Reading the finalists for the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book often makes me despair. Does the genre of young adult sf&f have to be so, well, generic? Saying Frances Hardinge "transcends" genre is condescending, but she does refuse to be hemmed in by it, I think. Unraveller is squarely YA, in that it's about young people coming into adulthood and learning to navigate that, but it's not the currently overly common YA narrative of villages getting attacked and people going on quests, which are clearly written by writers who have watched a lot of Avatar: The Last Airbender but not read many actual books. (Though if that's what the market wants, can we blame them?)

Anyway, Unraveller is set in a fantasy world where a sufficiently angry person can incubate inside themselves a "curse egg," which then allows them to hit the target of their anger with a curse—usually a thematically appropriate but disproportionate punishment. If, for example (minor spoiler here), you are a boat inspector who goes around fining people for illegal fishing, maybe you get transformed into bait for the hook of a fisherman. One of the two main characters has the talent of "unravelling"; he can follow the threads of a curse and unravel it, which usually required him to emotionally understand the curser and set things right. The other main character is a girl who he uncursed; she was transformed into a bird... and still sometimes finds herself yearning for that way of being.

So, as I am coming to realize is typical of Hardinge, we have an interesting secondary world but also a set of concepts that are thematically rich. No one would ever be tempted to use the term "magic system" to describe this book. There are a lot of really great sequences in this novel, as the two protagonists travel from place to place, unravelling curses, but also slowly realizing that there's a conspiracy they need to unravel too, a plot to leverage the power of cursers in a systematic way. Hardinge is an evocative writer, and her dark landscapes throb with life.

Compared to the previous Hardinge novels I've read, I would rate this below The Lie Tree and A Skinful of Shadows but above Deeplight. Though I liked a lot about this novel, I felt like its ambition somewhat outreached its grasp. There were a rich set of associations here, but by the novel's end, I didn't think they'd totally cohered. The metaphorical associations resonating in Unraveller's conception of cursing didn't pay off in the plot about the conspiracy. In our era of populist leaders leveraging anger to dark purposes, it seemed to me that there was some potential in how the conspirators were taking people's curses and misdirecting their anger to fulfill their own ambitions, but this wasn't really present in the text. I also found the conspiracy plot a bit jerky in the way it unfolded.

But, you know, give me a flawed Frances Hardinge novel over a successful A:TLA ripoff any day. So many of those books are completely forgettable; this book contains images I will remember for a long time.

This is a 2024 Lone Star novel.

I don't think I'm a Frances Hardinge person. It took me FOREVER to read this book, and I had to make myself pick the book up. I had trouble following what was going on, as the characters are moving around constantly. The initial catalyst got lost in the moving around with Kellen unravelling curses.

So, Kellen unravels curses. Someone seems to be collecting cursers; Kellen and Nettle are recruited to help discover what is really going on, only to discover the Kellen has unknowingly been cursed. You'll meet Nettle's brother, a bird, who helps them as needed. They run about meeting different people, unravelling curses, and try to solve the overall mystery. ( )

Actual rating: 3.75/5, rounded up

Unraveller was my third Frances Hardinge book, and by now I can safely say I'm looking forward to catching up on all her books! As with the others I read, this book was just dark and creepy enough which made it a perfect November read. The world-building was also spot on, with the main storyline enriched with little nuggets of local lore, customs and magical creatures. I alternated between the e-book and the audio version for this, and I have to say it worked beautifully: the audiobook narrator in particular did a spectacular job bringing all the characters to life!

The plot was very original and definitely highly engaging: in the land of Raddith, anyone who strongly hates another person may curse them and only one boy, Kellen, has the power to unravel curses. Kellen himself is cursed, however, and unless he can learn how to unravel his own curse, he risks destroying everything and everyone around him. The story soon starts to show its multiple layers and, just like a complex tapestry we follow a thread at a time until the whole picture is clear before our eyes. The author does a great job weaving and unweaving the tale and the luscious, atmospheric setting plays a big part in that.

As Kellen and his friend Nettle journey across the land, they engage in a series of quests, unravelling various curses as they go. Pretty soon, it started to feel as though we were deep in a cycle of travel, quest, curse, unravelling and repeat. Although some of the places they visit and the characters they meet were fascinating, it did start to feel a little repetitive at times, and there was an almost endless parade of secondary characters who were introduced and left so fast I struggled to keep up with them. Sadly, this also meant I didn't really grow attached to any of them so that, when a few made a further appearance at a key point later on in the book, I was mostly unfazed.

This was really a shame, as in contrast I liked the main characters very much! Both Kellen and Nettle were unique, complex and deeply flawed and I loved them both so much for it. Their friendship and loyalty to their other friends and family members were an absolute delight to read about, and I really appreciated how they were called out on their mistakes and worked to put them right. There was real character growth here, which made me even sadder that it was limited to the main characters only.

Unraveller is a perfectly creepy read, perfect for readers who are looking for vivid settings and original world-building, despite the story dragging on a bit in the middle.



I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. ( )

Oh Kellen really did need to be brought to realise how his treating others was just not on.
In a world where spider-like Little Brothers can grant someone a curse, sometimes that curse is used more for harm than good. When Kellen is cursed his unraveling skill goes out of control and it might just bring the world to an end if he doesn't control it.
In essence this is a story about control and the importance of control and also about the power of love, there's a lot of sibling love here and a lot of hate for people who need hatred, only a warning about how hate can damage the hater as much as the person they hate. I found it really interesting and really wanted the characters to succeed. ( )

Teenager Kellen is an Unraveller - someone who can undo curses. Nettle is his best friend who he freed from the curse of being a heron but who still has a touch of strangeness to her. Their mission to discover why cursers are being spirited away from their iron-bound prison takes them into the dangerous Wild, where nothing is as it seems and it's hard to tell truth from lies.
Another excellent and dark YA tale from Frances Hardinge. ( )