Uprooted takes place in an Eastern-European world, much like Spinning Silver, but this time focuses on a young woman named Agnieszka who is chosen to live with the Dragon, a one-hundred-year-old magician, while a forest of brutal beauty and magic encroaches on the things she holds dear.

The relationship between Sarkan and Agnieszka rings to me more like Studio Ghibli’s interpretation of Howl and Sophie rather than a Hades and Persephone thing, which made it all the better. The way these reluctant housemates come to care for each other is particularly compelling. Moreover, I really liked how Agnieszka’s personality stayed consistent from start to finish, despite her proving herself a very capable magician herself. She’s still clumsy and loves her friends and family. That, for  me, worked really well.

This world is clearly inspired by Poland and Russia, with international tensions that reminded me a lot of conflicts familiar to fairy tales. The way magic works and rebels against the world shared with both nobles and villagers alike felt particularly compelling to me.

Though much simpler in scope than Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik’s first fairy tale is a must-read for those who like enemies-to-lovers and watching people come together to take down a common enemy.

Part Rumpelstiltskin, part Persephone and Hades, all Eastern Europe fantasy with its world-building, characterizations, and societies, Spinning Silver is an enchantment from start to finish. We have Miryem who takes her family’s money-lending business from her father, Wanda her assistant, dukes’s daughter Irina, and the cursed prince Minatius.

The way Novik nimbly balances so many POVs throughout needs to be witnessed. Each one had enough voice and their own unique motifs and struggles to be distinct, but all worked together towards a common goal which doesn’t become salient until past the book’s middle. Otherwise, we are fully steeped in their interconnected, but separate struggles, and I found myself interested in how it all comes together as much as I had been interested in the outcomes.

In addition, the world-building and placement is so specific. There are attitudes, biases, etc. that can only be placed in Eastern Europe. The cross-cultural misunderstandings between humans and other-worldly beings were also carefully crafted. Throughout, there necessarily wasn’t a “right” and a “wrong,” only difference and the morality stemmed from reactions to those differences. It was great to read a European fantasy from the perspective of Jewish characters that focused on joys and traditions, rather than oppression (though it isn’t ignored in the text).

If you love resilient female characters, fairy tales, and non-Christian fantasies, definitely pick up Spinning Silver.