If you're a fan of beautifully crafted stories, slow burn romances, hideous monstrosities that are somehow all too human, and good triumphing over evil, read it. Now. Lastly, the magic system is uber ridiculous. There were no limitations or repercussions to it; Agony could’ve conjured Geralt of Rivia, Gundam, Doraemon, or a massive spaceship, and it would still work. She’s a Mary Sue; there’s no proper explanation given to how her magic worked. She only needed to speak the words she has read, and she would be able to cast anything. I didn’t feel any intensity from the action and the battle scenes anymore because of this. I pity the tree used to create this novel.

Kallam Clay, in The Mercury News, writes that unlike her 8-volume Temeraire alternate history series, Uprooted is a traditional fantasy. He finds Agnieszka "a wonderful protagonist, far from perfect but tough and charming", describing Novik's handling of Agnieszka's voice as "pitch-perfect", so that her decisions emerge naturally from her character. [15]I love a good fantasy rooted in folklore, and Novik does a great job mining the mythology of Eastern Europe for this novel. Young Agnieszka lives in a small town in an out-of-the-way valley where nothing much ever happens . . . except for the fact that they live near an evil Wood that occasional swallows trespassers, drives villagers mad, or sends monsters to destroy neighboring villages. Oh, and also they are protected by a wizard called the Dragon who lives in a tower and does his best to keep the evil magic of the Wood at bay. In return for his protection, the wizard takes one girl from the valley every ten years to serve him in the tower. These girls aren't killed, but they are never the same after their ten years of servitude, and they never stay in the valley when they are released. Something about their servitude changes them . . .

Genevieve Valentine, reviewing the book in The New York Times, writes that the coming-of-age tale is a "messier" story, deeper than the "bright, forthright" and somewhat mythic teenage books that it might call to mind. In her view, Novik "skillfully takes the fairy-tale-turned- bildungsroman structure of her premise" and develops it into "a very enjoyable fantasy with the air of a modern classic." [16] This book would have been far more effective had the friendship at the start been allowed more time to develop. It was thrown into the action that much, that when the romance came it made no sense. It didn’t have time to work; it just sprung and left me feeling a little surprised. It was a case of where did that come from? I think there should have been much more time spent in the tower, as the rest of the world was slowly, and gradually, revealed. That way this could have easily ended at the midway point. A very enjoyable fantasy with the air of a modern classic . . . Naomi Novik skillfully takes the fairy-tale-turned-bildungsroman structure of her premise . . . and builds enough flesh on those bones to make a very different animal. . . . The vivid characters around her also echo their fairy-tale forebears, but are grounded in real-world ambivalence that makes this book feel quietly mature, its world lived-in.” — The New York Times Book Review

Success!

I don't know what the hell I'm trying to say, because this review doesn't sound very flattering, and the truth is...I really enjoyed it! After hitting two for two, Naomi Novik has turned into a must-read author for me. I can't wait to dive into more of her books. ONE STAR to the non-existent chemistry between the Dragon and Agnieszka. It was bullshit. ZERO STAR to the love interest. If there's one thing I really hate, it's romance revolving around verbal and physical abuses. I swear, verbal abusing Agnieszka is the only language the Dragon knows how to speak in.

Thaker, Aruna; Barton, Arlene (2012). Multicultural Handbook of Food, Nutrition and Dietetics. John Wiley & Sons. p.288. ISBN 978-1118350461. As a love story, it's mild and cute. As a retelling of the evil forest mythos featuring Baba Yaga (or Jaga in the text,) it's strong as hell and always on target. As a story, it had strong plots and steady progression, right down through the training, to the introduction to the kingdom, to the Main Reversal, to the Next Reversal, to the dire oh-shit-this-has-gotten-crazy reveal. Once again, I like assholes. I like anti-heroes, but they have to self-redeeming. The "Dragon" in this book is none such.Magical and practical, otherworldly and planted in the real, I could not stop reading this book and neither will you!” —Tamora Pierce

Ok so to start with this book took me months to read...MONTHS I tell you. Actually looking at the dates on Goodreads it was close to a year but I did start and stop a lot so... I can normally devour a fantasy book twice this size in half the time . I just wasn’t interested.Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.” Agnieszka loves her village, set deep in a peaceful valley. But the nearby enchanted forest casts a shadow over her home. Many have been lost to the Wood and none return unchanged. The villagers depend on an ageless wizard, the Dragon, to protect them from the forest's dark magic. However, his help comes at a terrible price. One young village woman must serve him for ten years, leaving all they value behind.