Here's what you can expect from The Unmapping:

- A narration style that I describe as "chatty." It wonderfully captures speech and thought patterns in a way that makes it feel like the narrator is truly sitting down to tell you a story.

- A literary leaning contemporary sci-fi.

- Our main character, Esme, who finds that amid large-scale chaos, she also has things to face about herself and her relationship with her fiance, who is missing. Where is he, and why?

- Our other main character, Arjun, who wants to be a hero, to matter to the people around him, and that, at times, is achingly relatable and, at times, acutely disconcerting.

- A cult? In this economy?

- An honest look at who gets impacted most by disaster and how society views them

- A book that is both very human and a little alien that will create a memorable reading experience.

If this is the author’s debut, sign me up for everything she ever writes. What an amazing and unique book! Imagine waking up to find that your house is no longer on your street. That’s what’ is happening in The Unmapping. Streets and landmarks are simply ….moving. People need GPS coordinates to find their job, ambulances cannot get to sick people because their location keeps changing. And these changes are not simply inconvenient; they cause disasters and chaos. Well-written with excellent character development and a plot filled with relentless action, this is an incredible story that I can’t recommend enough!

Thanks so much for the opportunity to read!

Thank you to NetGalley and to Bindery Books for the ARC of The Unmapping by Denise S Robbins.

This novel is like a reverse version of what we all experienced during pandemic lock downs - instead of being stuck in one place, the buildings of NYC physically move every morning at 4am, causing layers of chaos in infrastructure and general human functioning, while leaving people lost in place. This is the unmapping, a phenomenon that began in a tiny town in Wisconsin that makes Christmas trees and is now spreading across the globe.

Our journey follows Esme and Arjun, 20-something emergency management team workers both trying to navigate the new world. Esme is anxious to find her fiance and to solve problems through statistics behind the screen, while Arjun is desperate to be noticed and be a hero on the streets. Together they end up connected to the highs and lows of the unmapping and humanity itself.

The first 30% very much seems simply about Esme and Arjun and their individual journeys in the first week of the unmapping. I think after that point aspects of the novel may have gone over my head (or maybe I was thinking too hard about where to place them). I so much wanted the answers to lie within the "red cloak" cults and the trutrees and the apartment collapse, but in the end I'm not sure I entirely understood the message of the novel overall outside of my more basic understanding of Esme and Arjun as people. I've been thinking about the novel for two days since finishing it, but I feel like I'm missing something even though I really enjoyed it.

I think this was very creatively done and very well written. Robbins captures that sense of loss wen surrounded by others that was so strongly felt during the lockdowns, yet it's turned entirely on its head. There is a focus on the environment, the types of energy and power we need to avoid catastrophes, and the damage of excess/corporations/corruption that lead to problems great and small in communities and global scales. I enjoyed that Arjun and Esme were 23 and 26 - they are young but are holding massive responsibility - much like our younger generations currently feel about the state of the world, the climate and their place in it. While their actions still showed some of their room to grow up as people, they were both so willing to take on the responsibility in an emergency management system that relegated them to the background in a time when those in power had no real direction themselves.

The story wastes no time plunging into its central crisis: the mysterious “Unmapping,” an unexplained phenomenon that sees New York’s geography continuously rearranging itself. Skyscrapers appear on beaches, entire neighborhoods vanish, and the city’s infrastructure collapses under the weight of disarray. Yet, there’s no apocalyptic destruction—just an eerie reshuffling that leaves the residents bewildered, stranded, and searching for answers.

Esme Green and Arjun Varma, members of New York’s Emergency Management team, anchor the novel’s emotional and narrative core. Esme’s struggle to navigate bureaucratic chaos while privately mourning the disappearance of her fiancé adds a personal urgency to the city’s crisis. In contrast, Arjun embodies boots-on-the-ground heroism, his efforts to save stranded and disoriented residents driven by altruism, and his need for meaning. Together, they provide a human lens through which the novel's more significant questions—identity, loss, and survival—are explored.

What sets The Unmapping apart is its ability to weave thrilling disaster fiction with deeper reflections on societal resilience and fragility—the novel grapples with climate change, political unrest, and collective uncertainty in incredibly timely ways. The emergence of mysterious “red cloak” cults, who find meaning in the chaos, adds another layer of intrigue, underscoring humanity’s tendency to search for order—even in disarray.

Readers will feel the weight of empty streets, the tension of fractured communities, and the awe of a skyline in perpetual flux. Yet, beneath the shifting geography lies a story of human connection—of individuals forced to confront who they are when their literal and figurative foundations are stripped away.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am so grateful to the Bindery platform for elevating stories like The Unmapping and ensuring they get to readers' hands. Denise S. Robbins' The Unmapping was a fun, confusing, and slightly stressful tale, and I couldn't have enjoyed it more if I tried.

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

How to describe this book? It’s a big-brained, high concept, depressing-but-not, hopeful-but-not examination of the absurdity of living in a world we KNOW is made of intense and institutionalised inequality, a world we KNOW we are making uninhabitable for human life at an alarming, near-future rate, and in a society we KNOW is increasingly built around keeping us as isolated from each other as we can.

It’s a book that asks how we can cling to our humanity amidst the catastrophe that is modern human existence, how we can forge real connections with each other, who we can trust with our precious stores of faith, and how we can make the most of our small lives while we have the gift of them. But it asks none of this explicitly, instead building a tapestry of intensely lonely (occasionally unlikable, though always understandable) people already trying to survive in an odd world that suddenly becomes even odder.

The narrative is disjointed (which is thematically appropriate) and the answers to the questions it asks are largely left to you to find, but Robbins’ effective and chatty writing style keeps the book from becoming too overwhelmingly cerebral. If you’ve loved Hank Green’s Carl books, anything by Emily St. John Mandel, or Orbital by Samantha Harvey, then this is the contemplative, slightly weird contemporary sci-fi for you.

Thanks to Bindery for the digital ARC. I am a member/supporter of the Mareas Bindery imprint, but this review and rating is an honest one.

Thank you Bindery Books and Netgalley.

This book is definitely unique in such a way I can't really summarize my feelings on it. This whole experience feels like I'm there. Not as a person stuck in this crisis but more so as a ghost. Only able to view and watch everything unravel. Denise S. Robbins wrote this not only in a beautiful way but also in a manner that just makes you wish the story was longer. However I think the actual plot has an amazing pace and overall story. The pacing works as it allows each character to genuinely become a better version for one but also allowing for us readers to truly understand their mind. The story is also really unique at least for me I have never read a cli- fi but this book has opened my eyes to the untapped potential of this genre.

Looooooved this atmospheric and introspective novel with themes of community, what we owe one another, and climate collapse realities!

What a unique and amazing premise. Combining contemporary/literary fiction and sci fi was such a clever idea. I thought the writing style was great in how it really captured the intricate thinking and feelings of each character.. Hitting on these huge, heavy social issues while also creating a story that had you really caring about these characters.

i think literary sci fi is one of my favorite forms of sci fi, the same way literary horror is one of my favorite forms of horror— & it’s just as well that i love the pulp of both :D this one, though, steers more literary. very high-concept as i’ve come to expect from near-future sci fi, this book really digs into the human condition & what being human means in our world (and the world to come). gorgeous prose & a story that requires you to come to your own conclusions instead of holding your hand through the answers.

This was a terrifying concept and worked well in this universe, it had that strong element that I was looking for and was hooked from the first page. The characters had that element that I was hoping for and enjoyed getting to know them in this. It had that disaster element that I wanted and enjoyed getting to go on this terrifying journey. Denise S. Robbins has a great writing style and can't wait for more.

4/5 stars
Thank you NetGalley and Bindery Books for the e-arc!
First read of the year and I’m starting it in a really good place. The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins.
When I first read the synopsis of this book, I found it so fascinating. The premise and the idea was interesting and so original. Also, I’m automatically drawn to stories in New York. And I was so right to be excited about this book.
I have to admit the sci-fi aspect of the book felt a little underwhelming for me, specifically the explanations of the unmapping. But it compensated in the human aspect of the stories unfolding. How human beings can react so differently to crisis and catastrophe, but also being interconnected by the same events. So you can see the invisible strings between them. Everyone trying to survive and find an explanation, even if it’s not real or doesn’t actually make rational sense. Making choices to remain as human as possible and go through something that changes everything, and trying the stay the same. It’s frustrating, and confusing, and distressing, and hopeful, all together at the same time. Incredibly human at it’s core.
The Unmapping comes out June 3rd, and I can’t wait for everyone to have the chance to read it!

I love this book!! !I love how it was confusing and there was mass confusion during the entire city being swapped into different buildings all overnight. No one knows what's going on, and that made it so interesting and a great story!! I really liked this!


Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!