Uprooted

De: Naomi Novik

Narrado por: Julia Emelin

NEBULA AWARD WINNER • HUGO AWARD FINALIST • “If you want a fantasy with strong characters and brilliantly original variations on ancient stories, try Uprooted!”—Rick Riordan

“Breathtaking . . . a tale that is both elegantly grand and earthily humble, familiar as a Grimm fairy tale yet fresh, original, and totally irresistible.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, BuzzFeed, Tordotcom, BookPage, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly

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.

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

Reseñas de la Crítica

“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

“A very enjoyable fantasy with the air of a modern classic . . . Naomi Novik skillfully takes the fairy-tale-turned-bildungsroman structure of her premise . . . and builds enough flesh on those bones to make a very different animal. . . . The vivid characters around her also echo their fairy-tale forebears, but are grounded in real-world ambivalence that makes this book feel quietly mature, its world lived-in.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Novik here delivers a tale that is funny and fast-paced, laced with hair-raising battle scenes and conspiracies; it also touches on deeper ecological concerns we grapple with today.”—The Washington Post

“Novik takes us on a surprise-filled journey. . . . The resulting warmth and intimacy provide a nicely nurturing environment for her heroine’s unusual adventures.”—The Seattle Times

“Drawing on her Polish heritage and fairy-tale tropes, [Novik] has penned an original and fully realized fantastical place guaranteed to enthrall her longtime fans and attract new readers. This exceptional fantasy for adult and teen readers should appeal to those who love fairy-tale influenced stories such as Robin McKinley’s Spindle’s End.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Every so often you come upon a story that seems like a lost tale of Grimm newly come to light. Uprooted is such a novel. Its narrative spell is confidently wrought and sympathetically cast. I might even call it bewitching.”—Gregory Maguire, bestselling author of Wicked and Egg & Spoon

“The magic in Uprooted, with its realistic moral dimension, is so vividly believable that it almost seems you could work the spells. But the book will do that for you.”—Ursula K. Le Guin, award-winning and bestselling author of The Earthsea cycle

“Uprooted has everything I love: a great heroine, new takes on old myths and legends, and surprising twists and turns. A delight.”—Cassandra Clare, New York Times bestselling author of The Mortal Instruments series

“Magical and practical, otherworldly and planted in the real, I could not stop reading this book and neither will you!”—Tamora Pierce, New York Times bestselling author of Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen

“Wild, thrilling, and deeply, darkly magical. An instant classic.”—Lev Grossman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians Trilogy

Great story, hard to listen to.

It isn't the accent so much as the woodenness of the narration that makes this a little frustrating to listen to. The story is great, but the reading really detracts from it.

A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups (With Terrifying Trees)

"Uprooted" feels like a forgotten fairy tale that somehow slipped out of our common culture, but would be right at home next to Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and all the rest. There's magic, wizards, princes, and evil forests. (WOW, the evil trees are AWESOME. But we'll come back to those later.) But despite that sense of familiarity, I can't think of too many other books like it. In some ways it reminds of Neil Gaiman's "Stardust," and in other ways of Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell." Maybe a dash of Katherine Addison's "The Goblin Emperor." It's charming like those books, and yet it's also very much its own story.

Agnieszka is a fantasy heroine for the ages. She's messy, kind, stubborn, bumbling yet brilliant when it comes to magic. I loved how devoted she is to her friend Kasia (and how loyal Kasia is to her). Her relationship with the Dragon could've felt like a revamped Beauty & the Beast, or Pygmalion, and maybe there are hints of all that here. But Novik twists all those tropes and stories and comes up with a relationship and storyline that feels fresh. At it's heart, this is a story of love (not only the romantic kind, although there is that too) and friendship.

Can we talk about the forest and the trees? Because Novik has created some of the most horrifying evil trees I think I've ever read, and it's kind of delightful how vile and terrifying they are. The bark, the sap, the branches...the descriptions and details were terrifying (and delicious).

Julia Emelin's narration has come under a lot of criticism, which baffles me. Because of the Russian accent? Honestly, I cannot figure it out. After reading the reviews, I previewed the narration before I purchased the book, and remained puzzled -- Emelin's voice and accent helped ground tone for the story. I was captivated by every minute of her performance. Novik spun an incredible tale, and Emelin's narration complimented it to perfection.

"Uprooted" is one of my favorite listens in the last year. It feels like a story we've known our whole lives, even if we're just hearing it for the first time. And it's one I'll want to hear again and again and again.

Great story! Awful choice of narrator.

This was such a wonderful story. The writing is rich and descriptive, really pulling you in. The problem is the narrator. Although she would be great for some stories, her extremely thick accent only served to distract and confuse. I had to force myself to listen and it's really a testament to how good the story is that I made it all the way through. It's not simply an accent, she can't pronounce many words correctly and instead of a nice fluid read through, it's choppy and awkward. The one positive note is that she pronounces the russian/polish words beautifully.

Great performance of a great book!

I really enjoyed every part of this book! I can't put my finger on exactly which part was the best, but it demanded my first audible review.

I did not want to stop the audio book.

I had read the first chapter of this book silently as a sample years ago, and was so unimpressed then that I did not even remember doing so when I chose it as an audio book, but as I was listening to the audio book, I simply did not want to stop listening. I stayed up late into the night to hear more, on more than one night.

The main character is female, and I suspect women would relate to her more than men would. The nature of the magical systems described here, and the world that is invented, was totally fascinating to me. The character development is perfectly okay, but not the best thing about the book. There is one instance of sex, and a few instances of graphic violence, so it might not be a children's book.

The reader of the audio book has an accent suggesting that English is not her first language, but since this is very loosely inspired by Polish and Russian folktales, having someone with this accent seems to fit. I had not heard of her before, but she kept it interesting. I had no trouble understanding her.