Defying the Dragon, Agniezka escapes from the tower and returns to Dvernik, where she learns that wolves from the Wood have infected the cattle and a man.

'Since you were a child, you've imagined yourself a hero out of legend—'   'Better than a deliberate coward', the prince said, grinning at him with all his teeth, violence like a living thing in the room taking shape between them, and before the Dragon could answer, I blurted out 'What if we could weaken the Wood before we went in?'

— Uprooted, chapter 13 News of Kasia's purification brings Prince Marek and his wizard, the Falcon, to the Dragon's tower.

Once they realize that Kasia is no longer under the Wood's spell, they order the Dragon to retrieve the Prince's mother, who ran away twenty years earlier.

[7] Baba Jaga is a common bogeyman in Slavic folklore, including in the Polish stories that Novik used to hear at bedtime.

[11] At the final feast, Agnieszka tastes zhurek, a phonetic spelling of an Eastern European sour rye soup known in Poland as żur or żurek.

[12] The author Amal El-Mohtar, reviewing the "sword-and-sorcery fantasy novel" for NPR, described it as "moving, heartbreaking, and thoroughly satisfying".

"[13] In her view Uprooted is "a triumph on several fronts", including its pace, setting, escalating tension, and especially the strong friendship between the "uncouth, coltish" Agnieszka and her opposite, the "gorgeous, skillful, brave" Kasia.

The result is a "perfectly immersive" read that takes "classic fantasy stances", like the irritable male wizard in his tower, and somehow creates a fresh and vibrant text from these ingredients.

[13] Mac Rogers, in Slate, writes that Novik skilfully provides readers with "several modes of wish-fulfillment" through the book, including giving the protagonist Agnieska "the full Harry Potter/Katniss Everdeen experience", at once followed by a "Belle/Jane Eyre" setup in the "Dragon's" tower.

[6] Like El-Mohtar, Rogers remarks that the book contains material for a whole trilogy, wishing that Novik had given Agnieszka the chance "to explore a few blind-alley identities" on the way to becoming a "latter-day Baba Yaga".

[6] Kate Nepveu, on Tor.com, writes that a reader of the first three chapters might expect the book to be a "Beauty and the Beast" tale, or a story of "intrinsically-gendered magic".

Instead, it is "a kingdom-level fantasy with great magic and an engaging narrator—which packs a surprising amount of plot into its single volume.

She considers the use of standard fairy-tale elements like woods, wolves, princes, and lost queens both modern and cohesive, creating an "emotionally satisfying" novel.

[14] Catherine Mann, for the British Fantasy Society, calls Uprooted "an inventive and very enjoyable book" which speedily immerses the reader in its world.

Mann likens the account of Agnieszka's "instinctive magic", very different from the codified approach of the court wizards, to that described by Diana Wynne Jones, calling this "a high compliment.

"[5] Kallam Clay, in The Mercury News, writes that unlike her 8-volume Temeraire alternate history series, Uprooted is a traditional fantasy.

In her view, Novik "skillfully takes the fairy-tale-turned-bildungsroman structure of her premise" and develops it into "a very enjoyable fantasy with the air of a modern classic.