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Uprooted

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Uprooted

Written by: Naomi Novik
Narrated by: Julia Emelin
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About this listen

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.

©2015 Naomi Novik (P)2015 Random House Audio Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Magic Science Fiction Dragons Heartfelt Magic Users

What the critics say

“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
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the conception of magic is even more captivating and ingenious than "spinning silver", but it becomes more downplayed as the plot gains unwieldy complexity and becomes hard to understand. the narrator conveys passion and conviction, but also reads with an uneven rhythm that makes some sentences hard to follow. "spinning silver" is more coherent, but this book contains certain passages that achieve transcendence in their vivid, synesthetic description of how magic feels to use.

inspired, but uneven

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Reads like a dark fairy tale in the realm of Princess Mononoke. I had trouble stopping.

Loved it!

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I loved this book, the woods were a terrifying enemy and the leads were a clever and their banter fun to read.

a wonderful tale

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Fantastic tale, can't recommend it highly enough. Narrator has an accent, but it goes well with the story.

Fantastic tale

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I'm a big fan of Naomi Novik's work, but had a very hard time listening to this audiobook. The narrator's reading seemed forced and monotone, and didn't bring any of the characters to life for me. Sad to say, but I won't be listening to this audiobook again. Will certainly read it though!

Love the book but narrator was really wooden

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This would have been a really enjoyable story if it weren't for the narrator. An authentic Russian accent, for sure , but a stilted, monotone throughout and read as if she didn't understand what she was reading. When I researched the narrator, she was described as an actress. Beyond me how she could get employment as an actress,, given her terrible performance of this book. I would hope she could do better in her native tongue. Several times, I had to pause the book to figure out what the meaning was as her pronunciation of some words confused me. Her phrasing was way off to the point where sense was lost. Really too bad as she ruined the book for me. I think Audible should request another narrator for this book to do it justice. Hey, I'll even do it for free!

Ruined by the narrator.

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This narrator voice was monotone and failed to captivate me. I found the plot twist sometimes made it feel choppy and it didn’t quite fit together smoothly. It lacked a consistent theory of how magic existed in the universe. For some reason, the author made all the characters dislikable in their own ways. The general concept for the story was good but overall I found it prosaic.

Mediocre story and a listless performance

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Absolutely fantastic book! Loved the plot twist and the ending was perfect.
This book has made my top five most loved,
#Audible1

Fantastic Read!

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I really enjoyed this book. the fantasy caught me up and held me to the end. at first I wondered if I would enjoy the narration. in fact the narrator's delivery truly added dimension to the story.

highly recommend

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I thought the story was great in itself, but the narrator was too flat for me.

Loved the story - didn't enjoy the narrator

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