I was looking through my list of book notes the other day, and I realized something: I'm not sure I've read one book this year that I have completely, entirely loved, without reservation. Etta and Otto and Russell and James is likely my 2015 favorite. I did really like The Library at Mount Char. Kissing in America is probably my favorite YA novel this year. Well, and I did love The Buried Giant​ quite a bit. 

But I haven't loved, adored, and been totally consumed by anything I've read this year.

I started reading Naomi Novik's fantasy novel Uprooted with the hopes that this would be it, my favorite novel of the year.

​It tells the story of the country of Polnya, where lives are constantly influenced by the corrupt presence of the Wood. In the valley where the malevolent wood grows, the Lord is called the Dragon. He lives in a tower and his responsibility—as a wizard—is to keep the Wood at bay, as much as possible. To that cause, for as long as he's been the Lord, once every decade the Dragon (whose name is Sarkan) takes a girl from one of the villages. The girl lives with him and does...something that helps him with his magic. No one is quite sure what the girl actually does, as each time, when her ten years are finished, each one has left the village for the grander life at court.

Agnieszka has grown up knowing she will be in the group of girls the Dragon will chose from, but she's never actually worried he would pick her. She's clumsy and drawn to dirt, and not especially beautiful or highly skilled at anything, unlike her friend Kasia, whom everyone assumes will be chosen, as she's beautiful and smart an brave.

Of course, what kind of story would this be if the Dragon didn't pick Agnieszka?

What follows is a fantasy that feels both familiar and unusual. In my head, all of the fantasy settings are somehow on the same (admittedly, rather large) planet, so if you could travel far enough (or maybe in the right magical way), you could leave one and arrive at another. I think this is how my mind allows for the overlap between fantasies (which are very often because of myth or fairy tales) and also why I get annoyed at fantasies that feel too close to something else (I'll go to the real Middle Earth if I want to be in Middle Earth, not a second-rate interpretation of it). The fantasy landscape here was familiar in the general fantasy sense (especially the hero's journey, court intrigue, and the presence of magic. It is the Wood, with all its gloomy, far-reaching menace, that makes it (delightfully) strange.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

It fulfilled many of my fantasy must-haves: a strong main character who is not unbelievably strong. (I like my main characters to struggle a bit to find their strengths, and to be realistically bad at some things. "Unaccountably good at every.damn.thing" characters make me crazy.) A compelling setting. (The devious, corrupting Wood is creepy, but in a good way.) A magic system (or other unworldly aspect) that makes sense within the context of the book but isn't the only tool the characters have. Characters who change because of their experiences. References (glancing or otherwise) to other myths, legends, or fairy tales. (This one has links to Baba Yaga and, more subtly, the Green Man.) Something captivating and unexpected and new. (The origins of the Wood and the magic they make with a book were that for me.)

It is almost, almost my favorite book this year. I will recommend it to lots of patrons and there are several scenes that I know will pop into my mind years down the road. I fell right into the narrative and didn't want to put it down until the end. (Except, I confess: the battle scene. I almost always skim through battle scenes.)

But what stopped me from entirely loving it was the romance. Maybe because I expected too much—I think I thought it would feel like someone telling what Psyche experienced in Cupid's house in Till We Have Faces but it wasn't ethereal at all. Sarkan is sort of presented as the wizard, fantasy-novel version of Mr. Darcy. You know: not really​ a stiff, mean, selfish grumpy bastard, just misunderstood. Except, I never could get around to understanding him. He never managed to soften my heart and I couldn't see why Agnieszka falls for him. (On the other hand, she doesn't fall under him, in the sense that she remains herself and doesn't change to make him happy.)

So close.

Sooooo close.​

Still, though. I really did love this book. The friendship Agnieszka (I wonder if Naomi Novik had to pause every time she wrote that character's name, to remember exactly how to spell it? Or if she made an autocorrect and then just typed something like AGNI and let the computer write it for her?) has with Kasia is a highlight of the book, as well as the way she becomes more independent and able to stand up for herself—to make her own story instead of letting her society write it for her—and how she finds her unique magical abilities.

I think anyone who likes fantasy will love this book, my one picky hesitation aside.