Reviews - Ontworteld | The StoryGraph

14.8k reviews for:

Ontworteld

Naomi Novik

4.01 AVERAGE

salice2006's review against another edition

4.0

Beautifully written and gripping as well. I often find you sacrifice one for the other, but not in this case.

lucylovegood's review against another edition

5.0

This book was amazing and I loved the plot. The characters are so well developed and I definitely recommend for Fantasy readers and those loving a fairy tale like novel. Very good read.
My only criticism would be that I found her writing style slightly hard to read. She moved the plot very quickly and I feel she didn’t allow the reader to understand what had happened some of the time. I would suggest putting it down every so often to think about how the plot is evolving otherwise you may well end up confused. A very good writer and I will be looking into reading her other books.

swagatron3000's review against another edition

5.0

finishing was like waking up from a long dream

lunderwhatsen's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark slow-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: Complicated

Love when people write about mythology that isn’t Roman or Greek. Despite people’s claims that this is a beauty and the beast retelling, it didn’t feel like quite that to me by the end. There maybe was a string of inspiration in there, but that unravels pretty quickly if most of the other parts of the story are taken in account. With the woods and old Jaga, it felt pleasantly Polish to me.

The pacing wasn’t my favorite thing. For a story with a lot happening, it felt slow. Despite that and the predictability, it was well detailed and had Novik’s prettiness. With some of these descriptions, you would think Novik might be able to pull off a full horror if she tried. The visual of a person slitting someone’s throat and then stabbing themself repeatedly in the head with the same weapon is delightfully revolting. This book would certainly be a fantastic fantasy horror movie

lara_lleverino's review against another edition

3.0

I read Naomi Novak’s first book in the Temeraire series and honest got bored with all the details. I might revisit it at some time. This book however moved at a faster pace although I’ll admit I skimmed pretty quickly through some parts. With the exception of two completely gratuitous sex scenes one which was very detailed, I found this book an interesting metaphor for purity and corruption. I liked the resolution and the hope the book ended with. I found the Russian/polish influences fascinating. I listened to some of this book on audio and enjoyed the woman’s accent but in the end she read so painfully slow I got the book to finish it faster.