Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Format: eBook
Read: October 2025

I first read Uprooted in 2022 and absolutely loved it. I gave it 5 stars. It came after a run of very disappointing books that claimed to be about witches but actually had no magic in them! (A Discovery of Witches (just bad vampire romance) and The Lighthouse Witches (good but not witchy).

After enduring A Court of Thorns of Roses it came to mind and I felt a need to cleanse myself with a similar plot that’s actually well written! And I have to say getting into it did feel like slipping into a warm bath. Flowing sentences, deft world building, and characters that were flawed but not annoying!

Having reread it now with a few more years of reading a lot more books, and getting back into reading more closely, I can see the flaws in Uprooted, which is why I’m rating it 4 instead of 5 stars, but honestly, when it’s good, it’s fucking fantastic and hits my sweet spot of what I want from a fantasy read.

He doesn’t devour them really; it only feels that way. He takes a girl to his tower, and ten years later he lets her go, but by then she’s someone different. Her clothes are too fine and she talks like a courtier and she’s been living alone with a man for ten years, so of course she’s ruined, even though the girls all say he never puts a hand on them. What else could they say?

It is based on Eastern European folklore and set in a medieval fantasy world with that kind of vibe (Kings, castles, peasants, horses, swords etc). Agnieszka is the main character, a young girl of 17 who lives in a small rural village in a valley, on the edge of an imposing evil wood. The valley is protected by a powerful wizard known as The Dragon, and every ten years, he takes a girl from one of the villages back to his tower. When the time is up, he releases her and selects a new girl. This time, he selects Agnieszka, over her beautiful and capable best friend, Kasia, shocking the village.

Characters and romance

The Dragon didn’t always take the prettiest girl, but he 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, even though he scarcely exchanged a word with the girls before he made his choice.

Agnieszka has the trope traits of being clumsy, stubborn, impulsive and always looking a mess. Somehow, Novik got the right balance, and she didn’t annoy me because she was also curious, practical and intelligent. She’s also no beauty and tall for a woman, and the Dragon is described as “not a big man.” So that was nice not to have the big man and tiny woman trope.

The Dragon is 150 years old but still looks young and handsome, with only some lines around his eyes. He’s strict, serious and fussy. He dresses sharply and likes routine, rules and books. All this is to contrast Agnieszka’s well-intentioned but chaotic nature. The first part of the book focuses on their personality clashes and The Dragon’s inflexible teaching style not suiting his pupil.

There is an inevitable romance (but this is not “romantasy”), and I think this is one of the weaknesses in the book, despite the fact that some elements of it I absolutely loved. Firstly, yes, we have 17 year old girl and 150 year old man. However, that element didn’t bother me for two reasons. While Agnieszka is naive – she has to be for the plot to work – her naivety to me felt more from her background as an ignorant peasant than her age; she actually felt quite emotionally mature, so I forgot she was that young! The Dragon also tries repeatedly to put her off her advances and avoid her, and reminds her of his age, so it doesn’t come across like he groomed her. The picking a girl to lock in his tower thing also does get explained!

The flaw, for me, is that The Dragon is really underdeveloped as a character. The book is told from Agnieska’s first-person narrative, so we don’t get access to his experiences and emotional journey. We just see him being stand-offish and awkward, and that doesn’t build engagement with him or their growing relationship. There are two abrupt scenes where things get sexy. Now those sexy scenes are great – some of the best I’ve read, especially as they are driven by Agnieska – and I think that dazzled me the first time I read it! But in the wider context of the plot and character journey’s they are strangely isolated, and there is never enough emotional follow-up for it to feel satisfying because the main plot races along at a breakneck speed and frequently splits them up.

The Wood

The villain is not The Dragon, as you probably gathered, but is actually a scary sentient forest! The Wood does all kinds of creepy and malevolent things – it sends out creatures to kidnap and attack villagers, it can corrupt and possess people, creatures and magical objects, and it plays the long game through decades-long elaborate plots. It really feels like an overwhelming and unbeatable enemy; it was fantastic.

There are also some side-characters that have complicated and more morally grey motivations that make for interesting sub-villains. I also enjoyed where the story went for her best friend, Kasia.

The plot of this book is packed, and the pace is fast. It is 440 pages, but so much happens that it felt longer to me! At times, that made it quite a dense read because there was so much to take in, and in particular, I found the middle third, where she’s away from The Dragon at the capital, dragged a bit because I found the politics less interesting than the magic stuff.

Magic

Agnieska’s magical abilities also took too much of a leap too quickly for me, and I found it a bit jarring how fast she went from failing to do simple spells for The Dragon to being super powerful and able to cast the most complicated spells at the drop of a hat. Now I understand that this occurs after she has the lightbulb moment of discovery over how her own magic works in comparison to The Dragon’s rules-based book learn spells (this really reminded me of Discworld‘s witches vs wizards!), but we really go from zero to dueces ex machina level abilities, especially as we learn wizards usually train for a minimum of 7 years, and I don’t think she’d done 7 months!

I snatched the feathers off the arrow-shaft and threw them up into the air above us. They remembered what they’d once been and turned into a cloud of half-birds that whirled and sang, covering us from view for a few moments.

That said, I fucking loved all the magic stuff! There are some really cool magic action scenes in this book, which are exactly the kind of thing I love to read and always struggle to find!

I do understand why I gave this 5 stars the first time I read it, but I have read more widely in the last three years and rediscovered the fun of more critical reading, and so I can acknowledge its flaws and with balance, it is a 4-star read for me. The good bits, though, are SO GOOD, and I think one day I probably will re-read this again.