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Probably a generous 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

I struggle to rate this because I know this is intended to be YA. I found myself thinking if I was about 15 I would have really loved this and overlooked its flaws. And I have big respect for Naomi Novik as one of the founders of the fanfiction archive Archive of our Own. But at its best, I thought Uprooted read like well-written fanfiction where I didn't know what source material it was pulling from, and at worst it was an extremely rushed first draft, hopping at breakneck speed from one plot point to the next to the next. I was exhausted when I finished this! I think it's actually about 5 books shoved into one, and I have no idea why anyone thought this could be published as is.

Things I did genuinely love:

- The worldbuilding. I love me some Slavic-inspired folklore as a foundation for a fantasy world.
- I don't love putting it this way, but the "magic system." I thought it was genuinely cool how it was presented and how Agnieszka learned to use and wield it from the Dragon, its flavoring and limitations, how she could "entwine" her magic with others, and so on.
- The sentence level prose was quite strong and very readable. Naomi Novik can definitely write.
- The premise, which I'll expound upon in a second. It really does start great, but boy are we off to the races immediately!

The book revolves around Agnieszka, a teenage girl in a small village at the edge of a magical forest called "the wood." Every ten years, the distant lord, an immortal wizard known only as "the Dragon," takes one of the girls to serve him in the tower. No one knows why, but after ten years she's released, changed. Agnieszka and the whole village assume he'll take her bestie, Kasia, because she's the prettiest and smartest and bravest girl in the village, but dun dun dun — he decides to take Agnieszka instead. This is what is covered in the book blurb. Oh, tell me more, I said. I want to know what this weirdo wizard is up to and why he wants young, pliable girls. I hope there's some fascinating power dynamics at play, and fascinating character studies while we learn more about the Dragon and Agnieszka.

Well, color me surprised when this premise covers roughly the first sixty pages of a 400+ page book. After that, we rocket right past that whole thing and into: Agnieszka facing supernatural threats to her village, Kasia getting kidnapped by "the wood" and turned into a tree person(?), an extremely clumsy and underdeveloped enemies-to-lovers romance between Angieszka and the Dragon, saving THE QUEEN from the wood, a whole sequence where Agnieszka has to go to court and prove herself as a powerful witch when she's been in training for roughly six weeks, political assassinations, a civil war???, and an otherworldly threat that gets introduced and resolved in the last 15% of the book????????

Like I said, I'm exhausted! Aside from Agnieszka, the Dragon/Sarkan, Kasia and Marek, I could barely keep any of the other characters straight, as they appear just to move the already speedy plot along and none of them have any identifiable personality traits. Not that the ones we do spend time with are much better. Agnieszka suffers from "not like other girls" syndrome – despite being a poverty-stricken peasant, she abhors fancy dresses and is always dirty and unkempt. Even when this is revealed to be a consequence of her magic, which she can now control, she chooses to stay dirty anyway, which I didn't find very endearing. She learns little on her own and has to be point blank told most important plot information (from men, as a fun bonus!) and a lot of her successes come by accident. YAWN. We can do better than this, ladies.

The Dragon is insufferable and rude, yells at Angieszka constantly, and somehow we're still supposed to believe she falls in love with him. Meanwhile, she is obsessed with Kasia, nursing her back to health in Agnieszka's own bed at one point and gently cupping her face and resting her forehead against hers before they leave one another. You know, just gal pals stuff. I think they KISS at one point???? I know this book was probably published before it was in vogue to put queer romance in YA fantasy, but man.... wasted opportunity, in my opinion.

Kasia's whole personality is just "brave," apparently, and becomes a fantastic sword fighter immediately despite growing up as a peasant girl in a seemingly patriarchal society. The only thing I knew about Marek until near the end is that he's literally a rapist, so it was hard for me to feel sympathy for him, even when I was supposed to. (view spoiler)[But he ended up being the bad guy at the end I guess, so... whatever? (hide spoiler)] But when the Dragon peaces out for about 20% of the book in the middle, Marek takes over as "hotheaded male who yells plot points at Agnieszka" so... that was tedious.

I had such a hard time knowing why I should care about all of these people after about the halfway mark. I kept dying to know if this started out as actual fanfiction, since I know Novik is well-known as a fanfic writer also, but I couldn't find any neat overlays. (The Witcher? Game of Thrones? IDK.) I just kept thinking if I'd known these characters from another IP I might not care as much that the character development and motivations were not well-developed here. As it is, I think Novik needed at least four more books in the series to cover the ground she does in this book and fix the pacing problems.

Also, I did think the smut scene was hilariously silly. (view spoiler)[She literally magicks his breeches off and they MELT INTO THE AIR??? Does he not want them back???? Girl!!! (hide spoiler)] But I guess points for putting sex into a YA book; I feel like recently a lot of YA shies away from any sex for puritanical marketing reasons.

Finally, this bothered me for most of the back half of the book, even though it's very nitpicky: (view spoiler)[If Marek wants to be king, it seems like he's gonna have to also kill his nephew, because that's how patriarchal rule generally works: his older brother was the crown prince, and the crown prince has a young son and daughter. These kids have escaped with Agnieszka and Kasia, but it keeps coming up that Marek is afraid(?) that they're gonna feed the kids to the wood? Like, wouldn't he want that, though? That boy's gonna have to die if Marek wants the throne! (hide spoiler)] This is a long-winded way of saying I had a hard time following the logic of the political intrigue part of the book. I was not confident Novik did the requisite research to properly represent the government structures she claimed were in place.

I don't know!! It was a mess. But it could have been a worse mess, I guess. (I think I'm still recovering from Babel.) Soooo 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 it is! I need a nap.

Hilarious review Heather! I liked it more than you, though that was in 2018-so if I read it now I would probably change my tune. It is Spinning Silver that I disliked in this same way. I am a big Novik fan, and Temeraire is one of my favorite series.

Joanne wrote: "Hilarious review Heather! I liked it more than you, though that was in 2018-so if I read it now I would probably change my tune. It is Spinning Silver that I disliked in this same w..."

Haha, thank you! I don't like mercilessly dunking on a book, so I try to be entertaining at least. And there was a lot I liked or wanted to like here; I just wish Novik had been able to sign on for a 5 book series for this. One novel can't do this plot justice.

Hilariously, I've heard a lot of good things about Spinning Silver and I was thinking "maybe I'd like that one more." But if it has the same problems as this one - uh oh!

At least Temeraire seems to have a full series attached. Novik seems like the kind of writer who needs a lot of space to tell her plots effectively. I may have to give that one a go.

Thank you! Love this review. I also struggled with this book. For what it's worth, I really liked Spinning Silver. It was a much stronger effort.

Jgrace wrote: "Thank you! Love this review. I also struggled with this book. For what it's worth, I really liked Spinning Silver. It was a much stronger effort."

Oh, that's good to know. I peeked at some reviews and I saw several saying they disliked Uprooted but liked Spinning Silver, so I might give it a shot after all.