Uprooted: A Novel

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The Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale has never been as captivating. . . . Spinning Silverfurther cements [Novik’s] place as one of the genre greats.” — Paste SPINNING SILVER ART TOOLKIT Yet… this quibble is minor. Uprooted is a beautiful, nearly-flawless read, and I loved it wholeheartedly from first chapter to empowering and heart-rendering finale. Uprooted is a delightful, enchanting read. If you love fantasy, read it. If you do not typically gravitate toward fantasy, you should still read it.

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. I love a good fantasy rooted in folklore, and Novik does a great job mining the mythology of Eastern Europe for this novel. Young Agnieszka lives in a small town in an out-of-the-way valley where nothing much ever happens . . . except for the fact that they live near an evil Wood that occasional swallows trespassers, drives villagers mad, or sends monsters to destroy neighboring villages. Oh, and also they are protected by a wizard called the Dragon who lives in a tower and does his best to keep the evil magic of the Wood at bay. In return for his protection, the wizard takes one girl from the valley every ten years to serve him in the tower. These girls aren't killed, but they are never the same after their ten years of servitude, and they never stay in the valley when they are released. Something about their servitude changes them . . . Mac Rogers, in Slate, writes that Novik skilfully provides readers with "several modes of wish-fulfillment" through the book, including giving the protagonist Agnieska "the full Harry Potter/ Katniss Everdeen experience", at once followed by a " Belle/ Jane Eyre" setup in the "Dragon's" tower. [6] Like El-Mohtar, Rogers remarks that the book contains material for a whole trilogy, wishing that Novik had given Agnieszka the chance "to explore a few blind-alley identities" on the way to becoming a "latter-day Baba Yaga". [6] Lastly, the magic system is uber ridiculous. There were no limitations or repercussions to it; Agony could’ve conjured Geralt of Rivia, Gundam, Doraemon, or a massive spaceship, and it would still work. She’s a Mary Sue; there’s no proper explanation given to how her magic worked. She only needed to speak the words she has read, and she would be able to cast anything. I didn’t feel any intensity from the action and the battle scenes anymore because of this. I pity the tree used to create this novel. a b Mann, Catherine (2 February 2016). "Uprooted. Book Review". British Fantasy Society . Retrieved 12 November 2022.

Novik grew up in Roslyn Heights on Long Island. She is a second-generation American; her father's family were Lithuanian Jews, and her mother's family were Polish Catholics. [1] Displaying an interest in reading at a young age, she read The Lord of the Rings at age six, and developed a love for Jane Austen soon afterward. [2] He called her intolerable and crazy in one sentence and then he kissed her. This is only the first kiss. Novik was a co-founder of Archive of Our Own (AO3), a project of OTW that began in 2007 to create an online archive of fan fiction. [32] [33] At the 2019 Hugo Award ceremony, AO3 won the award for Best Related Work; Novik accepted the prize on behalf of all AO3's creators and readers. [34] Personal life [ edit ]

Breathtaking . . . [Novik] weaves a tale that is both elegantly grand and earthily humble, familiar as a Grimm fairy tale yet fresh, original, and totally irresistible. This will be a must-read for fantasy fans for years to come." -- Pubilshers Weekly (starred review) Busch, Caitlin (February 12, 2019). "An Archive of Our Own: How AO3 built a nonprofit fanfiction empire and safe haven". SyFy. Archived from the original on February 19, 2019 . Retrieved September 6, 2021. Dismayed by the situation, Coppa and her co-founders, sci-fi and fantasy author Naomi Novik and Rebecca Tushnet, a First Amendment rights professor at Harvard University, decided to do something about it. They worked together with the other members of the founding board, a group of seven passionate, "incredibly collaborative" fans and creators, to make a new kind of archive. Each character is vivid and fully realized. In the Dragon we see someone who is not nice, at all, but who always gets things done. He’s rude and verbally abusive, but he constantly puts his life and wellbeing on the line to do what’s right and goes above and beyond what is expected of him, and never asks for any recognition in return. In contrast, we have everyone at court, like Marek and the Falcon, who are all flashy and politically savvy, and always manage to present themselves as celebrated heroes without actually doing anything useful. Both types are common in the real world, and this representation rang very true. 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.Novik here delivers a tale that is funny and fast-paced, laced with hair-raising battle scenes and conspiracies; it also touches on deeper ecological concerns we grapple with today.” — The Washington Post Naomi Novik has written a tale that reminded me of some of Peter Falk's lines from The Princess Bride, "revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes..." Yet none of this story is in the usual way. It is not a humorous story, but it is a tale of wonder.

The main character, Agnieszka, is seriously nothing new. You have read countless incarnations of her in every shitty YA book ever written because she's a special, special girl who doesn't know how special she is. She's just so ordinary and adorably clumsy and plain, y'all! The Dragon always, always takes the most special girl! The Dragon didn’t always take the prettiest girl, but he always took the most special one, somehow.:| <- this is my surprised face.This one treatment to Agnieszka is particularly the most terrible Sarkan had pulled out of his sleeve. It's just so goddamn charming. It's exciting and creepy with regards to the plot and world, but it's made especially wonderful because of the character dynamics. Agnieszka and the Dragon are hilarious together - they operate with a kind of love/hate dynamic that makes for some really funny scenes and some heart-warming ones. a b c "Naomi Novik Awards". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus Science Fiction Foundation. Archived from the original on June 28, 2021 . Retrieved August 2, 2022.

No one went into the Wood and came out again, at least not whole and themselves. Sometimes they came out blind and screaming, sometimes they came out twisted and so misshapen they couldn’t be recognized; and worst of all sometimes they came out with their own faces but murder behind them, something gone dreadfully wrong within. Oh wait, there's more. The Dragon also insulted her by calling her an idiot every steps of the way. About more than THREE times in the book. Uprooted has everything I love: a great heroine, new takes on old myths and legends, and surprising twists and turns. A delight.”—Cassandra Clare

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a b "2015 Nebula Awards Winners". Locus Online. Archived from the original on September 21, 2016 . Retrieved May 15, 2016.