During the first weeks in the Dragon's tower, Agnieszka is inconsolable. She's homesick, she wants to go home to her friends and family, and she doesn't understand why the Dragon picked her instead of her beautiful friend Kasia, who everybody thought was going to be picked. But soon she realized that it's because she had magic in her. The Dragon was trying to teach her magic. At first, she fails, because she fails to grasp that magic in this world is all about visualizing what you want and that the Dragon crisp and precise way of doing magic is not the way for her. There are many ways to do magic; Agnieszka describes it as strolling in the forest. Some people take the prescribed route, others are more adventurous and go off-trails to find their own route. Each people have a different way to do magic and it doesn't take Agnieszka long to discover that she is more of an improvising witch than a by-the-books one. She is more intuitive than the Dragon, and relies more on what feels right to her rather than perfect recitations of spells, which is more of the Dragon's style.
It's the Technician versus Performer trope, but unlike other instances of the trope, Agnieszka is not presented as superior than the Dragon; they're equals. Just because the Dragon likes to be precise and follows instruction closely, he's not presented as less than Agnieszka. Likewise, Agnieszka is not an instant genius just because she's a Performer, and she's shown to be wholly inadequate in some fields of magic because of her inexperience. But most importantly, they find that their magic is strongest when they work together with each other instead of separately.
Uprooted also has a lot of positive female relationship. Kasia and Agnieszka are best friends, and even though there are some hidden resentment and jealousy, among them, they are still fiercely loyal to each other. Kasia's and Agnieszka's friendship is easily one of my favorite things in the series beside Agnieszka's and the Dragon's relationship. It fills my heart with warm fuzzy feelings to see two female friends that are actually friends and not 'friendly enemies'. I like Agnieszka's relationship with her mother too. Agnieszka's always look like a mess, with torn and dirty dresses and tangled hair, but this doesn't make her mother yell and abuse her for always getting dirty. Instead, she accepts with a 'what-can-you-do' sigh and tries her best to make Agnieszka presentable but is not too hard on her when she gets dirty again.
Ms. Novik also has a way to make us sympathize or at least understand unlikable characters. I hated Marek - he's a dumb asshole - but I understand where he's coming from, although I still think his method of achieving his goal is dumb and needlessly cruel and utterly asshole-ish. I don't agree with his actions, but I understand why he thinks he needs to do them in the first place. Even the antagonist is not evil for the sake of being evil, but with motivations and layers of their own, making them a complex character.
Oh, and speaking of awesome characters, there's also Alosha, a Black witch that specializes in sword-magic. She is A BOSS and although she appears briefly (imo) she sheds so much light on what's it like for being a long-lived witch to Agnieszka that very much influence her later decisions and enables her to gather the strength that's needed to fight the Wood for good now - if not for her and her family's sake, then for the future generation's sake.
The pacing is pretty good in the first part and the last part, but it drags in the middle part. The court scenes can be cut a little bit, which is ironic since I've always loved books dealing with court politics, but in here the court scenes are boring and is easily one of the weakest part of the books. I love the scenes dealing with the valley and the Dragon. Uprooted is the title of the book and taking roots (i.e. making connection) is a theme that crops up frequently. Agnieszka is uprooted from her home to the Dragon's tower and there she learns that the reason why the Dragon takes girls from the valley every ten years is because he doesn't want to make a connection of his own, so he uses the girls' roots instead and when their roots' are withered and used up, he takes another girl to replace her and then the girls leave the valley. Meanwhile, Agnieszka finds that she has a special relationship with the valley and even though she's traveled beyond what she expects, she decides she doesn't want to travel to see the world because she doesn't want to leave the valley. And though I'm very much like Kasia in my desire to see the outside world, I know and understand Agnieszka's feeling and decision. That's why I like Uprooted; its message and themes are universal and although it's a book about witches and wizards, I can relate easily to the characters.
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