Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Do You Ever Get Out of the Wood?

Naomi Novik “Uprooted” (Del Rey, 2015)
It doesn’t take long before you realize that this story is not just one of those European folk tales with dragons and girls and witches and magic and mysterious forests but it is interrogating those stories.  Because the dragon is actually a dude, and the girl has agency, and the handsome prince is really a jerk.

So Novik reshapes those kinds of stories for modern sensibilities, because most of us don’t want that same old story any more.  But the story she leaves us with is just as good if not better.  The characters shine, the world building is fantastic, and the emotional core of the story is strong and full of love.

I hope that this is the start of a series because I want to read more.
 

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