★★★★☆ Cursed friends

Unraveller

Frances Hardinge

Frances Hardinge's Unraveller takes place in Raddith. Within the country of Raddith lies a marshland forest called the Wilds. Among the many strange creatures that live in the Wilds are humans, and also the Little Brothers, which the people of Raddith describe thus

What are the Little Brothers, then? Your new friends will tell you, with a certain affection, of the many-legged creatures that live in the cobweb-laden treetops of the Wilds. They are friends to weavers and craftspeople, apparently. They also seek out those consumed by rage or hatred and gift them with a curse. The curse then nestles in the host’s soul like an unhatched egg, growing in power, until the curser is ready to unleash it upon an enemy.

What can you do if you've been cursed? There are those who claim that, for a price, they can help you.

One of them can do it. His name is Kellen. Kellen doesn't lift or break curses -- he unravels them. As a child Kellen was a weaver, a child of weavers. Then he was bitten by one of the Little Brothers, and he had to give up weaving. Woven cloth unravels in his presence. But he can see the threads of a curse and unravel it. This is not a simple or easy thing, either for him or the cursed person.

Kellen has a partner, Nettle. Nettle was cursed by her stepmother. The curse turned Nettle and her brothers and sisters into birds. Nettle was a heron -- thus the heron on the cover. Kellen unraveled her curse -- she is human again now.

Kellen and Nettle are approached by an agent of the Chancery, and hired for purposes that I will not spoil. (The Chancery functions as the government of Raddith.) It transpires -- Kellen and Nettle find this out only gradually -- that some within the Chancery have become aware of a kind of Mafia of cursers. Their job is to help break this organization.

It's a good story, if slow at times. The best part for me was Kellen and Nettle's friendship. Kellen and Nettle are very different personalities, with different gifts, and they complement and depend on each other. Their friendship does NOT turn into a romance, not even slightly. "Wait," you're saying, "I thought this was a young adult novel?" It is. "So, Unraveller is a young adult novel where the heroes and point-of-view characters are a teenage girl and boy, and they don't get romantic? Isn't that against the rules?"

Well, it is certainly unusual! But it is a beautiful thing. More young adult authors should have the creativity and courage to tell stories of friendship.

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