Review by linguisticali - The Unmapping

linguisticali 's review for:

The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins

3.5

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

I received an ARC from Bindery and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very weird book, for better and for worse. The concept of the Unmapping is fascinating and deeply unsettling. The book has a dreamlike quality throughout that works really well with the strangeness of the story. I loved seeing how the various different threads that initially felt like entirely separate vignettes came together and intertwined.

I would have enjoyed this more without Arjun's POV - I found him so unlikeable that I hated reading his chapters. I'm not sure what we're supposed to make of him. He's obviously some flavour of neurodivergent but that didn't give me any particular insight that would help me understand or relate to him more. His obsession with Esme had me worried we were going to go to a very dark place with it. Without getting into spoiler territory, there's a romance plotline that's (fortunately) a pretty small part of the book, that I really wasn't into.

The ending ultimately didn't feel satisfying to me. I don't think this is the type of story where we necessarily need everything to be explained in absolute terms and resolved neatly, but it felt like we were moving towards some sort of understanding, and then that just fell flat. I was really invested in all the creepy, culty small-town Gleamwood stuff, so I would have liked to have that go somewhere more meaningful.

All that said, this was an intriguing read. Despite the lack of clear resolution, it doesn't feel nihilistic or hopeless - it was really lovely to see represented how people come together and adapt to start building a new world in the face of disaster.

Content Warnings