Uprooted - Review
Link to the author's (N. Novik) personal website
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Type: Book
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (17)
- Length (5 / 10)
Link to Goodreads
Blurb: “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.”
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 ten 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.
Review: It's been awhile since I read this book, and even when I read it I think I was outside the target demographic. Off memory however, it was a decent stand-alone fantasy book that was exactly what I was looking for when between larger series. I do remember that the Wood was creepy as hell, and that the author did a great job of describing it while maintaining the optimistic tone of the book. I am giving it a recommend as I have a positive recollection of the book, despite that recollection being pretty minimal.