This book was a surprise and a gift and the fairytale our daughters deserve and I'm just so sad to have finished reading it. ( )

I loved every page of this - a fantastic combination of my beloved fairy tales, strong female characters and great writing. ( )

Originally published on Book for Thought.

Actual rating: 4.5/5

I LOVED this book! It was an amazing read, including all the things I adore: great, rounded characters; a rich plot; a very creepy villain; folk and fairy tale influences; and MAGIC. I will do my best to make this review as coherent and sensible as I can, but be warned, I am likely to fail miserably. So please don't hold my ramblings against me.

Uprooted is narrated by our main character, Agnieszka, and wow! was she a great character. I absolutely loved her to bits! She was just so adorable and open and real that I couldn't help but totally adore her from beginning to end. Agnieszka grew up in the shadow of her best friend, Kasia, whom everyone thinks will be the next girl chosen by the Dragon. Agnieszka and Kasia are exact opposites - where the latter is graceful and perfectly capable of handling a household, the other is a total klutz and can manage to destroy most everything that comes in her vicinity - but they still manage to be best friends in spite of everything. Their relationship was definitely one of my favourite elements in the book. I usually find it really hard to find good, believable friendships in books, especially between girl friends. But Kasia and Agnieszka's friendship was just that. It wasn't perfect and they had some issues to work out, but just because of that it was real. With all their problems and issues to work out, they still manage to be there for each other in the toughest of times, (literally) putting their lives on the line for one another. They both change a lot throughout the book, but each of them manages to accept the other for who she really is, and not just who she should be in the eyes of everyone else.

Both their lives are shaped by the constant presence of the other two big characters in the book. The Dragon is a very difficult character to like. All his years living alone and the difficulty of constantly battling the Wood have made him very hard on himself and others, and not at all open to human contact. And of course his perfectly ordered life is set to be completely destroyed by Agnieszka's arrival. I really enjoyed watching their relationship develop, and I did get to like the Dragon more as the story unfolded. I particularly enjoyed his dry humour, and found myself giggling more than once, though I'm fairly sure he wouldn't have approved of this.

And then there's the Wood. Now, this was an UBER-CREEPY enemy to be facing. The trees are alive, and they are out to get the rest of the world, turning people insane and KILLING EVERYONE! It was awesome and terrifying at the same time, and definitely one of the best antagonists I have found in a book so far this year. The Wood actually has a plan to kill all humans, and is very efficient in applying it. I was surprised by a few developments, and that was a really nice feeling.

The only thing that didn't really agree with me was the writing style. Don't get me wrong, I really liked the author's way of describing scenes in great detail, so much so that most of the time I could actually see the scene in front of me. But sometimes, the level of detail was just too much, and the story felt a lot slower than it should have. It was still great to read, but it just seemed to me like it took me forever to get to anywhere in the book.

So, for me, Uprooted was almost perfect, and definitely one of my favourite reads this year. I adored the characters and loved the plot, even though I did have a few issues with the style and pace. I will be forcing everyone to read it highly recommending this book to anyone who likes fantasy with a healthy dose of magic and a nightmarish enemy. ( )

I picked this "fantasy" book because I wanted something different from the post-apocalyptic Wool trilogy I had just finished. I feared it would be a little too light and fluffy (based entirely on the cover photo, I think) but I was wrong. I LOVED it! It is a wonderful book, as all of the professional reviews attest. It was a complex and entertaining story with wonderful characters set in a fascinating world. Every time I thought I knew what would happen next I was proven wrong, and the story would go in a new and exciting direction. The main character, Agnieszka, is clever and complex and I enjoyed watching her change from a scared village girl into what she ultimately becomes. Her relationships with Kasia, her childhood friend, and the irascible "Dragon"anchor the story as it shifts from the villages to the tower to the capital to "the woods" and everywhere in between! ( )

DNF at 57%

Everyone calls this a YA book. IT IS NOT!!!

I have a whole lot of issues with this book so I'll start a list. (I am calling Agnieszka 'MC' [main character] for this review)

1) The love interest, Dragon, is verbally abusive. I'll add in some of his quotes and MC's thoughts to show what I mean.
"In fact, I'm inclined to believe you are mentally defective."
"Is there anything you can do?" he asked, mockingly?
"Are you grown suddenly deaf?"" he snapped? "Stop fussing with those plates and take yourself off. And keep to your rooms until I summon you again."
Honestly, I don't know what MC sees in this jerk. He is absolutely terrible. But we haven't gotten to the worst of it yet.

2) MC nearly gets raped by another character and this is the Dragon's response after she stops the man.
"[right after MC stops the man] You idiot, what have you done?"
"And now you're going to blubber, I suppose," the Dragon said over my head. "What were you thinking? Why did you put yourself into that ludicrous dress if you didn't want to seduce him?"
And then the Dragon solves the problem by altering the man's memory to make him believe that he did rape her,
"I'll make it an unpleasant memory--all elbows and shrill maidenly giggling."

3) The Dragon tells MC that she has magic and she suddenly has magic. BAM, out of nowhere. That is not good world or character building.

4) This book is written like an adult novel. Everything from word choice to sentence structure screams adult. It was so dense that I had to reread paragraphs over and over again to even understand what was happening.

5) I quit before this part, but apparently there is an explicit sex scene as well as almost a second one.

1 Star

Tropes: Polish/Russian fairytale, Cinderella, Rapunzel, young girl and centuries old guy

Content: attempted rape, abuse, explicit romance ( )