485. Uprooted
Rating: ☆☆1/2
Recommended by: Joni Renee Zalk
Author: Naomi Novik
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy
435 pages, published May 19, 2014
Reading Format: Book
Summary
The protagonist of Uprooted is Agnieszka, a village girl who is selected by “The Dragon,” a magical wizard who every ten years chooses a girl to take to his tower. The Dragon, who protects the villagers against the malevolent and encroaching Wood, trains Agnieszka in his magical ways and enlists her help in fighting the Wood.
Quotes
“You intolerable lunatic,” he snarled at me, and then he caught my face between his hands and kissed me.”
“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.”
“I’m glad,” I said, with an effort, refusing to let my mouth close up with jealousy. It wasn’t that I wanted a husband and a baby; I didn’t, or rather, I only wanted them the way I wanted to live to a hundred someday, far off, never thinking about the particulars. But they meant life: she was living, and I wasn’t.”
“I was a glaring blot on the perfection. But I didn’t care: I didn’t feel I owed him beauty.”
“I don’t want more sense!” I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. “Not if sense means I’ll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that’s worth holding on to?”
“I don’t want more sense!” I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. “Not if sense means I’ll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that’s worth holding on to?”
“I leaned against his side, his irritation oddly comforting. After a moment he grudgingly put his arm around me. The deep quiet was already settling back upon the grove, as if all the fire and rage we’d brought could make only a brief interruption in its peace.”
“You’ve been inexpressibly lucky,” he said finally. “And inexpressibly mad, although in your case the two seem to be the same thing”
“His name tasted of fire and wings, of curling smoke, of subtlety and strength and the rasping whisper of scales.”
“Those the walkers carried into the Wood were less lucky. We didn’t know what happened to them, but they came back out sometimes, corrupted in the worst way: smiling and cheerful, unharmed. They seemed almost themselves to anyone who didn’t know them well, and you might spend half a day talking with one of them and never realize anything was wrong, until you found yourself taking up a knife and cutting off your own hand, putting out your own eyes, your own tongue, while they kept talking all the while, smiling, horrible. And then they would take the knife and go inside your house, to your children, while you lay outside blind and choking and helpless even to scream. If someone we loved was taken by the walkers, the only thing we knew to hope for them was death, and it could only be a hope.”
My Take
While a lot of people love Uprooted, I am not a fan. It had way too many action sequences, was often disjointed (incomprehensively jumping from one thing to another) and failed to develop the main characters or their relationship. A bit of a slog to get through it.
