Unraveller

Product Information

Unraveller feels like a true fairytale, there may be wondrous creatures and mysterious forest settings, but there's also a Marsh Horse that may eat you and definitely a solid chance of being turned into a harp, a bat or a ship if you get on someone's bad side. It's very funny throughout, but balances that out with themes of grief, fear and rage. In short and without giving anything away, what takes place is a captivating tale, set deep within a beautifully crafted world that as a reader, we slowly get to explore. The many mysteries in need of untangling, and the numerous twists and turns, make the story all the more enjoyable. My only complaint would be that I found it a *bit* to long - however, there was no way I wasn't finishing! Written in 2 POVs: Kellen and Nettle, they live in The Wilds… where anyone can create a “Life Destroying Curse” people can turn into animal, grow strange things on their bodies, even turn into things. Kellen has the ability to “unravel” curse… he can cure the cursed people tho not everyone happy about it and some even want to capture him because of this special ability. L'ho trovata una storia avvincente e suggestiva, ispirata da varie fiabe gotiche (tra tutte, la fiaba dei Cigni Selvatici di Andersen), ma sempre tesa a sviscerare il problema del senso di colpa di chi maledice e la sofferenza di chi subisce e viene guarito. Spesso, le maledizioni traggono origini da motivi futili, da incomprensioni familiari, ed è vero il concetto che il male invocato può ritorcersi contro chi ne ha fatto un uso dissennato.

This is a story for which it’s hard to give an “elevator pitch”, a deft distillation of ideas and themes in a few pithy sentences. It’s too complex for it, and its characters are layered and messy and difficult, and full of wonderful contradictions and sharp corners. And the brilliantly fantastic worlds of Hardinge’s imagination resist the soothing simplicity of stark binary contrasts, instead showing (always showing, never telling) the lived-in ambiguity of reality, however fantastic it might be. I like sinking into a Hardinge book knowing absolutely nothing. Not even reading the flap copy. It makes for a uniquely rewarding experience. And, to my delight, I discovered that this particular book was attempting something wholly original. At its heart, this is a detective novel. You have our two heroes, one the detective who can unravel each case they come across and other the moral compass that keeps him pointed north. You have evil on both a governmental level (always a topic Hardinge enjoys) and on a smaller more cult-like level. But through it all our two heroes are interviewing suspects, solving crimes, and trying to keep from getting gutted along the way. So much of the fun comes from watching Kellen gather the clues together to find the connecting (forgive me) thread. It’s not Agatha Christie but it ain’t half bad. Sometimes you catch on to what Kellen’s after before Nettle does, but most of the time you’re with her, floundering along in his wake.

Everything echoes down the webs. Even magical creatures have a thing or two to learn about human emotions. And even a carefully organized society can learn that it needs to change. After being imprisoned for mouthing off to some pompous idiot merchant, Kellen is rescued by a marsh horse and her rider on behest of their female patron - she has a job for the unraveller. Frances Hardinge’s Unraveller is a beautifully written and richly imagined fantasy with a deliciously twisted, dark fairytale-esque aesthetic I couldn’t get enough of! Unraveller is a story with so much plot that never lulls and yet never feels rushed. It’s rooted in the ideas of strong friendship and responsibility, the subtle but extremely important distinctions between anger and hate, and recognition that there are at least two sides to every story, and what you believe isn’t always true. It is about the importance of thinking for yourself and asking questions, even when painful and uncomfortable, and questioning assumptions, and thinking about the consequences. It’s a story about learning to deal with your pain, and not in the easy way. And it’s a story about the power of understanding and empathy, and the heavy weight of guilt. The rest aren’t bad people. They’re just desperate and wounded, putting their faith in the first person who told them they weren’t monsters.”

I love the nuance in Hardinge’s writing. She evokes so much emotion and brings her readers along a thought-provoking journey, yet her messages are never heavy-handed. I’m getting so tired of these in-your face YA stories that scream to the roof messages and themes rather than trusting readers to come to those same conclusions simply because the author has written a well-crafted story.Moss hung in great, green-grey swathes from the branches. Everywhere there was the cold, lush smell of the woods with its undercurrent of rot, its fierce green freshness and the scent of a thousand marsh flowers gaping their fat silken petals in the summer dark. Kellen is a young man with an uncanny gift: he can undo (unravel) curses. That's how he met Nettle. She and her siblings had been cursed by their stepmother and Kellen helped ... only Nettle didn't leave his side afterwards and now they are traveling this strange, hate-driven world together. The book features a depth of themes including but not limited to: victims, survivors, anger and hatred, trauma, therapy, cults, betrayal, domestic abuse, all under the guise of a stunning fantasy world with curses and the riveting and mysterious Wilds.