{Review/Giveaway} UPROOTED by Naomi Novik

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O P E N I N G   L I N E:

   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.

(pg 8, US e-ARC edition)

“What an unequaled gift for disaster you have.” 

~Naomi Novik, Uprooted

Some books have the instant feel of a classic. UPROOTED by Naomi Novik is one of them. In many ways--some small, some large--this novel reminded me of beloved fantasy staples such as HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE by Diana Wynne Jones and The Immortals Quartet [AKA the Daine books] by Tamora Pierce. It's not a direct retelling of any one tale, but it's been influenced by several pieces of lore and gives nods to many others. To me, it mostly closely resembles a Beauty and the Beast tale, and yet, it's not any sort of retelling. It's also reminiscent of medieval lore where dragons drag girls off as village sacrifices, and yet, that's not quite right either. UPROOTED is wholly original, but will suit the tastes of fairy tale lovers everywhere.

Agnieszka has grown up knowing that she could be chosen by the Dragon, her village's wizard, to spend ten years locked away in his tower. She knows this, and yet she isn't worried. No one is, really, save Kasia, the one girl everyone knows will be chosen. She's the most beautiful, the most accomplished, the most skilled. She's exactly the type of girl the Dragon chooses once every decade. And yet when the fated Choosing arrives, it is Agnieszka who is chosen, much to everyone's surprise. Agnieszka, who has no skills, who can't keep her skirt clean of mud or her hair free of brambles for more than five minutes. Agnieszka doesn't understand why he chose her or how all the girls before her served ten long years as his servant. Though Agnieszka is uprooted and pulled away from her home, her roots to her loved ones remain deep. When the Dragon starts teaching Agnieszka magic, she learns the hard way that she has the ability to protect her village and loved ones in a way no one else can.

There is a strong bond of friendship and family in UPROOTED. I really liked the way this theme is so strong; it is the core that holds everything together. If Agnieszka didn't love her friends and family so strongly, she'd never go through so much hell and come out so vastly changed. Agnieszka is very strong-willed and stubborn. She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to stand up and take it, even with a cranky, magic-wielding wizard breathing down her neck. She risks her own life many times, and it's really hard to talk about so much of this book without spoiling so much of its charm.

If you're looking for a book heavy on romance, you won't find it here. There's definitely some slow-burn chemistry at play and a lot of mutual attraction, but not an out-and-out romance. UPROOTED is a stand-alone, but if more books come out in the future, I can see Agnieszka's emotional ties to various characters growing deeper and more mature. For now, as far as she's come, she still has a lot of growing up to do. It's always so refreshing to see a novel where the romance is an element of the plot rather than the majority of it! There's also an exploration of so many more types of love than the sole focus on romantic love so often seen in books. That said, if there are more books in the future, I'd like to see that element further developed!

The one thing that drove me nuts was the way sometimes Agnieszka would be thinking something and then in the very next paragraph, a character would respond to what she was thinking about. At first, I thought the Dragon could read her mind, but when other characters did it too, I realized that Agnieszka must be saying all of this stuff out loud and it was just happening off the page. It's my only real quibble with this book, though. Well, that and the fact that I want more adventures with Agnieszka. We've only just begun to explore her potential! I'm hoping that Naomi Novik will return to this world after completing her best-selling Temeraire series!

One last, really cool tidbit: Ellen DeGeneres, in rare form, will step outside of television to produce the upcoming Warner Brothers adaptation of this book with her A Very Good Production partner Jeff Gleeman. There was a hot bidding war for the movie rights, and I'm really hoping this goes into production soon!

~*~

C O N T E N T R A T I N G S

Content Ratings: highlight between ( ) for details

Romance: R ( Kissing; sexual situations )

Language: PG15  ( Sexual innuendo and sexual references )
Violence: PG15  ( Some violent wounds/death/battle scenes; possession )

Other: --  

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C O V E R   D E S I G N:

I cannot wait to see this cover in person! I took advantage of the autographed pre-order from B&N, so I'm looking forward to receiving an awesome finished copy in May!

There is so much awesome stuff going on in this cover, and so many small details.  

I also really love the traditional "old-fashioned" feel of the title, block letter and all. 

And that curly scripty design!! Can we talk about how awesome it is that it's coming out of A TREE and looking through the title and-and-and!

  ~*~

O F F I C I A L   I N F O:

Title: UPROOTED

Author: Naomi Novik

Release Date: May 19, 2015

Publisher: Del Rey // Ballantine Books // Penguin Random House
Received: For Review

SUMMARY:

Naomi Novik, author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.

“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.

~*~

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