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A review by acreatureofbooksandtea
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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
4.0
The main plot of the book kept me glued to my ereader. It was tense and there were high stakes for the heroine throughout the entire story. And the heroine herself was plucky, brave and determined without coming off as stupid or purely reckless.
My main gripe is with what passed for romance it the story. The heroine and hero spent very little page time together overall, and most of that time he was being condescending and insulting everything from her looks, to her intelligence, to her magical ability. He was just an unpleasant character, even outside his interactions with the heroine, and only seemed to become even worse whenever he interacted with her.
As far as I’m concerned, the heroine had heaps more chemistry and depth of relationship with her childhood best friend, who was the other character I loved the most aside from the heroine. She was brave and selfless, and stayed at the heroine’s side helping and defending her with unending determination and bravery, and was always supportive of the heroine.
Overall I really enjoyed this book, from the story to the heroine and her best friend and their quest to defend their land and the people they love from some truly terrifying situations. Just don’t read this book expecting a romance (like I did) because you won’t find anything but a single non-graphic, awkward, rushed sex scene that was apparently supposed to represent the love between two character that spend most of the story acting like roommates at best, and antagonists at worst.
My main gripe is with what passed for romance it the story. The heroine and hero spent very little page time together overall, and most of that time he was being condescending and insulting everything from her looks, to her intelligence, to her magical ability. He was just an unpleasant character, even outside his interactions with the heroine, and only seemed to become even worse whenever he interacted with her.
As far as I’m concerned, the heroine had heaps more chemistry and depth of relationship with her childhood best friend, who was the other character I loved the most aside from the heroine. She was brave and selfless, and stayed at the heroine’s side helping and defending her with unending determination and bravery, and was always supportive of the heroine.
Overall I really enjoyed this book, from the story to the heroine and her best friend and their quest to defend their land and the people they love from some truly terrifying situations. Just don’t read this book expecting a romance (like I did) because you won’t find anything but a single non-graphic, awkward, rushed sex scene that was apparently supposed to represent the love between two character that spend most of the story acting like roommates at best, and antagonists at worst.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Animal death, Blood, and Sexism
Minor: Sexual assault, Body shaming, Confinement, Grief, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Kidnapping
There is a lot of death and violence in this book, some of it mentioned in detail. And some of the imagery is just generally disturbing and unsettling, like a person being trapped inside a tree to feed it while dying slowly.
There is also a scene in the first 1/4 of the book where one of the recurring character in the book tries to rape the heroine, but she attacks them and only some groping actually takes place. But afterwards the hero blames her for the assault, and insinuates it would have been less trouble if she had just let the assault happen and that her ‘virtue’ wasn’t worth the trouble it was causing him to have to cover up what what she had done to her assailant.