Tags
author, book reviews, book, books, characters, fairy tale, fantasy, fiction, literature, Naomi Novak, novel, plot, read, reader, review, stories, story, uprooted, uprooted Naomi novak, write, writer, writing, young adult
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 448
Point of View: First (Agnieszka)
Released: May 19th 2015
Predictability: 2 out of 5 (Where 1 is totally unpredictable and 5 is I knew what was going to happen way ahead of time.)
Source: Edelweiss
My Rating: 10/10 Stars!!!
My Summary:
The dragon (actually a wizard) protects villages from the corrupted woods, but every ten years they must give him a young girl. (Not to eat, but to work for him.)
My Review:
Right away it’s obvious that Agnie has a good voice. (What I call her, since her name is a mouthfull!) Which is good since there’s a lot of narration in this book and it really helps it feel like a fairy tale.
The nature of the magic and how she described it was familiar yet unique. Though mostly spoken words and mystical-ness, somehow the way the character understand it made it feel real. “It’s like gleaning in the woods, you have to pick your way through the thickets and the trees and its different every time.” (And I like when magic has a cost, here energy.) The Dragon saw magic very much like a precise science so he didn’t know what to make of Agnie’s bumbling way.
Dragon and Agnie are very different people. They get forced together and I loved their interactions! The characters and the world were so well done.
There was a sense of a different culture, mostly in the words used. Even these little touches helped it to feel like a different world. I also appreciated that the characters were described like real people, Agnie’s not perfectly pretty. (I love oddball main characters!) The Dragon actually called her horse-faced at one point. (He’s rather bristly at first. He didn’t say it to be mean. Yes, I feel the need to defend him!)
The Wood was a great villain! Normally I don’t care for the ambitious unseen evil force, but this was so creepy! (Plus there are some human ‘bad guys’ as well. Okay, just jerks I kept hoping would die.)
Uprooted has a pace which is all its own. Everything about this book was unique, but it all worked! There are five acts to this book (not officially or anything) and I liked them all, but the parts with the Dragon were definitely my favorite! Oh, I should mention there’s a great female friendship too!
Am I babbling? I might be. It was just that good!
The Bad:
It’s a standalone!
It took me a while to read this book. It was so good I wanted to savor it! Am I the only one who does that?
Woven Magic Books 