‘Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travellers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years.’

I was unsure about starting this, due to it receiving such mixed reviews; people seemed to either love it or hate it. Luckily, I absolutely loved it. It has to be the most beautiful book I have read this year.

Uprooted tells the tale of a clumsy, plain girl named Angieszka (pronounced Ag-Nyesh-Ka), who lives in a small village on the outskirts of a dark and dangerous wood. The village is protected by a wizard who goes by the name the Dragon. The Dragon lives in a tower close by and protects the village and surrounding areas from the evil, corrupted wood. Once every ten years, he comes to the village and picks one girl to live with him in his tower for ten years. Nobody knows what happens to them whilst they are there, but it ultimately changes them, and they often decide not to return to their families.

Agnieszka worries for her best friend, Kasia, who is the most beautiful girl in the village. Talented, clever and attractive, she has been trained her whole life to expect this moment. She is expected by everyone in the village to be chosen next by the Dragon. Everybody is therefore astonished when clumsy, plain Agnieszka is picked instead.

‘You intolerable lunatic,’ he snarled at me, and then he caught my face between his hands and kissed me.’

Agnieszka is an incredible protagonist – relatable, funny, good natured, kind and strong. Her relationship with the Dragon; their disagreements, stubborn compromises and the journey they travel together are what make this story so special. Their gradual development into something more than friends is very slow going, but in a good way. Novik writes excellent love scenes that literally take your breath away. Their feelings for one another were portrayed subtly, understatedly, yet perfectly seductive, proving just how a good the writing is.

The writing style is magical. The main aspect of the story obviously being, well, magic, I was delighted to find that the prose reflected that in its entirety – it was whimsical, lyrical, unique, and the imagery created was absolutely beautiful.

‘There was a song in this forest, too, but it was a savage song, whispering of madness and tearing and rage.’

The Wood is fantastically nightmarish and creepy, and it plays its part well as the villain of the story. It stands as an ever-present, silent threat, occasionally swallowing villagers, driving people mad, or sending terrible monsters to destroy neighbouring villages. I don’t want to go into this too much as I don’t want to spoil anything. But, this book is so, so worth reading if you love fantasy, fairy tales and stories about magic.

I love fantasy that is based on folklore, and Novik cleverly roots her novel in the mythology of Eastern Europe; the story feels ancient and enticing. Just like reading an old fairy tale, this novel effortlessly recreates the familiar magic of all my childhood favourites – I felt wonderfully at home whilst reading this. You get the magic, the monsters, the wizards and the princes, but never in the way you might quite expect. Novik goes against all expectations, and nothing is as it seems.