Maybe the Falcon and Kasia should have been the lead couple.

HOW GOOD IS IT?

4/10

BASICALLY

A moody wizard who is nick-named “Dragon” protects a village from an evil forest. Every ten years, he takes a girl into his tower as a price. He would keep her for ten years and let her go. This year, our female protagonist is that girl.

It turns out that the Dragon actually trains these girls to cast spell and fight during their stay at the tower, and any girl who is born magic will be chosen (I guess boys in this village are just never magic).

The Dragon – if you haven’t read the book, his name is Sarkan – has a quick temper and tends to get offended when people (justifiably) assume that he makes these girls into his personal maids.

 But Dragon or village girls or the princes from the capital, they all hope to on day find a way to destroy the evil forest. And that is where our heroine comes in. 

WHAT’S GOOD

The friendship between Kasia and Agnieszka – possibly the best thing in this book.

The Magic is kind of… funny (?) sometimes – The spells in here are impossible to say, and the system doesn’t follow any rule.

There is a particular scene where the Dragon defends his tower. As the enemy throws magic at his walls, he looks through a book to find counter-spells. Well, it doesn’t exactly make sense, but it’s funny to imagine. So I guess it’s a “good” thing.

There’s a lot of description – Naomi Novik rarely leaves out anything, from a minor character’s clothing to the weather to the “feel” of someone’s name to the Dragon’s dinners, making the world she’s created easy to be absorbed in.

WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD

There’s A LOT of description – it gets to a point where you just don’t want to read another word about a forest anymore.

There are paragraphs after paragraphs of description before the story gets from one point to the next. And when it does, you probably have forgotten what the characters are doing already and have to go back several pages. The final battle in the forest is probably… good? But again, due to the excessive description, the climax reads like a chapter from the heroine’s diary rather than a heart-throbbing conclusion it should have been.

The Dragon is unnecessarily rude – OK, what is up with all the yelling and insults, Sarkan? This aspect of Sarkan and Agnieszka’s relationship makes their romance quite unconvincing. It is almost like Agnieszka forces herself to get used to Sarkan’s moody behavior and, in the end, finds it romantic.

The interesting characters die too soon – The book is determined to have Agnieszka figure out her quest alone, so in the end, it is only she and Sarkan who conquer the Wood together. But some side characters are intriguing and they deserve more than death without any development.

No development for the main characters – Perhaps this is just not that kind of book. Uprooted is more of an atmospheric story than one that emphasizes character arcs. Agnieszka is clumsy and clueless, Sarkan is grumpy and moody. And this is how they are throughout the whole book.

Agnieszka is even less developed than Sarkan because she also has no defining personality except for her random ability to see magic the way other wizards cannot.

In the end, the Falcon Solya and Kasia are the two characters with more potential and relatable struggles. And since there is some implication of a relationship between them, it is a pity they have not been given a more important role. 

OTHER THOUGHTS

This book references the same folklore as the Winternight series (Katherine Arden) does, but the writing styles of the two authors are vastly different. The heroines’ journeys are also not the same as many reviews I’ve come across have concluded. While Vasya (Winternight) gradually forms a grand goal for herself during her mission, Agnieszka generally reacts to things as they happen. 

BOTTOM LINE

Well, Uprooted is only one book, not a trilogy, so give it a try to see if you love it with all your heart or hate it completely?