Atlas of Unknowable Things

[cornerofmadness]

Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


One of my netgalley arcs

This one is deeply weird and solidly in the gothic story realm (with a mix of dark academia but only with faculty, no students). Robin Quail is both deeply in mourning and beyond furious when her (now ex) boyfriend steals her phD thesis in folklore and witchcraft and publishes it as his own and gets the job in academia she coveted (as someone IN academia, this is an awful betrayal and also I wouldn't wish academia on anyone). After a bizarre split with her cousin Paloma, Robin gets a summer job offer from Hildegard College in rural Colorado, the very place she wants to go because she believes a professor there has an artifact that will actually disprove her own thesis and embarrass her ex but this professor has disappeared.

If the book nails anything it's the gothic, old school, isolated nature of the college. Robin meets several others and quickly learns that even though the school is out for the summer the faculty are still on campus and act like an odd family (seriously, they eat together, have gliterati style parties etc). On the face of it, Robin's there to study witchcraft via herbal spellcraft and healing and alchemy (which is rather my own subspecialty and field of study from the biology side of herbal healing) but she's really there to find that missing artifact and to learn where the missing professor went.

But as she's there, unspooling a series of clues and sleepwalking out of the cabana they put her in (which was the other professor's space still with all her clothes), Robin finds herself wondering about her fellow faculty members, all of them seem to have something to hide. The suspense rachets up nicely as it edges from mystery to eldritch horror.

There are some really neat twists to this though I think the other characters could have been fleshed out a bit more (always a trial with a first person pov) and the ending felt a little rushed.

As I mentioned this is first person pov and conversational at that, like Robin's in the room telling you this story.

I very much enjoyed it (but again it had a lot of my personal areas of interest) but I can see this not being for everyone.



View all my reviews

Comments

[suzume]

I'm going to look this up through my library! ...Of course, because you say it's a netgalley arc, I'm not sure I can find it that way, but, hey, why not? If I have to buy it to support the author, I will surely do that!

[cornerofmadness]

It was interesting (though I might have liked it better for free vs paying for it). I'd be more likely to get it from the library

[suzume]

Ha ha, oh, okay. Well, I already petitioned my local library to pick up a copy when it comes out.

[cornerofmadness]

There you go