. The Dragon is rude, aggressive and just downright mean to Agnieska and yet she still falls in love with him. WHAT IS THERE TO LOVE?! He repeatedly tells her she is stupid, annoying, plain etc. and she just allows him to do it and then rewards him by throwing herself at him. It’s awful and I really don’t think it’s healthy for people to read about a relationship like this where one person treats the other so badly. This book is marketed as Adult Fantasy but it seems to be more of a crossover Adult/YA title and so it will undoubtedly fall into the hands of many impressionable teenagers. Do we really want to teach our kids that it is acceptable to fall in love with a person who constantly puts you down and makes you feel bad about yourself? I really didn’t like him. I also didn’t think Agnieska was a particularly strong heroine. She was very immature and constantly thinking about how plain and clumsy she is, especially compared to Kasia. I’d rather read about someone with confidence who isn’t ashamed of who they are, even if they aren’t the most beautiful or the most skilled at what they do. There is a bit of character development where she is concerned so it isn’t too bad but I really don’t like the way everyone in the village was brought up to believe they were somehow less important than Kasia.

Something I’ve noticed a lot of people have said about this book is that they felt the pacing was too fast and that there wasn’t any downtime in between the big events of the story. I didn’t particularly notice that but I did find that it really dragged in the middle, then picked up slightly and then trailed off again. In fact I’d probably say I thought it was too slow, if anything. Even though there was a lot going on it was still incredibly dull. I just couldn’t bring myself to pick it up and read it sometimes and if I’m honest I’d have to say I was bored for a lot of it. I’d read maybe three pages and my eyelids would be drooping or I’d be reaching for my phone. I never skim read but I do quite often zone out whilst reading if I’m not really feeling it and I probably did that for the last 100 pages or so because I really didn’t understand or care what was happening.

I really don’t know how it went so wrong. I loved it for about 100 pages and then all of a sudden I hated it. It took me over a week to read and by the last day I was absolutely fed up of it and forcing myself to finish. I know we are all always on the lookout for standalone fantasy novels but Uprooted would have been so much better as a trilogy. There was room for much more character development and exploration of the history of the Wood as well as a real need for better descriptions and world-building in general. I never felt like I knew any of the characters (especially the lesser side characters) and I had difficulty picturing the world for most of the book. Everything was really rushed and a lot of things were glossed over in order to fit it all in and wrap it up nicely in one volume. I think if it had been split into three there could have been a whole book devoted to Agnieska and the Dragon in the tower, then a sequel following their journey into the Wood and then a conclusion with the big showdown at the end. It was too much for a 400-page book and as a result most things were lacking substance and it felt underdeveloped and flat. I had really high hopes for Uprooted and I am disappointed that I didn’t enjoy it as much as a lot of other people did. The potential was there for it to be a really wonderful modern day fairytale but unfortunately, for me at least, it really missed the mark.

I’d still recommend Uprooted if you read a lot in this genre but I would lower your expectations going into it because I think you will enjoy it more if you ignore the hype and just take it for what it is. ...more

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Feb 04, 2017 GONZA rated it liked it

Shelves: ebk, otherland

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 18, 2015 Tanya Patrice rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebook, winter

What an amazingly unique, deep, magical, beautifully written book! The World building is so thorough that I wanted to submerse myself in it every chance I got.

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Jun 15, 2015 Charlotte marked it as to-read

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