The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins is one of those rare books that is so unique you are unlikely to forget it.

This speculative fiction centres around an event where at 4am every night, New York city’s buildings move or become Unmapped causing chaos to reign.

We follow Esme and Arjun who work for the Emergency Management Department, albeit in different sectors. They are both swiftly thrown into the midst of the turmoil, as the varying government bodies scramble for solutions to ever escalating problems.

We have fires, electricity systems malfunctioning, a boy trapped under a building, water pipes bursting, protesters, cults and rogue shelters popping up all over the place.

Meanwhile, Esme cannot find her fiancé Marcus, and Arjun is dealing with severe anxiety.

Finally, we are also following a whole host of side characters whose lives interweave as they navigate their way through a Newer New York.

Like I said at the start, you will not forget this book easily. There is so much going on and every character adds something important and charming to the story.

The novel casts an astute eye on how humans respond in crisis. And how the choices we make affect us and those around us be it in the past, present, or future.

This book really had it all – heartbreak, charm, romance, comedy and just a “pinch” of complete and utter devastation.

Would highly recommend adding this to your Summer TBR.

Thanks to Mareas, Bindery Books and NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I went into The Unmapping because I thought the premise was so intriguing. Without any warning in the city of New York, entire blocks of the city moves at 4 AM. Most people are sleeping and have no idea this has happened. If you're not at home when it happens, you can't find your way to get back home.

The Empire State Building ends up in Coney Island as an example. All of the streets stay the same, but the buildings all shift around the entire city. This was such an excellent concept.

Esme and Arjun are the two main characters and both work in the emergency services in New York so we follow these two as the city desperately tries to help those who are misplaced. As soon as they start to get a handle on things, the unmapping occurs the next day at 4 AM again, and the next and the next... It was interesting to see how this almost became the new normal.

Unfortunately, the writing style almost caused me to DNF as it felt like a stream of consciousness being dumped on the page and it was very off-putting. I did end up sticking with it and eventually got used to it, but I'm not a fan of this style of writing. Overall, I am glad I read this because I did enjoy the unique premise.

*Thanks to partner Bindery Books - Mareas, and to NetGalley for the gifted eARC!*

This was such a mysterious and intense read as the changes to the world happen in silence each night. Definitely a eerie and thought-provoking read.

The Unmapping is amazing! It’s like nothing I’ve ever read before! This book captures the feelings of listlessness that came out of the confusion and lockdowns of the early days of the COVID pandemic with the helplessness of our current climate crisis and wraps them up in a magic realism story of hope and personal growth. I loved the absurdity that never really felt that absurd after having lived through a time when the logistics of locking down an entire city like New York is a real possibility.

Robbins gives us the story of a handful of characters as they navigate “The Unmapping,” a phenomenon that randomly(?) reorganizes all of the buildings in New York every morning at 4am. As the characters, and the city itself, relearn how to live and move in this new normal, their lives and individual journeys also adjust to meet new needs. It’s at once a fantastic conversation about climate change and humanity’s ability to make change, while also offering wonderful character development.

Honestly, there’s so much happening in this novel that I can’t imagine commenting on it all. I hope this book gets picked up and studied in many university courses on the Anthropocene, the human condition in the early 21st century, or even just magic realism! I know I’ll be going back to reread so I can dissect everything I missed the first time around!

This review is my honest opinion of the book. Thank you to NetGalley, Bindery Books, and Mareas Books for providing a digital copy for me to read in advance of the publication date.

I think I have to go 2.5 on this one.

There are many things I enjoyed about this novel, but unfortunately it didn’t fully come together for me. I loved the wacky concept of cities that become “unmapped” - essentially all the buildings get shuffled at 4AM daily. Setting this in a city such as NYC was a win as well and I liked the focus on characters that work for the agency tasked for handling the city’s emergencies.

However, I really struggled to connect with these characters on any meaningful level. We jumped between POV’s so often and what we do get feels very singular to specific aspects of their lives. With Esme we are focused on her job and fiancée Marcus, with Arjun we are focused on his anxiety and social difficulties, with Darla her being lost and the date she was supposed to be on, with the mayor we got so little time except to hear about her affair with another city’s mayor. I would have rather had less POV’s and more with the actual management of the disasters.

This felt reminiscent in style to The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, but unfortunately didn’t live up to the bar that novel set. There are so many different small aspects included in this book that I just wish we got some more time to explore. But on that same note, this was a little wordy and long.


I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

**eARC provided through netgalley, opinions are my own**

This was a fantastic read. I flew through this in one day which is really unusual for me but I Just couldn't put it down.

The characters are flawed and multidimensional and I was really invested in them. After every chapter I would hope that the next one would cover different POVs because I was so intrigued to learn more about all of them.

The writing is beautiful and really makes you stop and think at certain points.

I loved that this was a book taking place in new york and not neccessarily a book *about* new york.

The only thing I would have liked were a few more answers to certain questions but I understand why the ending is kept vague, just for my personal taste I like to know what's going on.

Can fully recommend this to basically everyone who is interested in speculative fiction! 4,5 stars

The premise of The Unmapping was truly captivating and I was really looking forward to finding out how a city like New York, with its density and infrastructure could continuously rearrange itself every day. It's one of the things I love about the sci-fi genre, the imagination it takes to make the implausible become plausible.

Unfortunately, and it pains me to state it, that didn't happen. There was just too much going on, the story kept bringing in additional elements and I didn't feel like anything connected them. I almost feel like the author had a bunch of great ideas and decided to put them all in this one book, then the editor said what the heck, go for it.

To be fair, it started off pretty good, with the chaos of the city being unmapped, the lack of preparedness by disaster management organizations, the impact on interpersonal relationships, etc. Then came the aluminum trees and red jumpsuit cults and the lucid dreaming and it was just downhill from there. Not to mention, the few secondary story ARCs that were most exciting ended up not being explained or resolved.

I couldn't get into this. I thought it would be about people coming together and real conversations about the world changing and how to deal with it as a community. It was a mashup of the most random infodumps about characters. I didn't like any of the characters, especially the main characters, The relationships weren't interesting either The unmapping never felt real, this story would definitely work better visually. There was no tension and major pacing issues.

This was so interesting and compelling, and as someone who grew up just outside of New York City, it felt like the world's weirdest nostalgia trip. The idea of an entire city shuffling around each night surprisingly opened the door for a number of heartbreaking and heartwarming story lines. This will absolutely be a book I continue to think about for a very long time.

3.5 stars rounded up

I love this concept and the mysterious buildup around it - New York City (and other parts of the world) in "unmapping" itself - every morning, all of the buildings shift around. You could fall asleep in Brooklyn and wake up on Broadway. You never know where your workplace and apartment may move to next. Multiple POVs let us see the human consequences of this disaster in many diferent ways. But the tenuous cult and Christmas tree connections made this story lose some of its power - I think I would've remained morre invested if it stayed truer to the initial hints about making a stement on climate change and human resiliency.

That said, I'd happily give another book by this author a go, as this is definitely on the right track for me. Thank you to NetGalley and Bindery Books for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

What do you do when you wake up one morning, and your house is halfway across the city from where it's supposed to be? This, is the Unmapping. we follow the lives of people who live in this new reality, where nothing stays tethered, and everything changes. power is out, the buildings won't stay put, people are panicking. we follow the lives of people who are selfish, who are frightened, who are desperate, who see this as a new beginning and at the end of it all, we get to see hope for a future. this book was intense, it was brilliant, it was look into how real people might react to an unexplainable event. we get little highs and a lot of lows and how people with terrible lives in the beginning, find peace in a new way of living.

i wll admit, I found the book a little frustrating at times. it seamed to drag in places, but i couldn't stop reading because i HAD to know what happens next. i needed answers, i needed closure! i got... some of that. it was a fantastic book, and it's incredibly unique and the people within it feel so real you might have mistaken them for people in a documentary. it's not my usual kind of book, so while it was engaging and thrilling, i found myself getting bored here and there because it's mostly about people struggling in different ways. if your a big fan of realistic fiction, then this is definitely a book you are going to love!

Thank you to Bindery Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy of The Unmapping.

This book was unique and interesting however I feel it just wasn’t for me and I did DNF it at 40%.

This book is about the “Unmapping” of New York City and focuses on a small group of people who work for the Emergency Management Department and their personal experience and the emotional impact it causes them.

I was expecting more on the Unmapping disaster story and the unprecedented chaos it created for the city and citizens and the frontline kind of accidents, issues and stories as they unfolded.

This would be more enjoyable for those that are more interested in intricate and individual character stories.

I found I got lost in these extended character stories and they felt disjointed and irrelevant. Unfortunately the characters felt flat to me and I just didn’t connect with them.

It was the cities Unmapping, sci-fi or magical realism, aspect that lured me into the book but from what I read I found there was very little of details of the chaos and destruction and unrest of the city or the reasoning behind it.

I’m sure this will be an enjoyable read for the right audience. 😊

What first pulled me in was the concept. New York City wakes up to find its buildings rearranged overnight, with no explanation. Then it happens again. And again.

This is a literary speculative debut that focuses on two emergency response workers trying to hold a shifting city together. It explores themes of control, identity, climate anxiety, and instability through a character-focused lens.

While the story didn’t fully land for me, the premise is one that readers who enjoy surreal world-building and slower, introspective storytelling may find intriguing.

to NetGalley, Bindery Books and the author for the ARC in exchange for a honest review.

The concept behind this book intrigued me and led me to request this ARC! I went in expecting a science fiction novel & soon realized this was more fever dream & less science fiction. And I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way…

I have ADHD & took all my meds today but I’m interested in how a neurotypical would read this story. It jumps A LOT & a lot is always happening but not always with much explanation….

I struggled with the randoms sections of “family history” for some of characters because it didn’t seem to drive the plot. I enjoyed knowing I was reading from a diverse lens of individuals, but much of that could have been established with less background information.

I’d describe this book as chaotic with a strong concept. I truly think the concept & story telling had the potential to be 5 stars but somewhere fell short (for me) but I’d recommend this to a very niche group of people… people with chaotic brains that are always moving.

I will say I did feel like I needed a nap after reading the book due to the chaotic nature.

A frustrating take on a near-future event that could have been moving (no pun intended) and fascinating, but ended up being a slow internal look at some annoying characters that we barely get details on, with very little focus on "a city’s descent into chaos and confusion". The reason for the whole event is bizarre but in a somehow uninteresting way, and the name Marcus (a side character we barely see) is used so many times I wanted to scream.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have been following Mares for years on TikTok and YouTube and I've always enjoyed and appreciated her thoughtful approach to book reviews. And while I don't *always* agree with her perspective, I always find that it broadens my viewpoint. When I found out she was getting an imprint through Bindery, I was STOKED! I just knew any book she chose to support would be thoughtful and thought provoking.

The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins did not disappoint! In a world that remakes itself night after night, we find Esme and Arjun trying to find balance. And while these two main characters are not my favorite of all time, I chose to read this book for the ideas and the world and the commentary on the dystopian landscape that inevitably surfaces after massive disasters.

In that way, this book delivers! So many dystopian books that I grew up with were amazing! But let's be honest, they centered around the white, female protagonist. This book dives deeper into the look at who are truly the victims in massive disasters and climate change.

I encourage you to pick up this book if you're looking for something that will open your mind in the most unexpected story! I loved this book and would absolutely recommend to friends in the future!

Thanks to NetGalley and Bindery Books for the eARC!

This book had such an interesting premise but, unfortunately, none of the characters were even a little bit inspiring or well-written. We learn essentially nothing about any of them, and I didn't like that we didn't know all of their names - they instead got called by their titles - like the blonde woman.
We never really learn anyone's motivations, and I wish the story had stayed more focused on how the Unmapping happened and how people worked to fix it or lessen the impact.
I think the author tried to do too much - they had too many ideas and not enough focus.

DNF at 39%.

The writing style here is conversational and extremely staccato in a way that never really clicked for me and was hard to look past. It’s like that from page one, so it will be easy to get a sense of the style from a sample.

But I was extremely intrigued by the premise, and by the promise of a character-driven story of people trying to do what they can in a bizarre situation, and through the first 40% of the book, I just didn’t see much of that promise come good. The actual logistics of finding ways to help are almost entirely absent, mostly featuring people in positions of power giving instructions that may or may not make sense or be at all effective, with no regard for the input of people who report to them. Realistic? Maybe. Not certainly not interesting in a problem-solving way.

Unfortunately, the characters aren’t especially interesting either. In the first 40%, there are probably six or eight POV characters, though only a couple are named, and the voices run together badly. Furthermore, none of them get the kind of depth to make me care about their interests or what happens to them. One has a missing fiancé and reflects periodically on her religious disagreements with his family. One was waylaid on her way to a date. One is ineptly trying to help people while occasionally pining for a crush. But that’s…about it. Nobody has depth. Perhaps that depth develops over the back half of the book, but there’s nothing in the first 40% that makes me excited to figure out.

Thank you so much to the author, the Mareas Books imprint of Bindery Books, and Netgalley for an opportunity to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In a genre that I don't dive into often, one of the things I enjoy about contemporary speculative fiction is being able to dig deeper into the themes that are presented. The Unmapping is one such case where I was pleased by the inclusion of climate change, modern social media, and human relationships amid a global crisis.

The story follows a mysterious phenomenon called "the unmapping," where various architectural structures are moving in random directions for no apparent reason. Two characters of New York City's Emergency Management Team, Esme and Arjun, play the role of the main protagonists. While Esme is driven to despair over the sudden disappearance of her fiance, Arjun is driven by sheer determination to become the "hero" that the state needs.

One of the aspects that stood out for me was the writing style. The long passages are a creative endeavor to represent the insanity that the unmapping created. The bigger cast of characters and their perspectives (even one as young as an adolescent) provide a variety of storylines that gradually come together as the story progresses. And, having BIPOC individuals as the protagonists provided an extra layer to the narrative with how their cultural backgrounds influenced their actions.

I did wish I enjoyed the subplot romance of Esme and Arjun. I wanted just a little bit more chemistry out of their relationship, to the point that I was more invested in their character development instead. I also wanted to see the social media aspect utilized a little more since it played a significant part in the story.

I highly recommend this book if you’re looking for a story that gives you something to think about and thoughtfully tackles real-world issues.

3.5 stars for this interesting book, which I'm not sure I loved but I found incredibly fascinating!

The sci-fi concept of this was super unique and fascinating, with entire cities becoming "unmapped" aka buildings changing locations every day at 4am. As expected, for a big city like NYC, this causes an insane amount of issues and dangers. We follow this phenomenon for many months with a cast of characters either named and fully realized (Esme, Arjun), named and kind of missing (Marcus, Antony), or unnamed and characterized in small details (the mayor, the blonde woman, the wife). The jumps between characters was at times incredibly frustrating, and at times super insightful. This book really walks the line here between something I really loved reading and something I was slogging through, what a weird contradiction!!

If what you're looking for is a vibes book with sci-fi elements and a world that feels lived in, this is perfect for you. If you're looking for answers or a straightforward plot, this may not be for you. I'm walking away from this definitely curious but not super moved.

Thanks so much to Denise Robbins, Bindery Books, and NetGalley for a chance to read this in exchange for an honest review.