Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Uprooted

I adored this! It's written absolutely beautifully with gorgeous imagery, and the ending is maybe my favourite I've read this year. I'd read more by Naomi Novik in a heartbeat

Content Warnings

_forestofpages's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-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? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

elanele's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

rokinjaguar's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Hmm, okay. VERY good book. It's incredibly descriptive and vivid. I could see it all in my mind. I kept reacting externally to things that would happen, shuddering at horrifying moments, jumping when the Dragon would pop up out of nowhere, feeling real dread and fear, heart glowing at sweet moments, saying "get rekt" under my breath when Agnieszka roasts someone, etc. I really burned through this book.
There are a lot of amazing female characters, like Kasia and a powerful and wise witch later in the story. I also really love Agnieszka, she was a lot of fun to read about. Loved how intuitive, emotional, and in tune with nature she was. Like seriously, she really spoke to my heart. I'm sure she won't connect with everyone like she did me, but the starved emotional/creative part of my soul adored her. The male characters were good, too, I really enjoyed the Dragon, but the female characters are where the writing really shines imo. Side note,

Malek and the Falcon can choke and die, and I mean that in a my-compliments-to-the-author way

.
I think the book would have been better if the author had taken out the

attempted-rape scene with the shitty prince and the sex scene

The kissing scene

could stay or go, it adds and subtracts to the story pretty equally. But I feel like the

attempted-rape scene

wasn’t handled quite sensitively enough. Didn’t bother me, but it was borderline, and I have a little thread of upsetness in me that

the Dragon never really comforted or reassured her or was angry for her over that – it's an incredibly traumatizing thing to experience

. The Dragon's character arc was coherent and satisfying, I really liked it, but it was a bit unsatisfying that

he and Agnieszka never really talked about their feelings

. I get what the author was going for, but it just annoyed me that

so many things were left unsaid, like constantly

. But I did really like the part where

Agnieszka recognized he was scared to put down roots and was running away, now that he’d 1) lost his cold stone tower, 2) drank Spindle-water, and 3) held her hand. And I’m glad he came back, that was nice

. That was the part where everything really paid off, to me.
I really loved the Dragon and Agnieszka’s partner dynamic

(separate from their romantic dynamic)

. They’re so different, they’re exactly what the other lacks, and Agnieszka learns to understand and accept him, and the Dragon learns to respect her as an equal and accept her way of looking at things as valid. Their growing relationship and mutual respect was really great, but

the romance just fell flat. It was too little and too much at the same time. It was little enough that it felt irrelevant, but too much that the moments where the romantic element came together felt unearned, emotionless, and poorly-done.

I feel a bit mixed about the ending. It felt a little abstract to me, and the whole book is abstract, and like I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but I feel like my brain didn’t quite wrap around it well enough to feel fully satisfied. Maybe with another read in the future hindsight will help me know which parts are important to pay attention to, to understand the ending.

Content Warnings

saintyeehaw's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I kept rooting for this book and it kind of kept letting me down, sadly. I fell in love with the magic system, the visualizations of spell casting, the descriptions of reading the Summoning, and the dark horror of the Wood. Unfortunately, Sarkan's never ending verbal abuse toward Nieshka, her being 17 to his 150, the weird sympathetic framing of a rapist, and the inclusion of only one explicitly black character just to have her be the daughter of a slave really soured me on the whole thing.

I'll just rant here. The fact that Sarkan chooses specifically girls (never explained why boys aren't chosen if everyone with the gift must be trained) and expects them to cook all his meals for him for ten years was already irredeemable in my eyes. His constant berating of Nieshka literally left her EXPECTING abuse multiple times throughout the book which left me feeling sick at its romanticization. Truly, Sarkan's only traits were that he liked cleanliness and that he was mean. Their hideous age gap (of literally a child and a very old man) being framed as his excuse to momentarily hesitate from sex with her? yikes. Why did she need to be 17? I would have much preferred reading about an adult woman and her ages old immortal boyfriend. Lastly, the rape scene was handled unbelievably poorly and just made Sarkan even more monstrous to me.

Content Warnings

thedevouringbookshelf's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

mallorypen's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This felt like a classic, wonderful fairytale! The premise starts out simple - protector/local menace is owed a tribute of a young woman every decade to some unknown, likely nefarious purpose; the wrong (unexpected) girl gets chosen.

What I really loved about the story is each character felt important. Agnieszka and the Dragon are obviously so, but Kasia starts out at the best friend who was supposed to be chosen and wasn’t - even so, I fully believed in the relationship the two girls had, so when it came time for Kasia to be used as bait against Agnieszka, the motivations of the characters made perfect sense. The prince’s character, too - he is both fairytale prince and uncaring, would-be rapist in the very first meeting, but later is shown as a heroic figure, an easily-manipulated pawn, a lost child driven by a need for his mother.

I also like the premise of the Wood as a villain, and at the end of the story

there wasn’t really a black and white villain at all. The wood queen was betrayed by people who feared her, and everyone she loved was threatened and taken away because of it - of course she fought back and sought revenge, and of course the need for revenge blackened her purpose and twisted the Wood. I adored Agnieszka‘a solution in the end, to heal even as she was forced to harm the heart trees.

The relationship between Sartan and Agnieszka was paced in such a way that, even though there was that initial power imbalance, they didn’t really recognize their feelings for one another until Agnieszka came into her own power and they had done the working together. That, and that Sartan fought against his feelings the entire time and called out the age difference - all to which my girl Agnieszka said “don’t care, take your pants off” - I felt like they met on equal footing and never once did their relationship feel like Stockholm syndrome or a savior/teacher preying on their rescue/student.

Overall, there were so many little details that I thought the author did so well. The connections through the story, the pacing and build up of plot, the characterization, and the hopeful ending made this a fun, nail-biting, fantastical read.

Content Warnings

suneaters's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional medium-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? No

4.5

I loved this story! Super interesting world, super interesting main character. I love Agnieszka's relationship with her friend Kasia and the wizard.

I was disappointed that Agnieszka and the Dragon (A.K.A. Sarkan) ended up together. He's an abusive prick and by having sex with Agnieszka, I guess we can add pedophile to the list of his character flaws alongside rape apologist, perpetrator of verbal abuse, and physically abusive. I saw this awful romance coming, but I was hoping I was wrong and that there wouldn't be any romance or if there was, it would be between Agnieszka and Kasia. I hope Novik feels bad about writing a 17 year old girl with a 100+ year old man who kidnapped and abused her. The writing and worldbuilding is fantastic, so I couldn't drop the rating too far especially since I was able to just ignore this relationship. Truly felt sad for many of the characters, but was so, so relived when Kasia lived. I felt for the prince, desperate to have his mom back and unable to see the reality that she was gone. Then Kasia raising the royal children...sad, but a hopeful ending.

Content Warnings

More...