skygiants | (no subject)

Like almost everyone else, I thought Naomi Novik's Uprooted was pretty fantastic.

It started out feeling very comfortably familiar to me, a top-notch version YA Beauty and the Beast story -- the two most immediate comparisons for me were Robin McKinley and, uh, a much better-written version of Mercedes Lackey's Fire Rose, I'M SORRY. But you guys know the kind of story I mean, right? There's an awkward teenage girl, and she has to leave everything she knows to go live with a powerful, mysterious, somewhat monstrous figure, and in the course of it the monster is revealed to be human and vulnerable, and the girl comes into her own probably-magical power, and they most likely fall in love in a way that metaphorically signifies the shift in power dynamics and the heroine coming of age. YOU KNOW.

I like those stories, and I was all prepared to enjoy the story that I thought this was, but in fact that's really only about the first third of the book and then EVERYTHING ELSE STARTS HAPPENING A LOT.

While the Beauty and the Beast story gives Agnieszka a framework for her romance and coming of age, most of the heart and the plot of the book is tied up in the heroine's relationship with her hometown and, specifically, her best friend Kasia, both of which are inextricably tied to a monstrous and malevolent forest. Then powerful people find out about this, and everything escalates very quickly, and suddenly there's royalty and kingdom-threatening forces and court drama --

-- and, OK, to be honest, I actually did not care very much about the interlude of court drama and I think some of it could probably have been cut out of the book; it's all quite page-turney, and I liked the other wizards (Alosha!), but, like, what is the purpose of the Mean Girl who briefly befriends our heroine only to turn out to have been secretly laughing at her at parties all along? That feels like a sequence that came out of a different fantasy-of-manners kind of book. Uprooted is not fantasy of manners. It's not really about kings and courts. At heart, Uprooted is a fantasy about a village girl, and the tie that she has to her village, and to the forest and the land around it. The forest is at the beginning and the end of this book. That's what gives Agnieszka her power, and honestly, it's what gives the book its power too. Uprooted is at its best and strongest when it's most grounded.

Other thoughts: I am not really anti-the romance, like, as I've said, it's a Beauty and the Beast story and it works exactly as it's meant to, and does it well. (And Naomi Novik is very good at writing compelling romantic doing-magic-together scenes.) But it did spur a lot of thoughts in me about immortals (or near-immortals) dating young persons, and age differences and maturity differences, etc. Not new thoughts, just kind of the same old thoughts, but I would like to mention them anyway.

Also I wanted so much more of Kasia after The Thing that happens -- once they go to court she becomes a little bit of a plot point, and I want to know so much more about her as a character, how she adapts to the KIND OF MAJOR changes in basically everything about her and her life. I mean, there's no room in the book for a Kasia POV, so ... I guess that's what Yuletide is for? MORE KASIA. (And Alosha!)

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/426465.html

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From:

melannen

I agree with everything you said!

it just occurred to me that it really is a beauty and the beast story after all, isn't it, it's just a bait and switch and the monsterin the end isn't the dragon, it's the trees...

(I went into it expecting hate the het romance based on reviews I have seen, but surprise! I am always there for romances that end up at 'we both have our own stuff to do but if you ever want to go dancing I'm up for it. unless I'm busy with something else.')

From:

skygiants

Ha! Wow, yeah, you're absolutely right, and in a tremendously straightforward way. It's a monster that just needs love to be transformed back into its original pre-monstrous self!

(Yeah, I was expecting to be way more annoyed at the romance than I actually was -- for the most part I thought it was reasonably cute, even if it did set up some WOW MATURITY GAP flags for me at the beginning. And I did really like how they both sort of accepted the possibility that they might go their separate ways at the end because of other stuff, and the distance before the eventual reconciliation.)

From:

kate_nepveu

Ooh wow, awesome.

I wanted Agnieszka/Kasia and was bummed not to get it. I thought what's-his-face was really not that interesting.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, I knew from accidentally skimming people's DW posts about it that Agnieszka/Kasia wasn't going to be a thing, or I too might have been led down that path.

From:

hebethen

There was a moment when I thought Alosha had died and I Railed Mightily Against The World. :'D

From:

skygiants

ME TOO. For a character with such a relatively small pagecount she takes up a relatively large place in my heart!

From:

kate_nepveu

Hah, this is totally why I reviewed it for Tor.com: those first three chapters gave me totally the wrong idea!

From:

skygiants

I don't think I read your review, you should link me!

From:

kate_nepveu

http://www.tor.com/2015/06/10/book-reviews-naomi-novik-uprooted/

From:

skygiants

Thanks for the link! I can't believe I didn't catch the actual, explicit Robin McKinley references, but of course. (You can tell it's not a McKinley book though because a.) too much happens and b.) Agnieszka is not really interested in any particular kind of crafting.)

From:

kate_nepveu

Heh. Yes, precisely.

From:

littlerhymes

I want the novel that is just about the adventures of Kasia, SUPERHERO.

From:

skygiants

ME TOO. I kind of doubt there is going to be a sequel, but if there is, I absolutely believe that's what it should be.

From:

tiltingheartand

I mentioned to someone a few months ago that I honestly wanted to forget having read this book so I could go back and read it again.

(Also I find your mention of Mercedes Lackey kind of hilarious; one of the panels I attended at D*C had Naomi Novik, Mercedes Lackey, and three other lady authors, and they were the only two I could stand. The other three made me want to scream.)

I also totally agree with you about Kasia. I had a feeling, the way the book was going, that Agnieszka/Kasia wasn't going to be a thing, so I was trying very, very hard not to get my hopes up, so at least there's that. And you're right, there's always Yuletide. (... also hilarious.)

(Sidebar: I found out, also at D*C, that a friend of mine had heard about this book and somehow none of the reviews she read managed to accurately convey that the Dragon wasn't an actual dragon. It was a strange conversation.)

From:

holli

I think I was also at that panel, and holy shit yes 3/5 panelists were terrible.

From:

skygiants

I'm really curious about who the other panelists were now, though I will understand if you don't want to say so in an open post...

Yeah, and, like the shape of the story was clearly so very Beauty and the Beast at the beginning that I would have been honestly really surprised if she'd bucked that, but! Kasia! Kasia needs her own story STAT. (haha I know right)

(ADMITTEDLY I also wondered for the first three chapters if there was going to be any actual dragon-ing going on, but ALAS NO)

From:

tiltingheartand

It was just a very -- they were clearly very established authors, although I didn't recognize any of them. I don't know if you saw the tumblr post going around a few months ago about Joss Whedon and his particular brand of feminism getting compared to a doctor who used to be really good at surgery, but never did anything to keep up with the new methods, so now the patients come in and say "but why are you doing this super-old and horrendously archaic and barbaric thing, medicine's like twenty years past that, read a peer-reviewed journal or something" and the doctor says BUT I'M A FANTASTIC SURGEON LOOK AT ALL THESE TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD THINGS THAT SAY SO. (... the post was perhaps somewhat better phrased than what I just vomited at you; apologies.) It kind of reminded me of that, to be honest; I think what they were saying was probably very relevant when they first broke into publishing, but like. Don't hold up the One Woman Who Can Do Shit On A Ship Full Of Men as the end-all be-all of THIS IS HOW I DO FEMINISM PROUD, MY SISTERS and expect me not to be scowling at the stage and sending cranky texts to friends.

I am notoriously bad at Noticing Things, so I had 100% missed the Beauty and the Beast thing, although now you've mentioned it I can totally see it. But oh, so many wasted opportunities.

From:

skygiants

I think I missed that post, but ... the gist of it sounds extremely on point, yes. >.< SINGLE STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER, AMIRITE?

(Someone came and dropped an anonymous set of three names in my tumblr inbox, was it you? If so I would just like to acknowledge receipt!)

From:

brooms

aw, i loved agniezka/sarkan from the start because something about them reminded me of howl/sophie.

with the way her magic seemed older than the rest of the wizard's magic and the jaga mentions, for a hot sec i thought agniezka was supposed to be baba yaga pulling a OaFK merlin and travelling in time, losing part of her memory on the way, remembering bits and pieces the more she dealt with the wood.

alosha! i kept imaging her as garnet from SU, idek. loved her.

From:

skygiants

Ha, I can see that! I think it threw me especially at first because Agniezka came off as so very young to me at the start -- once she grew up a bit I felt better abaout it.

That would have been a hella cool plot twist, I know other people hypothesized that might happen too.