Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Author: Naomi Novik

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Date: March 1, 2016

Pages: 464

Format: Hardcover

My Rating: ⭐

Purchase Links: [Chapters/Indigo] [Amazon]

Goodreads Synopsis:

“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 valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.​

My Review

* Thank you Penguin Random House for sending me a finished copy of Uprooted for an honest review *

I finally finished this book! I am so relieved to be done. From all the rave I heard about this book I’m shocked by my feelings.

First off, the story lacked any sense of danger and suspense. There were so many layers and it jumps from one plot to another. The transitions were sudden and confusing. We had no time to digest the change and honestly after reading 40% I gave up trying.

Secondly, I did not enjoy the writing at all. I found the book to be VERY dense. I had to endure so many paragraphs of useless and unnecessary descriptions. I could skip most of the chapter and just read the last sentence or a couple sentences and figure out what was happening instead of the 10 or so pages of the chapter. I had to force my eyes to stay open. I was constantly in the state of falling asleep! Not only did the story put me to sleep the pronunciation of spells were so unnecessarily hard to pronounce. It would have been nice for a "how to pronounce this and that" chart, it would have helped immensely. I gave up trying to read the spells words. I use the word spells lightly cause really it was just one word repeated over and over and over... or she would just hum...

Finally, I cannot stand any of the characters. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and was very uninterested in them, I found them to be flat. The main character, Agnieszka, is the classic special girl who didn't know she was so special. I am okay with the classic tropes when they are done right but I didn't find her special at all! She was constantly just nagging and so ordinary, there was nothing that stood out with her. If I only use one word to describe her I would choose ANNOYING. Seriously she needed to stop. I found the “Dragon” to be very disappointing. First, he isn’t a dragon, or anything remotely mythical. He is just a rude and grumpy Wizard. Also the love between the “Dragon” and Agnieszka... there wasn’t anything! I don’t understand it! The “Dragon” was constantly dissing Agnieszka and putting her down, so again I have no idea how he even has feelings for her with how much he yelled and made fun of her. Is it like middle school, if a boy is mean to a girl that means he likes her?! I found no tension, no build up and then surprisingly they were attacking each other’s faces...

Overall I am ecstatic to be done with Uprooted.

#Uprooted #NaomiNovik #1star