🌟🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
“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.
But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.
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.
But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.
I've been trying to read more adult fantasy books to branch out of YA a little bit more. I'm not sure why exactly. It may be due to reading Sara J. Maas's books which venture into New Adult territory. Her books made me curious about what else is out there in the adult fantasy realm.
I decided to pick up Uprooted because it had great reviews and it sounded different to me. I wondered, initially, if it was going to be another Beauty and the Beast retelling but quickly learned just how wrong I was when I began reading it. It was an intriguing premise that hooked me immediately. You might even say that it planted roots in me...ba dum shh! Okay, all bad jokes aside, I was really impressed with this book.
I really enjoyed the characters and thought that the story was different from anything that I had read before. Agnieszka was vulnerable and flawed but also had a moral compass and thirst for knowledge that seemed to give her a unique kind of strength. I also loved the Dragon even though other readers might find an issue with that. I didn't see him as abusive but rather as a person that purposely attempted to distance himself from others by being his prickly self but at the same time was lonely without companionship. The best part of the story in my opinion was learning about the ins and outs of the Wood and why the people needed the Dragon to protect them from it.
Uprooted is very much a twist on fairy tales in a way but it takes things a step further. It is darker than you would think and involves a surprising amount of bloodshed. I wouldn't say that it was a crazy thrill ride all the way through but it kept up a good pacing throughout. I really enjoyed the book and the only reason I didn't give it five stars was because I was able to put it to the side to read other books before finally picking it back up to finish it. In my mind, that sends me the signal that I wasn't completely in love with it.
I decided to pick up Uprooted because it had great reviews and it sounded different to me. I wondered, initially, if it was going to be another Beauty and the Beast retelling but quickly learned just how wrong I was when I began reading it. It was an intriguing premise that hooked me immediately. You might even say that it planted roots in me...ba dum shh! Okay, all bad jokes aside, I was really impressed with this book.
I really enjoyed the characters and thought that the story was different from anything that I had read before. Agnieszka was vulnerable and flawed but also had a moral compass and thirst for knowledge that seemed to give her a unique kind of strength. I also loved the Dragon even though other readers might find an issue with that. I didn't see him as abusive but rather as a person that purposely attempted to distance himself from others by being his prickly self but at the same time was lonely without companionship. The best part of the story in my opinion was learning about the ins and outs of the Wood and why the people needed the Dragon to protect them from it.
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