Hi Guys,
Uprooted by Naomi Novik is one of my newer favorite fantasy standalone novels. I’ve read it once and listened to it on audio. This week, I was between audiobooks and didn’t want to start another when I have several on hold at the library, so of course I went back to a favorite.
Uprooted is a fantasy novel with witches, wizards, courts and villages, spells and magic and evil corruption. Agnieszka knows she will never be taken because everyone knows the Dragon only takes the most special girls and Angieszka is a smudged, wild, plain girl while Kasia is talented in every way.
Once every ten years the Dragon, a powerful sorcerer and lord of the Valley, leaves his high tower to choose a seventeen year old village girl to serve in his castle. In return, the Dragon protects his people from the Woods. The Woods surrounding the valley are corrupt and all sorts of terrible and strange creatures live within. Every year the Wood takes more and more of the valley and all anyone can do is hold back the storm–the Wood cannot be beaten.
Angieszka fears for her friend Kasia as the choosing approaches, but she should fear for herself. For something powerful lies within Angieszka, which might just make her the most special of them all.
What will Angieszka do when she is chosen? Will she allow fear to manage her or will she find the strength within to fight the coming storm?
The narration of Uprooted is so interesting. The narrator has a Russian accent, but you get the feeling that the book is written out of time and place. The first time I listened to this book, I started out being a little skeptical of the accent but now I can’t imagine the audiobook without it.
There is just so much depth to this book and things are tied together so well, that you don’t even notice until the end or on a second read through. So much happens in this 430+ page book and yet it doesn’t feel too long and there really weren’t any parts that bored me.
The magic in this book is unique; the spells, the way it is used, is done in a way I haven’t seen before. I also love how Angieszka’s powers go against what is known and believed. Her powers seem to stem from the Wood and she doesn’t go against her nature even to meet with the approval of her teacher and the King’s court. I also love how she embraces the dishevelment and no one can make her be anything other than herself.
This book is just special. It is unique. A story that I’ve never heard of before and one that was very hard for me to put down, even when it was over. On a third read, this one still gets 5 stars from me!
That’s all for now!
-M-