Naomi Novik, author of the New York Times best-selling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.

Hugo Award Finalist

Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, BuzzFeed, Tordotcom, BookPage, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly

“Uprooted is confidently wrought and sympathetically cast. I might even call it bewitching.” (Gregory Maguire, best-selling author of Wicked and Egg & Spoon)

“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 10 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 10 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.

Praise for Uprooted

“Uprooted has leapt forward to claim the title of best book I’ve read yet this year...Moving, heartbreaking, and thoroughly satisfying, Uprooted is the fantasy novel I feel I’ve been waiting a lifetime for. Clear your schedule before picking it up, because you won’t want to put it down.” (NPR)

Listening Length

17 hours and 44 minutes
Author

Naomi Novik
Narrator

Julia Emelin
Audible release date

May 19, 2015
Language

English
Publisher

Random House Audio
ASIN

B00XQBBRQQ
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	17 hours and 44 minutes
Author	Naomi Novik
Narrator	Julia Emelin
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	May 19, 2015
Publisher	Random House Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B00XQBBRQQ
Best Sellers Rank	#3,883 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #34 in Fairy Tale Fantasy (Audible Books & Originals) #178 in Adventure Science Fiction #255 in Folklore (Books)

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Shadow Reader

Magical and beautiful

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2018

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Magical tale based in large part on Polish fairy tales about Baba Yaga and her hut on chicken foot, about Poland and Russia and their never ending-conflicts about. Agnieszka (polish name) is a young girl with no skills other then being a total, grimy and clumsy mess. When it is discovered she has magic of her own it is as undisciplined and chaotic as the girl herself, however it is quite potent. When mixed with her masters magic it produces miraculous results. At the heart of the story is loyalty, friendships, love, greed, power and vengeance. Not everyone escapes unscathed but those who do have to find their own way to happiness. I loved it and found it breathtakingly beautiful.

103 people found this helpful

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Meghan

Wonderful, Imaginative, Charming

Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2017

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I loved "Uprooted!" This really is a book that has everything. Agnieszka is such a charming, likeable main character. She loves her family, her friends, and her life - all before the Dragon chooses her to serve him. The interactions between these two are often hilarious. He's a total brat - grumpy, rough around the edges, argumentative. And Agnieszka is his stubborn, sassy counterpart. The descriptions of magic in this are one of the best parts. And the plot!! You'll be on the edge of your seat for most of the book. The most beautiful aspect, to me, is how deeply she and Kasia love each other. Realistic female friendships are hard to come across in literature, but it never felt as if their love was put on the back burner for anything else. A wonderful, imaginative read.

45 people found this helpful

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Kathleen Edwards

The witch... The Wood... The dragon

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2017

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I really enjoyed getting lost in this book. It draws you in to The Wood. I reached the end and felt a bit confused, I had to blink and look around and realize I was no longer in The Wood, but sitting in my living room...

I could really relate to the main character. I understood the way she felt, her frustration and the way she coped and succeeded. Doing things her way, the way that was comfortable, not the "correct, spelled out way". It took me back to my old Polish neighbors that I would visit as a child. The comfortable life, herbs hanging from the rafters, hot sweet tea..

I wish there was another one to read...

52 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Loved it!

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2017

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Sometimes I look over the reviews of a book before I post my own, just out of idle curiosity, and I was interested to find that there is almost no middle ground on Uprooted. People love it or they hate it. Me, I loved it in spite of its flaws, which I count as hella good story-telling. And flaws it does have. The "hero" of the book, known as The Dragon, is a jerk. Seriously, there's no other way to describe him. He has a past which explains some of it, and the fact that he's shut himself up in a tower with only a single peasant girl (one is taken every ten years, then sent on her way, wealthy but seemingly rootless) for company. He doesn't really like the girls, has very little interaction with them in spite of the persistent rumors of him having his way with them. He has cut himself off from all but the most basic human contact for over a century. Why wouldn't he be a jerk? He's forgotten how to treat people.

So on a year of the choosing, Agnieszka expects that it will be her best friend, Kasia, who is chosen. Kasia is gorgeous, good, graceful, everything Agnieszka is not. But it's Agnieszka who is chosen instead. And from that moment, her story becomes something quite different from the one she had expected to live. She has magic. Agnieszka also has a healthy ego, she doesn't take The Dragon's assholery seriously once she realizes that he's teaching her to be a witch. She knows she's good at it, she understands magic at a gut level which is something even The Dragon doesn't seem to do, being a wizard of rules and precision. Yeah, she's a bit of a Mary Sue, but we never get the transformation into gorgeous Agnieszka who is desired by all who gaze upon her perfection. Rather you get a rising heat between her and The Dragon, which they manage to deny until it's a meeting of equals, and Agnieszka's conscious decision.

I'm not going to get all shirty about the rules of magic here. They are what the author says they are, nothing more or less, and complaining about how magic "doesn't work that way" seems fairly pointless to me. I liked the feel of it, so I accept that it works the way Novik tells us it works. More than that, I liked the feel of Agnieszka's magic which is friendly and homespun. What she does in the end seems to me to be a direct result of how her magic has developed over the course of the book.

Had it ended with Agnieszka doing the work she'd chosen for herself, I'd have been completely satisfied because it's a story of a young woman finding her path in life. She's helped by her teacher, given strength and purpose by her best friend, and the other people in her village who she cares about. It's a story about how an awkward girl becomes a woman who finds her voice, and the best expression of who she is in the magic she chooses to do. In one thing about her magic, The Dragon was spot on: Agnieszka is a healer, and by the end, we see how powerful that gift really is.

So yeah, count me as one who loved this book. I wasn't insulted or annoyed by it. I enjoyed the characters, and felt that the pace was exactly right.

27 people found this helpful

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Petrichor

Overhyped, but not bad.

Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2018

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[3.5/5]

Spoilers ahead.

This is now the second book I’ve read recently that I’ve considered overhyped. From what I’ve heard it’s another retelling of Eastern Europe folklore, similar to The Bear and the Nightingale, so I guess I can’t really say anything about how the story unfolds as a standard unexpected chosen one tale.

What I will freely bash instead is Sarkan, as in he’s an irritable prick throughout the story and doesn’t get much better by the end. I’ve seen people say in reviews that they ended up liking him, but even as a fellow misanthrope, I just couldn’t relate. At one point, the MC makes contact with him from a great distance away, something that was unheard of in the book world, and his response was to be annoyed. Lovely.

I don’t even mind the rather graphic sex scene towards the end section, a refreshing take on fantasy sexuality (instead of the typical fade to black, or full on lack of it Sanderson style). But I just don’t understand what the MC sees in him. He’s even close to irritable during that, FFS.

The relationship is almost creepy in a Stockholm syndrome way. I genuinely feel like the book would have been better without him at all, similar to how it ended with the MC tending to the sick heart trees; that section was good, and then Sarkan shows up at the end to dispense more boring irritability.

All in all, I’ve decided to start doing more research into what well-reviewed books are based on, because apparently retold Eastern European tales aren’t my cup of tea. Or maybe I’ve missed the point entirely, who knows. Onward to a new book.

94 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Maria Kaldvee

Badly written and frankly, quite boring.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2019

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I was eagerly waiting to start this based on some rave reviews and mentions of some prestigious awards that the book has won.
I just recently finished reading The Mirror Visitor and was blown away by that gem, so after one unique fantasy I was dreaming to get into some more magic and romance and adventure and thought that this one would be a perfect book to dive into after the previous one.
Unfortunately, I was very disappointed.
The premise itself ( village at the edge of the woods, magical powers, a dark wizard etc.) is all well and good, and I like that sort of fantasy environment.

Now the writing itself though, I was doing a 'facepalm' after 'facepalm', and yes, yet again, another 'facepalm'. Nothing flows, first-person prose made me cringe so many times.
First-person perspective is hard to get right in the first place and the last book which I found to have believable and comprehensive First-Person view was The Hunger Games book trilogy. However in this one, I honestly thought that I was reading a teenager's attempt at writing fan fiction, instead of a professionally published and edited literary piece composed by a fully grown professional writer.
Sentence structure was choppy and in some places I had to concentrate just to try to understand how the writer was imagining a certain scene since the sentences were not well written, or at least not written in a way that portrays a scene logically. Therefore, it would have been wiser for the writer to opt for third-person perspective.

Character wise, I was disappointed to discover that the main character did indeed embody a cliched female protagonist of a YA novel. I was honestly expecting more.
The 'I'm a 17 year old special girl with magical powers' thing has been overdone to oblivion and frankly I should have known better, but again, was feeling hopeful and optimistic about this one based on all the Awards and marketing.
So maybe, the main protagonist would have appeared more real if she was in her mid 20's instead? In her interests, and the depth of her personality she wasn't developed enough for my liking.
Though I found that I liked the male protagonist, The Dragon and found him interesting enough.
Supporting characters could have been further developed as well.
The romance angle - I have seen this type of romantic story play out ten times better in half a dozen other books with better character development and world building. A mediocre effort in my opinion. A dark romance is refreshing and intriguing, only if done right and well written.

So in conclusion, it felt more to me like the marketing department did a far better job at selling the book then the writer at actually composing it. The cover is beautiful so it'll still look nice on my shelf.
No offense to the writer at all, but I have really read much better fantasy/romance/magic stories.

37 people found this helpful

indiejones

Should never have been published.

Reviewed in Germany on August 5, 2020

Verified Purchase

Oh God, this book! It frustrated me no end, I had to force myself to keep on reading and it was so boring at times, I nearly fell asleep (which would have been a good thing).

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

The book is about a 17-year-old (or 18-year-old – frankly, I don’t care) girl who lives in a valley that is both haunted and protected by The Dragon. Haunted because every 10 years he visits the valley in which Agnieszka lives in order to pick a girl of his choice. He takes each girl with him to his lonely tower at the end of the valley and only releases her again after ten years. The only reason why the villagers continue to tolerate him is because he is a powerful wizard that keeps The Wood at bay. The Wood is a dark forest with a will of its own and it plans to devour every living being.

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure that our main character is the next girl the Dragon captures to take with him. Naturally, she is surprised because she doesn’t think of herself as special, for the Dragon "always took the most special one, somehow: if there was one girl who was far and away the prettiest, or the most bright, or the best dancer, or especially kind, somehow he always picked her out.“ So the Dragon picks our main character this time. But she isn’t special! *gasp* She is just an ordinary girl, "a too-skinny colt of a girl with big feet and tangled dirt-brown hair“. But The Dragon picked *her*! Does that mean she is special? Surely, it must all be a big misunderstanding!

Six pages in (not kidding, the quotes above are from pages 4 & 5) and I could already tick off two of my most-loathed tropes:
1. special snowflake
2. the pairing of a guy belonging to a high social class, wealthy, good-looking, mysterious + girl from low social background, who considers herself ugly and normal but somehow turns out to be special after all.

Let’s continue on to the really problematic parts:

First of all, the Dragon takes the girls by force. They don’t want to go with him but they have no choice. It’s the same thing for Agnieszka. It also doesn’t take much imagination to guess that the Dragon and she will have a romantic relationship. I don’t support any kind of relationships (especially romantic ones) that are based on physical/ emotional abuse, hate, or non-consent from either party. That’s what the Dragon does. He abuses Agnieszka emotionally, calls her names & insults her at every given point throughout the first half of the book. About a week after he abducted her, the Dragon accused her of being a wizard spy and "shoved [her] hard against the bed and bent low. […] His fingers were resting on [her] neck; his leg was on the bed, between [hers]." This is a physical attack but the author chose to load it with sexual tension and I just felt sooo uncomfortable. Sexual violence is a real thing, there are people who suffer from it on a daily basis and it has no place in a healthy relationship. Why did the author choose to use these exact words?? Again, this made me feel very uncomfortable.

Another scene that caused me great consternation and raised eyebrows was when the main character is sexually assaulted by the prince of the kingdom who comes to pay a visit to the Dragon.
The prince traps Agnieszka in her room, kisses her several times against her will and reaches for her skirts (p. 42). We get some insight into the character's thoughts and she literally thinks: "For that matter, I’d probably have been willing myself, if he’d asked me outright and given me enough time to get over my surprise and answer him: I struggled more by reflex than because I wanted to reject him.“ (This is taken straight from the book and occurs as early as chapter 3!).
Oh BOY, that last sentence was absolutely the limit. She struggled more by reflex than because she wanted to reject him?? What is going on?? This gives the notion of her enjoying it or at least not minding a sexual assault. Bad. Very bad. I felt like puking. The media is already busy enough distorting the truth of sexual assault/ rape survivors, we don’t need fantasy books targeted at teenage girls to add to that.

This is what brings me to my next point. Agnieszka confesses the attack to the Dragon and one of the first things he says is: “What were you thinking? Why did you put yourself into that ludicrous dress if you didn’t want to seduce him?” This is literally victim blaming. He blames her choice of clothing for the assault. In fact, he has more bad things to say about her than about her attacker. Yeah, right, as if there weren’t enough men who routinely use “if she didn’t want to get raped, she shouldn't have worn such short/ revealing clothes” as an excuse. NO!

There was also no gradual development in their relationship. The Dragon literally goes from indifference to “hot and burning desire”. That’s about a third into the book. A THIRD! He only views her as a nuisance, calls her “puling” and spends his time insulting her. Completely believable.

Agnieszka so often felt like a damsel in distress, she has no self-respect. She thinks of herself as a “mud-splattered scullery-maid”, continues to belittle herself, thinks of the Dragon as her “lord” and when I read: “I hadn’t even known those words were in me to be spoken; […] I would never have thought of speaking so to my lord, the Dragon”, I just wanted to scream “GIVE ME A BREAK!” Oh God, how I hated her attitude.

Some things that didn’t make the cut for my review:
- the Dragon has no personality whatsoever and let’s not talk about any form of character development
- apparently the main character is so clumsy, she can’t go a single day without scorching, ripping or staining her clothes and at one point she even manages to wander in “with a clump of rice pudding on top of [her] head—[she] had accidentally hit a spoon with [her] elbow and flung some into the air—” I mean, PLEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASEEEEEEEEE
- there was some really weird thing going on where it’s not direct speech and when other characters wouldn’t hear Agnieszka's thoughts but then the Dragon would reply to her (eg. 'I was increasingly aware of the weight of stone around us, of silence. It felt like a tomb. "It is a tomb,” he said.).

What was that all about?? Avoid, AVOID.

48 people found this helpful

J. Barber

A wonderful folktale inspired fantasy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 17, 2017

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A wonderful folktale inspored fantasy I thoroughly enjoyed this tale. I will say I can understand why this wouldnt be for everyone as its written like a Young Adult book and the girls in the story dont get to much depth. For me I enjoyed the world to much and could forgive the lack of depth to the characters as its written like a folktale.

One of the things I loved and I saw a reviewer point out is how the two main characters are together its quite like how belle and the beast are in beauty and the beast, where ones stubborn and ones grumpy and the friction between the characters that creates which I loved. I liked that Agnieszka seems to always be a mess, its not even that she cooks and gets most pf it over her its even things like standing in a dress in no time itll have mud on it or get a rip in it, this flaw of hers is a nice constant "flaw" of hers throught the story that has every one around her annoyed/ exasperated. The fact that this is a stand alone works in its favour as the book has a nice fast pace to it though this does sacrifice a little bit of world building with regards to explaing the magic or more about the wider world it really isnt missed. Agnieszka doesnt need to know how the magic works though little bits and peices are revealed to give a bit about how it works which was enough for me i feel the slight mystery of it helps with the folktale vibe of the story.

21 people found this helpful

Iza

Nope

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

I should know better by now. If I pick up a book way too many times, it's a lost cause. Especially since the first picking up happened sometimes in 2019. And it took me six days to read 400 pages - seemed like 800, to be honest.

Let's start with the characters. The reason why I couldn't continue reading was because of the Dragon, the so-called hero of the book. I was perplexed as I saw another reader saying how much they laughed at this book. I have not cracked one smile, my friends, not a one. So he's an a-hole to rival all a-holes - for the hell of it, it seems. No real reason, truly. I think he just woke up in the morning and thought, 'Today, I shall be an even bigger a-hole than yesterday.' That must have been his life goal.

Moving along. Agnieszka. Oh dear, where to start with her? So, she wasn't supposed to get chosen. Why? Because she's not pretty. It's always the pretty ones that get chosen by the Dragon, to live ten years with him - we find out, toward the end why he does it - then go free, like sophisticated butterflies because the Dragon educates them or whatever. Point is, they are no longer simple village girls. So, Agnieszka gets chosen because she has powers the Dragon decides to bring forth.

This is where I would always put it aside, then try continuing, always failing. I think what was really disappointing was the so-called 'love story' between these two. I quickly realized that this author's definition of 'love' differs from mine and hey, to each their own! I think, this time around, I managed to continue reading it - painfully slowly - because I have put aside the silly idea of ever liking these two characters and of falling for them, as a couple. The idea, itself, wasn't the worst I've encountered but by God, the author's writing style makes it seem like I'm reading a never-ending book. I swear, I had one hundred pages left and, even though I kept on reading, it became harder and harder to care, to reach the big conclusion because it felt like more and more pages were magically popping up, after the initial one hundred.

I think the only character I liked was Agnieszka's best friend but her name eludes me, so sorry. Anyway, I can't say I recommend it but you can give it a try, if you like.

2.5 stars.

2 people found this helpful

Eve

Fairy tale with strong female protagonist.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2019

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I bought this on a whim, because someone said they had read it was like Howl's Moving Castle. It isn't, or at least only in very minor ways (it is probably aimed at an older audience and doesn't have Dianna Wynne Jones lightness).
I had not read any of her other books and initially I found the constant reference to the protagonists scruffiness quite annoying. As the book progressed I became more comfortable with the idea she was not "not beautiful", just not conforming to standard notions of "heroine". I also have a problem with the romance between a teenage girl and a man over 100 years old ( a la twilight), but again as the narrative went on the positioning of the protagonist meant that this was less problematic than in other stories with same trope. If you like fantasy/magic/fairy tale type stories this is well written and engaging. Suffice to say I enjoyed it enough that I went on to read Spinning Silver, which I think is even better.

One person found this helpful

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