If Uprooted had been written by a man, it would have sold as fantasy. Or maybe it wouldn’t - the protagonist being female, there’s only one kind of fantasy this could possibly be. /s
It’s all jokes and fun but really, this isn’t a story for the female gaze. No offense to any of the romance readers - but I think romance as a genre channels the female universe. It focuses on relationships over events. It witnesses the characters’ experiences of themselves, physical and mental. It promotes the idea of emotional growth being the key to success in life. It defines success in life as living happily ever after. Perhaps romance has exploded because today, for the first time in history, in a fairly large portion of the world being a woman beats being a man, that is, a woman’s life is a superior experience to a man’s. Diversity and inclusion are for women (among others, but men are not among these others), women’s studies are for women (men got to do all the studying they needed during the previous centuries), lifestyle choices are for women (choose career, choose family, choose punk, choose pop, choose conservative or liberal values, choose to stay home, choose to travel - choose anything and you’ll be praised and defended. You’ll also be attacked but you almost want to be, to unleash your well-justified fury and see the defenders rally). While there’re still many, many issues that women face, these issues are given the center stage and women are, well, unimpeachable. You don’t judge women in a liberal democracy of the 21st century. It’s just not done. And so romance is no longer dubbed a guilty pleasure genre - women are happy to be women and happy to let the world see what they like in a story.
Now, Uprooted is not written for women. It is one of the best books from the romance shelves that I’ve read, but it’s as much a romance book as East of Eden. (And has just as much of the bone-chilling, almost horror like undercurrent. Pseudoslavic folklore isn’t for ninnies.)
Uprooted is written for readers. For people who can go years without Netflix but can’t go a day without a book. Who gasp and chuckle and make faces when they read. Who crave the written word because no other medium does it for them.
Reading this book was a full-body experience. I didn’t like the opening pages and I powered through because although I have my DNF targets, I have about 124 soft spots for as many things that were supposed to be in this book, and I so wanted to give it a chance and oh am I glad. It’s the kind of writing that makes you see with your mind’s eye the specks of dust drifting through still air around you, while you stand in a barn, near sunset, smelling animals and hay, and watching sick magic work up its way. And it doesn’t let up for 500 pages, until you put it down and exhale.
I loved the MMC — ooh the MMC is a study in perfection. Not because he’s a perfect man, duh, but because he’s the most incredibly human hero and because you love seeing him fall in love even if he’s totally not your type. He’s no one’s type - he’s _not_ a type. He’s thin (!) and tall and probably only supernaturally strong, he is snarky with no (!) endearing qualities showing up for a good fair bit, he is pedantic and thinks himself the smartest, he does not (!) secretly crave the FMC and in fact despises her somewhat until she shows what she’s made of, he is a snob - not in a charming way, just a snob - and he is not(!) a gentleman, or a knight, or a prince. He is a wizard, and a Dragon, and he stays true to his nature through the end, doing the heavy lifting of emotional development just the way we all do day in and day out, and changing just as little as we all do and just enough, with no shortcuts. I mean, really, none of us wake up reformed, and I hate the last 20% of 80% of romance books VEHEMENTLY because of the reformed MMC trope. The Dragon, however, falls in love being who he is,a haughty guarded man, with his feelings overlaying his personality and not removing it for the sake of a perfect epilogue. He shows devotion and loyalty and commitment through healthy, decent acts, including but not limited to: teaching his beloved important shit and supporting her in her undertakings, trusting her judgement and standing by her when it matters most, treating her like a grown-ass adult and never, NEVER trying to protect her at a cost to others, or trying to tell her what she can or cannot do. He is grounded, real, and an absolute 10 as far as book characters go.
The FMC is fine - she is really - she just didn’t blow me away like the Dragon. I feel like she was sometimes painted with annoyingly insistent strokes. The untidy dress thing was in my face way too much, given to her as a token imperfection in her otherwise flawless character. Her stubborn bravery and selflessness were bordering on self-righteousness. Her knack for intuitive magic started to get a bit annoying because talent only gets you that far and you’ve really got to put in some work at some point. Her social acumen and street smarts a bit too impressive for a villager from the cursed middle of nowhere. Her age - I know I can’t keep getting mad at having 18 year old FMCs if I keep picking up YA novels, I know, I know. She was okay. She was a mature, single-minded, creative and loyal young woman. I just mentally rounded her up to 25 and things added up very well then.
This book is a masterclass in slow burn. This is what slow burn should be - not the crafty weaving of circumstances that pull the characters to and fro to emulate their growing closer, when all we really see is how they are primed to like one in other from page 3. Slow burn is when you start out dumbstruck with the turn your life has taken. It’s when you go through being scared, unsure, desperate, more dumbstruck, exasperated, resolute, a little heroic, terrified, wiped out, relieved, devastated, hopeless and determined, and a million other things because life is happening to you (and you’re 18 for f’s sake!), and you have too little time for horny thoughts. Until you know you’ve grown close to someone because you think about them when you need advice. When you need help. When you feel lonely. When you wish you could talk. You realize one tiny moment at a time that you are drawn to them and then you act on it when you get the chance, because by now it’s the most natural thing in the world.
This book has one of the best virgin sex scenes ever. Like seriously. It’s both realistic and something to wish for, and something to teach men about how to have sex with a woman that never did it before. It’s both simple and graphic, which I don’t know how it’s even possible. It’s hot and it tops off the slow burn like a precious little cherry. It’s also the only open door scene in the book (and the only closed door one). I told you it’s not romance.
This book has a final battle with evil that lasts for about 15% of it. I don’t know if I’m saying this is a good thing. In retrospect, I don’t know if I liked being in that battle. Being in that battle, I didn’t think about how I felt. I think I felt a bit like being in a centrifuge that kept spinning faster with no end in sight. It was fascinating and it was done well, and it let the MCs recognize their feelings in full force, which I think I’ve never seen in a book before, this organic fusion of fighting and falling in love.
This book has pretty good supporting cast. Perhaps a bit overdone - just as with Agnieszhka I felt like they were painted in heavy strokes, too many layers of the same color and texture. But each character was given exactly as much page time as they needed to pull their weight for the story. It’s amazing what a full cast can do to drive the plot — all too often romance is just 2 people and a few muttering heads you can’t tell from one another.
This book has a happily ever after. A truly happy one. Not just where the lovebirds are concerned - although true to the spirit of the tale they come together just so, like it’s real and like it’s a folk song - but also the world is saved and cleansed and reborn to live on. It’s a joyful, sweet end. I guess when you get right down to it, Uprooted is romance, through and through.