*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book.*

While I found the original set-up of "The Unmapping" interesting and enjoyed how the narrative wove the stories of the different focalisers together, I think my main point of critique is the lack of convincing world-building. The suspense of disbelief does not work and some of the characters were a bit too annoying to my liking. I also found the ending quite weak. However, the book was well written and the initial idea or novum is intriguing, the resolve, sadly, not as much. 2.5 stars

A sudden and catastrophic reconfiguring of New York City's streets and buildings during a hurricane causes an already stretched and very stressed emergency management staff and city government into chaos. There are no explanations, no way to predict where the next "unmapping" will occur, and with the power grid destroyed, people dead and injured and cut off from one another, staff work constantly to find some way of regaining control of the situation. Which is impossible.

We follow two emergency staff, Esme Green and Arjun Varma, both with relationship issues and their own griefs and regrets. Also, Arjun has a big crush on Esme, and wants to impress her with his actions during the crisis. Meanwhile, Esme feels guilty about a huge fight she had with her boyfriend Marcus shortly before the city began ripping itself apart.

The chaos just keeps increasing, with people succumbing to grief, conspiracy theories and cults, and no end in sight.

So, I found the concept fascinating, but the execution didn't work for me, though I think author Denise S. Robbins captured the escalating chaos and increasingly desperate behaviours of the population well. In fact, much of the novel is chaotic, so I found that the narrative never really gelled in my mind, much less the characterizations of Esme and Arjun, though I will confess that I found Arjun more sympathetic than Esme.

2.5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Bindery Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.

I wanted to love this book, but for a story centered in the Department of Emergency Management there was very little sense of urgency. The premise of buildings moving but not the trees, roads, sidewalks, or utilities was attempted to be explained, but it was not.
I was disappointed, but had committed to finish the title for a review in exchange for access from NetGalley. I am willing to consider I was not the target audience as fantasy and suspension of belief, especially in world sciences is not genre.

I have been struggling to write a review on this, because I do feel very conflicted.

On the one hand, I think that the concept of the unmapping is very unique. It's an interesting premise for a book, even if it isn't maybe explained in a way that was particularly illuminating. The vignettes from various characters was also an intriguing concept, and I enjoyed a number of them. However, the heart of this story, in my opinion, is Esme and Arjun, and I just did not like either of them, enjoy reading about either of them, or find their story arc particularly compelling.

Esme's expertise as an emergency response team member was one of my favorite aspects of the book. I definitely liked looking at the data-focused response to the events, and at all of the little ways in which such a disaster would cause issues. I didn't even particularly mind the drama with Marcus, I... guess? to some extent? But I hated how much of a focus it was in the book and how little was actually resolved with that storyline. Marcus is the worst, clearly. Marcus is sort of leading Esme on. Esme spends pages and pages and pages desperately looking for Marcus, justifying her relationship with Marcus, being mistreated by Marcus, blowing off her job for Marcus, ignoring the needs of the members of her city for Marcus. She is SO male-centered and it was by and far the most frustrating thing to read about. When she finally decides that Marcus left her (do they have some big actual resolution? NO. it's SO unsatisfying), she just... throws herself at Arjun, kind of? I do think there is a level of growth in her character at the end but we don't actually see much of it and it's so minimal.

Arjun is more interesting, in my mind. He's repellant, the kind of nice guy whose head it is super unpleasant to be in. He treats Esme like an object in a lot of ways, putting her on a pedestal and envisioning finally winning her over while barely paying any attention to who she actually is. They don't have a real friendship based on mutual knowledge and understanding; they have a work acquaintance where he is unhealthily obsessed with her. I do think he grows, to some extent, into the concept of seeing Esme as a human being with agency, a little, toward the end, when he realizes that she's only kissing him because she's drunk and alone, not because she actually wants him, but for them to then end up dating was such a frustrating and muddled conclusion for him. He spends all this time being an incel and after one conversation, he gets to just date the object of his obsession? Weird messaging. I don't get the point of that.

And don't even get me started on the Marcus arc.

The sinister fake tree heir and related cult I could have maybe spent more time with, as well as a few other plotlines (weirdly, the mayor of NYC was perhaps one of the most enjoyable, because she was just straightforward in her awfulness), but I just don't really know what the overall point of the book is. Global warming bad, I guess. Community good, obviously. But the end scenes of "where are they now" just left me feeling unsatisfied.

I really enjoyed this book. I love books that fall under the sci-fi umbrella. I thought this one was unique. I really enjoyed the portion that focused on the government response to an unimaginable event happening. I found the characters enjoyable and appreciated the description of their backgrounds. I thought the author brought it together really well at the end. I look forward to reading more from her. I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys sci-fi. It only took me about a day to finish as I could not put it down.

This book was complicated. In the layers that we are introduced to, I expected a small thread which when pulled will reveal all and everything will make sense. That was not the case.

The Unmapping has been an ongoing problem in a small town no one knew about. Until one day it arrived in New York City. That timing of it and one of the possible logics is suddenly making sense to me as I write these words, which probably means several people who pick this up will figure it out.

I will not go into the Unmapping itself but the people who are the narrators are an interesting bunch. They do not overlap character wise, neither do the number of narrators detract from the style. My favourite part of the book was the way the story was told. The quirky randomness was definitely enjoyable. There are serious undertones throughout and everyone who reads this will probably go in a different direction.

Despite enjoying the style and the writing, I did not like the story as much as I hoped. It is too open ended for my liking. There isn’t enough to tie everything up and box it. That may be on purpose, but after all that reading I wanted to leave with some resolutions.

I would still pick up anything else the author writes and would recommend this to fans of the genre.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

I just couldn’t get into this one
It kept jumping from person to person so I could y bond with any character and I was bored and avoiding picking it up
Interesting premise though

DNF at 20%

The Unmapping had such an interesting premise and was so excited to receive a copy from NetGalley, but my goodness it was so not what I expected. For a big city like New York whose buildings somehow move every day, creating chaos, technical problems and a lot of people simply getting lost, there's for sure a clear lack of action and emotion. 20% in and basically nothing has happened yet, the main character fails to keep me interested so sadly I am giving up. (I also tried the audiobook, narrated by the amazing Julia Whelan, but unfortunately it was not better).

* I'd like to thank Denise S. Robbins, Bindery Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Started strong with eerie vibes, but lost me in repetition and a flat cast.

Thank you to NetGalley & Bindery Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

3.5/5 stars, strong start that is ultimately diminished by a rather abrupt and messy ending

the story of the unmapping presents itself like it might be a disaster story, where a catastrophic event occurs and all the characters band together to solve the crisis and create a new way that the world will use to live in the aftermath of a great disaster. the emergency management department will come to the rescue and resolve the problem and all will be well, the end.

the unmapping is a story about this, sort of. but it’s mostly a story that is about on the ways a city learns to deal with the new reality it faces when every day at 4am all the buildings in the city appear in a new location, at random, remapping and rearranging the city on a whim. the city structure doesn’t quite crumble, but becomes anew, remaking itself into something new altogether. there’s no stability in a world that constantly changes itself. this story is not just about the actual unmapping itself as it is the way people’s lives unravel. the way the earth itself cannot hold all the ways that it too is being undone, remade, replaced, until it simply fractures beyond repair.

and yet humanity persists.

everyday all those who inhabit it must try to find new ways to exist. maybe it’s through community, connection, our desire to bond, our wish to manifest a new reality of our dreams. where the story succeeds is focusing on the many different people who are caught up in this this chaos that is new york city being unmade. the shifting povs that felt like shifting from one dream to the next made the story feel larger, each offering a different side to the unmapping. the story is more focused on these characters and their reaction to this new reality, which works well up until the end where everything wraps up a bit quickly, a bit too neatly. it also veers into a very strange territory that I actually liked, but felt undeveloped as a concept and wished the story either leaned into the weirdness of it more or took it in a more sensible direction instead. still, it was a fun reading experience, if not at the very least an interesting thought experiment.

The Unmapping was such an interesting and unique concept but I found the execution to be a bit lackluster. This book is definitely for someone who wants an intensive character study and how people survive through this mystery not how it happened or why. Unfortunately I did not like the characters - Esme was so bland and flat as a character, everything just kept repeating itself and talking about her relationship. Then there was Arjun who developed feelings for Esme because she was nice to him and when a relationship between the two of them happened it really gave me the ick.

Disasters abound in New York City as a hurricane and an unprecedented event take place simultaneously in the lives of the many characters’ points of view. The event is called the unmapping, where all the buildings in the city simultaneously switch places with each other in a seemingly random event at 4:00 a.m. each morning. A heavy-handed metaphor for climate change, this novel asks how cities, communities, and individuals deal with a reckoning of massive proportions. A literary skewed Sci-Fi that borders on cozy despite the unnerving circumstances. The many points of view come together to weave a full story across the city during a time of crisis, with a focus on the stories of Esme and Arjun, two Emergency Management Workers who are struggling to make a difference in a problem that seems unending and immeasurable because buildings may be switching places. However, people still have to work, live, and perhaps join a cult as some side characters do, all in search of answers to why this is happening.

VERDICT For gentle sci-fi readers ready to blur the lines between science and magic like Matt Haig and more interested in the human emotional side of disaster.

So much promise in this premise. Something weird happens in New York: One day, on the back of a storm, buildings are just not where they were yesterday. And then it happens again the next day, and the next, and the next, indefinitely, each time at 4 am. Why is it happening? What happens to water and gas pipes and sewer systems and electrical lines? What effects? And do the city’s leaders give the same level of attention to poorer neighbourhoods as they do to affluent ones?

I started out really liking this book, but in the end its shaky grasp on “why” let it down. It lost focus around its midpoint, and all of its promising threads began to unravel. What was the storm about? It’s loosely linked to climate change, but why that affects reality isn’t explored to this reader’s satisfaction. Oh, and the MC’s missing husband gets found, but there’s no real clarity on why he left in the first place. Instead of explaining, he runs (which, plausible, I guess). A missing boy also eventually reappears, but the emotional hook that should have carried his story is lost as he’s forgotten until near the end of the book (and when he returns, but it’s not about him anymore even). Then there’s a weird cult that’s actually fun to read about (something something Christmas) but I was just left bewildered by the town it originated in and the significance of the fake Christmas trees. And why the pregnant woman mattered. Oh, and there’s also a weird church… but why? I never found out.

So many interesting ideas; but in the end the author failed to pull the narrative together around them, I feel. I finished the book mainly to try to make sense of it all, in the hope that *something* would coalesce—which it didn’t, not really. Iffy about recommending this baffling one (except for the really imaginative ideas); but I’ll be looking out for reviews from readers who had a different experience.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bindery for early DRC access.

“𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩. … 𝘞𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦. 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵, 𝘸𝘦 𝘨𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘥.”

Thank you Bindery Books for the advanced readers copy via NetGalley.

Imagine waking up one morning to find your city or town completely rearranged. A hospital where there once was an apartment complex, a school where a car dealership was, your house is now where the gas station was… it’d be utter chaos. Then you wake the next morning to discover everything has shuffled again. It’s not just the chaos of moving structures and streets, it’s also that said buildings aren’t attached to their gas and electric lines, causing explosions and lack of resources. People have gone missing. And oh yeah, a hurricane is on its way too.

It would be exhausting working in emergency crisis, doing what you can to try to come up with a solution or help one day, only for the next to have to start all over. While that may seem like it’d make the story tiresome and repetitive, it tends to focus more on the people and had a Backman-esque style to the humor and digging into different individual’s psyches throughout the chaos: learning what drives them, their desires, their fears, and the choices they make.

Poor Arjun had such an attention-seeking savior complex, causing him to be really annoying for me, but I found Esme to be relatable; the can-do woman on a mission who also has heart. We are introduced to a handful of other character POVs too and while these didn’t necessarily take away from the story they didn’t quite add to it either; often some were even nameless, which I thought curious.

Listening to the audio (narrated by the lovely Julia Whelan) I was first captivated by the originality and wit. However, as the story goes on there are a lot of side elements introduced that never come together cohesively, so by the end the follow-through and conclusion didn’t live up to the intriguing build-up that the beginning developed.

It came across like Robbins didn’t really know where she wanted to take the story and characters, what point/s she wanted to make (eg: climate change is among the many elements that gets touched on but not expounded), or how it should wrap up. I finished wanting more explanation, more exploration, more of a solid focus on the two main characters and/or the plot, but sadly was underwhelmed and rather disappointed despite its promising start. Still, it was easily bingeable on the audio.

Thank you BinderyBooks for the e-arc of The Unmapping!

I really enjoyed the quirky concept of the streets re-routing themselves! The confusion and resulting disconnection and how to navigate the ever changing layout.

The story felt fresh and innovative and as I like dystopian novels, The Unmapping was right up my alley!

My one critique is I would have loved more. More depth in the development of the characters and also with the sci-fi / surrealism. The fleshing out of the characters and their personalities, anxieties and challenges would have greatly added to the story. And I'd love to explore more of the "unmapping" itself.

Really great at first. Started off loving the book. The writing is great throughout. But the story falls flat in the last hmm…20% or so. I get what the author was going for but it just kind of left the reader feeling confused and unsatisfied. About Marcus especially. Esme in a way as well. But still I’d say it’s a good read and would recommend it.

This was an interesting idea for a disaster / sci-fy story. Denise S. Robbins also choose to hone in on a small cast of characters exploring the "Unmapping" that occurred .... but it was a bit too disjointed for me. I was left confused and unsettled for most of the novel - though that might be what Robbins' goal was.

I really wanted to like this because disaster fiction is kind of my jam but this one just didn't hit in the way that I'd hoped. The premise was interesting and I was fairly intrigued/entertained throughout the first half of the book, however the more I read, the more I felt that the story was a bit aimless, the characters seemed chaotic but not in an endearing way, and I had a hard time caring about what was happening (not to mention Arjun triggered my secondhand embarrassment for the majority of the book). Some of the plot points, specifically surrounding cults and aluminum trees, seemed pointless and after reading the whole thing I still don't feel like we had a good understanding of what caused this whole thing in the first place. I think what really did it in for me though was the continuously inner monologue. It was 400 pages of a variety of people's (some with no names!) inner monologue and I honestly just can't with that.

I did read this predominantly by audio and thought the production and voice narration was good. Unfortunately, though, as a how this one was not for me.

2.5 stars, but I round up.

There is so much potential here. The premise is a unique and fascinating one. The characters are interesting and have the potential to be three-dimensional. The settings are elaborate and changing.

But in reality, I found this confusing and very uneven. There are completely solidly interesting moments-
-Esme's father has a stutter and has fallen in love with a woman with a five year old
-Antony is a young boy from a poorer neighborhood in New York City who is trapped under a building
-People in New York City are protesting
-Gleamwood City and Gleamwood towers are somehow connected
-There are aluminum trees growing, with roots, out of the ground
- Marcus has a religious awakening and now goes by Michael
-Joey secured his house to the Empire State building with duct tape
-Rosemary thinks she loves Seraphina and joins a cult

But... those sentences, truly, are all you learned of those events. I want to KNOW about Seraphina. I want to know about the aluminum trees. I want to know about Gleamwood.

This book feels unfinished, like these ideas should have been fleshed out (or, possibly, some of them dropped altogether).

Thanks to Bindery Books for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

DNF'd at 17%! Unfortunately, this didn't work for me. I was not interested in the shifting POVs, but the climate disaster in NYC was kinda cool.