*4.5
i’m not going to post quotes because of spoilers but are you kidddddiiiiing so so beautiful…i loved jamesmicah so much but 100% the best part of this book were james and johnny and honestly as much as the book was focused on johnny i wish there was more because i still didn’t know him by the end but also he was unknowable soooo idk. anyway. so good and one of the best books i’ve read all year

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

It didn't take long for me to become glued to the pages of this one. The mystery surrounding Johnny's death was so good! I enjoyed the connection and relationship between James and her twin. The storyline has a good pacing as more and more secrets of the past are revealed. There were a few jaw dropping twists that I didn't see coming. A 5 star read for me!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Delacorte Press for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Adrienne Young has such a way with creating these beautiful lyrical magical realism concepts and this did not disappoint.

Wow! This book was so good! I couldn’t put it down!
I thought it was a well written story. It had lots of suspense and some twists I didn’t see coming.
Definitely recommend! It’s another five star book from this author

"What could we possibly say? I couldn't even pretend to know how you could take a whole life, a whole person, and put it into words. Goodbye is a lost language. A silent one."
James felt it, the minute her twin brother died. She returns home to the wild woods and small town that she grew up in to chase a feeling. A feeling that is haunting her, or maybe it's her brother that's haunting her, the feeling that his death wasn't an accident. James must confront her past in order to face a future without her brother.
A Sea of Unspoken Things is atmospheric and pulls you into a world where the past is still very much alive. I loved the subtle otherworldliness of this book and the exploration of the connection twins feel for one another continuing on after death.

Maaaybe? Probably? 4.5!! I do love me some Adrienne Young!!🙂‍↕️ when I saw this on PRHAudio this morning I quite literally <i>immediately</i> downloaded + started it…and finished it ~6 hours later😳 whooops!!

This was perfectly atmospheric! Her prose is 10/10! It’s mainly a small town mystery but also has magical realism and romance elements🤌 I was ENGAGED from the start!

I loved the setting, I loved the characters, I loved the twists and of course the writing! I never really knew where it was going even when I thought I did👏

The pacing was a smidge off but the audio narration was fantastic and I’m sure that helped! It is less ✨magical✨ than her other books but I was okay with that!! I highly recommend!

Ahhh sadly, I didn't love this. It's a slow burn, yes...but I was so bored with the characters and so tired of hearing about Johnny. I just didn't care about anything. I wanted to DNF, but reviews said something finally happens past the 60% mark. It picked up, yes, but by that point I was skimming sentences to finish the book . I LOVED June Farrow, but not this one. So sorry.

As a big fan of Adrienne Young I was elated to receive an aRC

Johnny and James Golden are twins and seem to have a sort of supernatural connection bonding them together. Because of this connection, James actually feels her brother being shot and killed before she is even called by the police. She decides almost immediately to return home to investigate what actually happened to her brother and, along the way, has to confront her own past.

★★★☆ 3.5 stars
Pub Date : Jan 7, 2025

⟡ 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 :
-wildlife + nature
-twin connections
-photography/art
-close knit small-towns
-unsolved mysteries
-s l o w burn

⟡ 𝙈𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 :
I absolutely adored The Unmaking of June Farrow, so naturally I was thrilled to get my hands on this ARC. Unfortunately, it fell a little short for me.

My favorite part of this book was the setting. The atmosphere was beautiful with a hauntingly eerie vibe (think Forks from twilight - tall trees, dark greens, misty forest) but it lacked the immersive, page turning quality I was looking for.

I found it hard to connect with the characters & the magical realism aspect just wasn’t as believable as it was in June Farrow. The “twin connection” sort of read like James was just loosing her grip on reality rather than adding “magic” to the story.

I was intrigued by the mystery & wanted to know what happened, but I think my biggest problem with this one was the pacing. It was an incredibly slow burn. Most of the story was setting the scene, with a lot of repetitive “something is off” type scenarios. It didn't pick up until about 70%, the action finally started happening but then it was over so quickly.

I guess this is my verdict - to me, A Sea of Unspoken Things was a whole lot of build up for too small a payoff. But if you love Adrienne Young’s writing style or atmospheric reads with slow burn mysteries then I recommend trying it! June Farrow is still my favorite, but I look forward to reading Spells for Forgetting.

thanks to NetGalley + Random House Publishing for the opportunity to read this arc ◡̈

Aptly named, A Sea Of Unspoken Things delivers all the things we’ve come to know and love from Adrienne Young. Moody, atmospheric, haunting, and engrossing, this story will captivate you from the start. I actually finished this quite a while ago but I still think of James, Micah, and Johnny’s story regularly.

There is a much stronger mystery element in this story than previous AY works, and she executes it brilliantly. If you loved Spells for Forgetting and The Unmaking of June Farrow, this will not disappoint!

You shouldn’t have to wait too long, anticipated Release Date is just over a month away, 01/07/25, and it looks like another gorgeous shelf sitter to join Spells for Forgetting and The Unmaking of June Farrow!

Many, many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the advanced digital copy. This is one of my most anticipated books of 2025 and I am so thrilled to have already had the opportunity to read it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

“What could we possibly say? I couldn’t even pretend to know how you could take a whole life, a whole person, and put it into words. Goodbye is a lost language. A silent one.”

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to express how profoundly this passage impacted me and how grateful I am to Adrienne Young for writing these beautiful words. I received a NetGalley arc of this book and happened to be reading it over the course of my Dad’s passing. It was the distraction I sought and the engrossing storyline I needed. I came across this passage and it was exactly what I needed at a time I needed it the most.

What more can I say? Adrienne’s writing is phenomenal. I still haven’t read The Unmaking of June Farrow but A Sea of Unspoken Things lives up to the expectations Spells for Forgetting set. Mystery Thriller is not my usual genre at all but Adrienne’s lyrical prose and ability to speak words to such raw human emotions, paired with the environmental and magical realism notes create truly incredible works of art.

Adrienne Young has yet again written an absolutely beautiful book.

Johnny and James are twins who grew up in a small town with big dreams. Their parents abandoned them and they have been the only family they have, except for Micah. Micah is Johnny’s best friend and the love of James’ life. At the end of high school the trajectory of their lives changes when another boy their age dies.
James left after the accident to attend art school, and twenty years later she is startled when she feels like she has been shot in the chest. She knows immediately that something is wrong with Johnny. She is called by the local sheriff and given the news that Johnny is dead. Needing to make sense of this, James heads back to the town she grew up in to investigate how her twin has died and launches head first into all unspoken secrets of her past and her bond with her twin.

This book is haunting and wonderful. I love the story and all of the twists and turns.
My only criticism would be that it took over 60% of the book for the “big secret” that was hinted at over and over to be revealed, and by then it didn’t feel big anymore.

Thank you NetGalley and Delacorte Press for this ARC!

A Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrienne Young is a beautifully written and emotionally charged story that explores love, loss, and the power of unspoken truths. Young's lyrical prose vividly captures the setting, immersing readers in a world brimming with raw emotion and tender moments. The characters are deeply flawed yet relatable, and their journeys of healing and self-discovery are both heartbreaking and inspiring. While the pacing occasionally lags, and some conflicts resolve a bit too neatly, the story's emotional depth and poignant themes make it a memorable read. A heartfelt tale perfect for fans of character-driven contemporary fiction.

Another amazing stand alone from Adrienne Young! After the accidental death of her twin brother, James returns to her hometown to settle his affairs when she starts to realize things aren't as they seem. I'll be honest, I predicted the ending, but I really enjoyed reading the story and seeing everything unfold.

Eerie. Haunting. Deeply thought evoking.

The way Adrienne writes emotion is unmatched. She brought me through every emotion so well I even caught myself looking over my shoulder along with James. I really thought I had the mystery figured out but it kept surprising me.

I loved the question she posed: are people really who we think they are or have we conjured up a version of them that best serves our narrative?

It took me a few chapters to really get into the story, Adrienne sets the scene beautifully, almost poetically, but I’m a meat and potatoes girlie. I need plot more than scene setting so it took me a second. Once I was hooked, though, I finished the book in one night.

My favorite parts were any time James thought about her connection to her twin. The writing took me through those emotions so thoroughly.

Tense, raw, and a little bit mystical—this book had me hooked from the very first page.

I absolutely adored The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young, so I knew I HAD to read this one too! And I was not disappointed at all.

As the sibling of twins, I have seen "twintellect" in action, and I LOVE this take on the magical connection between twins.

This book is mysterious, full of fabulous prose, and so incredibly engaging.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Spice: .5/5

Thank you, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Delacorte Press, for the ARC of this book!

A Sea of Unspoken Things is comprised of all things that Adrienne Young fans love: A lush, beautiful setting with a mystery mixed with magical elements. I have read "The Unmaking of June Farrow" and "Spells for Forgetting" before reading this and consider myself a huge fan of Adrienne Young's writing.

This story surrounds our FMC, James, who has a twin brother, Johnny, who dies. The only magical element to this story is that she believes she has a supernatural connection to Johnny that doesn't go away once he passes. She then goes back to her hometown that she hasn't visited in 20 years to grieve her brother and say farewell. Of course, once she returns, who does she run into? Her one true love that she has never been able to get over since leaving her hometown when she was 18. As she begins to clear out her brothers things and wrap up his finances, she begins to suspect that there has been foul play in his death...

I overall really enjoyed this book. My main complaint is that there wasn't much closure to scenes. There would be a conflict or a important conversation taking place, and the chapter would end right as it's getting started and the following chapter takes place days to weeks afterward. I would have liked to experience more of those moments without a time jump.

This title releases January 7th, and I would highly recommend giving this one a read ESPECIALLY if you're an Adrienne Young fan.

A full review has been published on my TikTok account @sunset__scribe

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for providing me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book gives you all the atmospheric winter vibes with family drama, secrets, and mysteries woven throughout.

Not going to lie, it took me a minute to get into the rhythm of the story, but once it clicked? I couldn’t put it down!

Honestly, it's a perfect winter read with its immersive setting, thrilling mystery, and complicated family relationships. the kind of story that makes you want to curl up with a blanket and lose yourself in the pages!

Another atmospheric gem from Adrienne Young!

Farrow was by far my favorite from the three I've read from Young but she is proving to be an auto-buy author for me! She has detailed and complex characters paired with descriptive atmospheres that transport you to another time.

I'm not sure if this is chategorized as magical realism but if it is it shouldn't be...there is a connection between twins but there isn't anything really magical or otherworldly about it, but I liked that theme for this book.

The only somewhat confusing part was that the MFC is named James which threw me for a bit in the beginning. Otherwise this is an engaging story about a sister investigating her brothers death in the small PNW town she grew up in and left as a young adult. I was captivated and moved through the book quickly. Only holding back a star b/c of my love of Farrow which I'm not sure is fair or not but that's what I'm going with!

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced copy!

I loved The Unmaking of June Farrow and was excited to receive an ARC of A Sea of Unspoken Things.

James return to the small northern California town after her twin brother Johnny dies to finish up a project he was working on about owls in the area. 20 years after she left not much has changed. This is a slow burn with James looking into the reason her brother died, was it an accident or not.

This book is very descriptive, you feel like you are living in the small town. I felt the pacing was slower, I thought I'd fly through this book. It has some writing about the twin connection but lacks magical realism like June Farrow had, if you are looking for more of that.

There are quite a few twists and turns and you think you know what happened and it turns out you don't. I liked how the ending wrapped up everything.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Delacorte Press for an ARC of A Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrienne Young for an honest review.