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Loading... Uprootedby Naomi Novik
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Best Fantasy Novels (152) » 36 more Books Read in 2016 (72) Books Read in 2017 (68) Books Read in 2018 (53) Favourite Books (356) Five star books (133) Top Five Books of 2016 (128) Books Read in 2022 (295) Top Five Books of 2020 (617) Books Read in 2015 (395) Female Protagonist (267) ALA The Reading List (72) Female Author (533) Nebula Award (40) Books Read in 2021 (3,440) Books Read in 2019 (2,883) io9 Book Club (16) Books That Changed Me (115) Autumn books (8) mom (9) KayStJ's to-read list (1,098) Otherland Book Club (27) No current Talk conversations about this book. I liked this book though I did find the pacing a bit odd, there were times where I couldn't put it down, and other times it seemed a bit slow. But overall I enjoyed the story, there were times I laughed out loud and other times when it was really creepy and scary. ( ![]() I am all amazed. Really excellent fantasy/folklore mashup. Agnieszka! Her friendship with Kasia! Her magic! Her slovenliness (I lol'ed!)! Her accidental no-bullshit-taking attitude! She wasn't a perfect person, but she was a genuinely good person. Also, the Dragon! His gruff attitude, masking a socially insecure person! I relate! Anyway, towards the middle/end it gets almost unrelentingly dark. The end itself is bittersweet but also fits the story perfectly. I am a fan of the realistic endings because HEA's are really implausible. (Unless it's a romance novel, in which case, I demand HEA's). But I paid full price for this book and don't regret it even one iota, which is basically as high praise as I am capable of. (This book has a YA-aged protagonist, but the tone of the story is definitely adult.) I meant to write so much about this book, but then the world of 2020 swallowed me whole. I'm deeply saddened by it, too, because there was a lot that I deeply liked/loved/was mleh about. I liked how this one, unlike [b:Spinning Silver|36896898|Spinning Silver|Naomi Novik|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1513872748l/36896898._SX50_.jpg|58657620], didn't automatically turn itself straight into its love story only. I remember loving the ending, where we get the inference of where the couple is going, but we don't see it yet. I remember most being disappointed by the fact we never met the earlier girls who were taken to the tower and then went "away to the city" were never run into when our main character ended up in the city a long time, too. I am still interested in reading more of Novik's fairytale stories. I love Naomi Novik's Temeraire books, but I didn't know what to expect with this novel, a departure from her dragon-populated alternative histories. Uprooted reminded me why I love fantasy so much and showed that there are still new stories to be told in the genre. The conflict and its resolution are wholly different from most fantasy I read. It's so refreshing to read a standalone novel in a genre with so many series. As much as I adore revisiting beloved characters and following their ongoing stories, it's also nice to have a beginning and a definitive end contained in one book. This one was lovely, and I kind of want to crawl back inside and live there a little while longer. This was a really good book. At first, I was a bit put off by the fact that the narrator has a Russian accent, but it really fit well with the story. I ended up being grateful because the narrator actually knew how to pronounce the names and strange-to-me words. Plus, the fact that this story is located in an Eastern-European-like area, it helped lend flavor to the story. Several times, I was led to anxiously wonder how long I had left to listen to the book, because it seemed like the story had built up to a resolution that was imminent. I was then gratified to find out that I still had quite a bit of time in which to enjoy the ongoing story. Although there were several conflicts, none, except the final one, actually resolved much of anything, but during those conflicts, it seemed as if the end of the story was near, and I wasn't anywhere near ready for it to be finished. By the end, though, everything was resolved, and I was pleased with the ending.
Uprooted is not, as I thought it might be after those first three chapters, any of the following: a Beauty and the Beast story; a somewhat quiet tale about learning one’s magical abilities and negotiating a relationship with one’s teacher; or a story that includes intrinsically-gendered magic. What it is, is a kingdom-level fantasy with great magic and an engaging narrator—which packs a surprising amount of plot into its single volume. I recommend it highly. The pages turn and the Kindle screens swipe with alacrity. An early expedition into the Wood to rescue a long-missing Queen is particularly white-knuckle. Temeraire fans will be pleased to know that a superb tower-under-siege sequence demonstrates that Novik has lost none of her facility for making complex battle scenes clear and exciting. And Agnieszka remains a scrappy, appealing hero throughout. It’s just that one can’t help but be reminded that Novik’s Temeraire series will conclude next year as a nine-novel cycle and wonder why a writer so skilled at pacing a long, complicated chronicle over multiple books has crammed this story into one. It’s as if Novik is overcorrecting for the kind of Hollywood bloat that causes studios to split fantasy-novel adaptations into multiple films. Here, she packs an entire trilogy into a single book. Agnieszka’s corridors-of-power adventures in Polnya’s capital have kind of a middle-volume vibe to them, while some fascinating late-breaking revelations about the nature of the Wood definitely feel like they deserve their own dedicated installment. I felt this most particularly in Agnieszka’s evolution as a character. While it’s thrilling in the book’s final third to read about her taking control of her own magical identity as a latter-day Baba Yaga, it does feel as though it’s happened without giving her the opportunity to explore a few blind-alley identities on the way there. Has as a study
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. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows--everyone knows--that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn't, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6 — Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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