{Audiobook} Review: Unraveled by Gennifer Albin ~ ***The Starry-Eyed Revue***

Title: Unraveled
Author: Gennifer Albin
Narrator(s): Amanda Dolan
Series: Crewel World, book #3
Length: 7 hrs 50 mins
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication Date: October 7, 2014
Source: from publisher via Audiobook Jukebox
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible

Autonomous. Independent. Dangerous. They tried to control her. Now she’ll destroy them.

Things have changed behind the walls of the Coventry and new threats lurk in its twisted corridors. When Adelice returns to Arras, she quickly learns that something rotten has taken hold of the world and Cormac Patton needs her to help him reestablish order. However, peace comes at a terrible price. As the Guild manipulates the citizens of Arras, Adelice discovers that she’s not alone, and she must let go of her past to fight for mankind’s future. She will have to choose between an unimaginable alliance and a deadly war that could destroy everyone she loves.

I loved Crewel but I have to admit that my interest in this series has seriously waned as it's progressed. I'd actually liken my enjoyment of this trilogy to that of the Divergent trilogy: where the first book was kind of epic in its uniqueness, the sequel was still pretty good, but the final installment just left me so unsatisfied.

That's not to say that the elements I enjoyed in the previous books weren't still there. I enjoy Albin's writing style. I loved how rebellious her heroine was. And I delighted in how deliciously evil her villain was, even if I still held out hope that he might be redeemed before all was said and done. But I felt like this series had me zig-zagging across the galaxy, when in reality, we were only really dealing with two parallel worlds: Earth and Arras -- or new Earth, as I liked to think of it. And by that, I mean it was kind of all over the place in terms of plot.

The romance, i.e. the love triangle, was pretty much handled in the previous book, I think, so I'm not going to spend too much time on that. I'm in favor of the path it took, but not so much where it ends up, if what I read into that ending is any implication of where it's headed. I listened to this a couple of weeks ago before I got sick, and I remember there was a tender moment/scene, but I believe that's pretty much all Adelice got before war between the rebels and the Guild broke out. I didn't expect this finale to be a romantic book, but still.

Ugh, and the worst part is how rushed that ending felt. Now, I'm a girl who dislikes gift-wrapped happily ever afters, so I appreciate an open ending or one that doesn't necessarily leave me with the warm and fuzzies. But the ending of Unraveled just felt so...pivotal and yet lackluster at the same time. Like, it should have been gut-wrenching, but instead, I just felt kind of numb to it all. Some of it was expected but some of it came out of nowhere, with no explanation and no hope for one. It was as if I were just expected to accept it and move on. Or the characters were expected to, anyway. Either way, it left me kind of bitter over the whole thing.

Amanda Dolan narrated all three books in this series, and I thought she did a decent job portraying Adelice and the fight she had ahead of her. I remember thinking nothing about her performance stood out to me in the previous books, and that's still true, though I do recall really enjoying the smarmy voice she gave to Cormac Patton.

I'm sad that I didn't enjoy this final book more, but I'm not put off reading anything else the author writes because of it. It could have been that I had really high expectations for this finale or the fact that I was hoping for more romance. So, I'm not going to hold those things against the author's future works. Hopefully, I'll find another favorite like Crewel among them.

GIF it to me straight:

About the author:

I'm a recovering academic who discovered I could write books of my own and people would read them! I live in a perfect coastal village in Washington state with my family, but spend most of my time in Arras and other fantastical new worlds.

I appreciate strong coffee and bold imaginations, prefer my heroines with sass, and am always searching for my next big adventure.

My debut novel, CREWEL, was written during NaNo ’10 and I now sit on the official National Novel Writing Month Advisory Board. I’m represented by Mollie Glick of Foundry Literary + Media.

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