Naomi Novik Archives - Diary of Difference

★★★

Being born and raised in Macedonia, I grew up with the Slavic fairy tales. I still remember my grandma telling me stories about Baba Yaga (Babaroga). When I found out about Uprooted by Naomi Novik, it intrigued me instantly.

Synopsis:

Uprooted tells a story about Agnieszka. She lives in a quiet village that she loves. Surrounding the village is an enchanted forest, and the Wood has taken many people’s lives. The villagers go in and don’t come back. The village relies on the wizard, called Dragon, to protect them from the dark magic coming from the woods.

However, this help comes with a price. A young woman must serve him for ten years, leaving everything behind and never leaving the tower. Agnieszka fears that her best friend Kasia will be picked for the next choosing. Kasia is everything Agnieszka isn’t – graceful, beautiful and brave. And yet, when the Dragon comes, it isn’t Kasia that he takes.

My Thoughts:

The beginning of Uprooted is fantastic. I was immediately sucked into the story and I was loving the pace. Naomi Novik’s storytelling ability is honestly breathtaking, and it is consistent throughout the book. However, as soon as the Dragon makes his pick of the young girl and they head to the tower, the pace slows down. And for me, the rest of the journey kept going downhill.

“But there’s no kindness in offering false hope.”

I loved Agnieszka, and her side of the story. It felt familiar in the way that I’ve heard similar stories before in my childhood. And that familiarity kept warming my heart until the very end.

And I felt the same for the Dragon.

I loved the name, especially because the usual Slavic fairy tales have a dragon in the tower that is guarding the princess. I see what you did there, Naomi. The story about a wizard who doesn’t age and looks after the village is incredible. And that he takes a woman every ten years adds to the suspense, and of how the villagers have mixed feelings about him. Feelings of gratitude, fear and anger, all combined.

“The Dragon wasn’t like any man of our village. He should have been old and stooped and grey; he had been living in his tower a hundred years, but he was tall, straight, beardless, his skin taut.”

The idea started well, but it was executed poorly. I have mixed feelings about the Woods. I liked the suspense and danger, but I think many scenes were way too long and unnecessary. That made the Woods a little bit boring for me. I really loved the parts about the magic, as well as the mentions of Baba Yaga. As for the romance, I am not too sure about that either. I just wasn’t as bothered or invested as I would usually be in another book.

Uprooted isn’t a favorite book of mine, but I did enjoy parts of it. It is very magical and the writing is beautiful. The pace was somewhat slow for me, but I know many people enjoy that. I recommend it to anyone that likes fairy tales and fantasy. I will definitely be reading more from Naomi Novik in the future.

Purchase Links:
Amazon UK | Amazon US

★

I was so excited to read A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik.

A Deadly Education is the first book in the Scholomance series. It was supposed to be everything I love – magic, magical school, a bit of romance. And it left me so disappointed and just empty within. I have no words of how sad I am to be writing this review. I am crushed, but I have to be honest to myself and to the people reading my reviews.

Synopsis:

A Deadly Education is indeed a story about a deadly magical school. This school, Scholomance, is a school for students that are magically gifted. There are no teachers and students are left alone to master skills and attend lessons. They are also forbidden to walk the halls at night, because deadly monsters are lurking from every corner. And the ultimate graduation test is a deadly game of survival by fighting these monsters.

The students’ magic works based on either mana (the good magic) or malia (the bad magic).

El is our main character in this book, who can use malia to defeat all the monsters, but that would involve killing the other students. Survival also means working on strategies and making allies with other people.

And then we also have Orion Lake. He has many friends and admirers and he keeps saving El’s life. And she’s not impressed and hates him.

My Thoughts:

I feel like A Deadly Education was a great idea about a magical school that has a “Hunger Games” type of graduation, but somewhere in the middle the plot got lost and we got a weak story.

First of all, I hated El. I don’t usually hate characters, but God, I really despised her. Not only was she incredibly rude all the time, but she was very entitled, self-centered and very selfish. I hated the fact that she always thought the world revolved about her. Furthermore, she kept pushing people away, especially her so-called friends and Orion.

Then we have Orion Lake, who is portrayed as the hero, saving so many lives. Which he is. But he also is this person that can’t speak for himself, and seems like he does whatever other people tell him to do.

And the romance between them was very non-existent. There wasn’t any form of attraction that I felt, only El’s rudeness. I don’t know how it escalated in the end to a romance, because I didn’t see it. El was even then being rude to him.

This is such a hard review to write, as I know this book is widely popular. But for me, it didn’t hit the mark in any way. I wish there was more to it than just the deadly monsters and strategies for a graduation that was so talked about. And I wish the romance was real. But I’m still keen to read the second book, just to find out whether it will redeem itself, at least a bit. If you’re looking for a magical school, I’d suggest Hogwarts.

This ain’t it.