Beauty and the Beast meets Heir of Fire meets Hawls Moving Castle meets Green Rider!
Uprooted is so full of love, whether it is the love of family, friendship, or romance. Family ties play a major part and show us the length the characters are ready to go to for it. The love between the main characters is a slow burn but intense and filled with our favorite enemies to lovers trope. The plot is full of action, witches and wizards, dark forces, and epic battles, all set in a marvelous world, inspired by Polish mythology.
This book brought me back to the folk fairy tales my grandma used to read to me as a kid.
“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.”
Table of Contents
Overview
The story follows young Agnieszka from Dvernik, a little village near the Wood. The Wood is a corrupted place, which is trying to spread every day and bring evil and devastation to the land. The only thing trying to stall it is the great wizard in the high tower by the edge of the Wood, named the Dragon.
Dragon is also the Lord of the lands. Every 10 years, he takes a girl from one of the villages to accompany him to the tower (Those of you who read smut: There is no dirty business you pervert). Agnieszka and her best friend, Kasia are one of the candidates. Although everyone is almost sure, that he will take Kasia, the brave, beautiful, and perfect one, fate has something else set aside for the two girls. Agnieszka, the girl who loves being free, and wandering in the wild, is always messy and hates the lord with passion, to everyone’s surprise, including the Dragon himself, will be the chosen one.
Despite the threat o evil constantly looming over characters and some dark, heart-wrenching moments, the book has a healthy quality of humor and is a very pleasant read.
Deep Dive into Characters
Agnieska and Dragon
The first part of the book is about Agnieszka and the Dragon trying to co-exist in the tower, which is hilarious! They are so different, the Dragon is always organized, everything he does is defined by a set of rules, and the guy is perfectly content with the order in his house. But alas here comes Agnieszka and turners the poor guy’s world upside down. And let me tell you this, these two together are HILARIOUS, and even better is watching him struggle.
Where the Dragon is Order, Agnieszka is Chaos, wilderness, the force of nature no one can predict or control. At first, they always argue, but their radical difference is what makes them and their magic so strong in the end.
Dragon is closed off, afraid to take root. He tries to show his love like that too, distant and composed, but at the end of the book, we see him ragged, messed up, tired, and worn off. And after facing the possibility of losing his love, and getting the distance that he wanted to have, he realizes that it is too late, Agnieszka took root in his heart and he can’t and doesn’t want to uproot her.
Friendship with Kasia
Most of the events in this book happen because someone loved someone, but the friendship between Kasia and Agnieszka is one of the main things that moved the plot.
These two have been friends their whole lives. Despite Kais being described as a traditional damsel, she always surprised me with her bravery and compassion. Agnieszka was less daring, but she is willing to go to great lengths for the people she loves, and in the book, we see her do so multiple times for Kasia.
But despite all that, their relationship is not one without its thorns. Kasia is “perfect” and Agnieska is “free”, or at least that is what girls see and resent in each other. These thoughts are eating them alive and they hate themselves for thinking that, but they can do nothing about it and it festers. These thoughts are ugly, but once you face and admit them, it is easier to let them go. Facing them is exactly what makes these childhood friends’ bonds unbreakable and puts roots to the story’s main goal, defeating the wood.
“What is there besides people that’s worth holding on to?”
Naomi Novik
Family
Family ties play no less important part. If Agnieszka is motivated to save her best safe, Prince Marek is equally as determined to save his mother, who was lost in the woods.
Marek is a hero, with a noble cause and determination, which makes his story so much more heartbreaking. He is arrogant, used to getting what he wants and never stopping for achieving them. But at the same time, we see a little boy, with a strict father, and brother occupied with being the heir and his only solace, his mother being taken away. His desire to get her back is so larger that it clouds his judgment.
“It’s a lie that matches his desire”
Naomi Novik
What I see so rarely in YA and fantasy books is a happy family and I was so happy to see one in the face of Agniezka’s family.
I love that she has a safe place, home, where she goes when she is weary. And her mother, father, and brothers are always there for her. When the Wood attacked the village and Agnieszka was alone to face it, without the Dragon, her whole village and especially her family were there, fighting alongside her, having her back.
“Truth didn’t mean anything without someone to share it with, you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn’t come and listen.”
Naomi Novik
The Main Villan
“She hadn’t been able to take root. She remembered the wrong things and had forgotten too much. She’d remember how to kill and how to hate, and she’d forgotten how to grow.”
Naomi Novik
Throughout the book, I thought the Wood was this evil force without a conscience, but turns out she had a story to tell and a very sad one at that.
Evil breeds evil and the story of this villain is a memento of that. In the end, the thing that bred this particular evil was cruelty and loneliness.
“Wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain”
Naomi Novik
The only real way to defeat evil is to face it with compassion and kindness. No one is truly evil or good, there are just people, who hurt, who make mistakes, and who get lost.
Final Thoughts
This book warmed me up from the inside. It was so kind, beautiful, funny, sad, heartbreaking, all at once.
I have been away from my family for a while now, and the fear of being uprooted from them is very strong. But this book showed me that no matter how far you go, the darkness or despair, as long as your roots run deep, you’ll always find a place back to your loved ones, a way to grow, a way back home.
