3.5 stars - I wanted to love this, I really did. I absolutely adore AY; The Unmaking of June Farrow was my favorite read of 2024 and I loved Spells for Forgetting and the Fable series. But there was something missing in this book. The mystery never felt that compelling to me, the relationships and personality of the FMC felt dry and lacking substance, and the pace was very slow.

The beautiful, lyrical writing style was still present like it is in her other books but unfortunately that wasn’t enough to save a subpar plot. Overall, I think the book is decent; the writing is good, but the characters and plot are lacking for me.

Thank you to Dell/Random House Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC.

9 / 10 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2025/01/05/a-sea-of-unspoken-things-by-adrienne-young-review/

The story Adrienne Young spins this time is a classic return to confront the past. Not terribly original, despite being a murder mystery, but the elements of fantasy (in James’ uncontrollable psychic link with her brother) help turn this relatively straightforward scenario into something more. Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing straightforward about the mystery itself. For as much as they were two parts of the same person, twins, James didn’t really know her brother. There was always a darkness that lurked within Johnny, something that James (and Micah) covered for, but could never truly comprehend.

For all that this psychic linked changed things—both pre- and post-Johnny’s demise—I honestly didn’t think it was explored enough. I really enjoyed the way the link played out. Of how it was presented, and how glimpses worked. Flashbacks always find the siblings together (usually Micah as well, after the two became three), yet never occur after James left Six Rivers. No glimpses or pieces of Johnny’s life apart, no clues that could’ve added to his backstory, or the mystery of just who Johnny was.

The story itself is a good one, blending together elements of romance and a buried history, a death to unravel, a supernatural link (even through death itself), and the overarching mystery of just who her brother was (even when at odds to who she thought he’d been). Honestly, I loved every minute of it—minus one solitary chapter. That, I could’ve done without, as I felt it pulled away from otherwise total immersion.

As always, the prose the author writes with is distinctive, and familiar. The atmosphere, small town Americana, and the cacophony that can sing through even in the quietest of settings. Reading one of her stories (after ten of her novels) feels a bit like coming home—with all that entails.

Above all else, the all-encompassing, often choking silence of the forest, reminds me time and again why it is I choose to live in the place I do—and why it might not work for everyone.

TL;DR

A Sea of Unspoken Things is a typical Adrienne Young novel in many ways: the atmosphere of small-town Americana, the anxiety and fear and enticement of a shared past, the chaotic feeling of a first second kiss, the comforting prose is often like coming home—with all that it entails. Between the mystery, the romance, the family found and lost, the elements of fantasy and the supernatural within; I loved almost evert moment of the tale, barring a single chapter that I felt distracted from the immersion of the whole. Taken as a whole, A Sea of Unspoken Things is yet another excellent offering from an author who has become one of my favorites. It may not prove her very best work—but it’s damned close.

A Sea of Unspoken Things is a moving meditation on love, loss, and the power of understanding. It’s a story that resonates with anyone who has ever faced the challenge of mending relationships or confronting the ghosts of the past.

Thanks for the arc

Okay, I went into this one not really knowing what to expect. Mystery and thriller for sure! A Sea of Unspoken Things follows James on the heels of the death of her twin brother Johnny. James and Johnny have that twin telepathy, so James knew the minute her brother was killed. While she doesn’t believe that her brothers death was an accident, she goes back to their small hometown under the guise of settling her brother’s estates.

Back in her hometown, James deals with not only the ghost of her brother but all of the things she ran away from the minute she could. Love, loss and not wanting to spend her life in a small town.

I enjoyed this one. You watch James come to terms with the fact that maybe she didn’t know her brother as well as she thought she did. Things got really messy before they got better but I did enjoy the way everything came full circle towards the end. The closure James got at the end was completely satisfying.

A Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrienne Young is a beautifully written story. Adrienne Young is also the author of The Unmaking of June Farrow a book I also loved. This story contains her trademarked beautiful prose and wonderfully drawn characters and I gobbled it up. I loved our female main character James, her friend Micah and what we get to know of James' late twin brother Johnny. At the start of this story, Johnny is killed, and James comes up to the tiny town in the forest that she escaped from twenty years before leaving behind her brother and their friend Micah. Johnny is killed in what is thought to be a hunting accident. He was working on a conservation project tracking and photographing owls in the region. James wants to see what she can find out about what happened to Johnny and to gather up his photographs and the rest of his project work and get that submitted for him. While she is home, she begins noticing things that leads her to believe that there is more to the story of what happened to Johnny. Now, I really liked this book, but there are some incongruities. Johnny's dog, Smoke, is more than twenty years old. Not an everyday thing. An 18 year old is discovered to be missing, and it is more than 3 months since anyone notices? Everyone uses film cameras? And, knows how to develop film. A rare skill these days. That being said, I enjoyed this read and gave it 4.25 stars. Thank you to Net Galley and Random House Publishing Group for my advance reader copy.

A Sea of Unspoken Things is about a woman who is investigating her brother's mysterious death, but she is also coming to terms to her own past in this small town mystery. The wilderness was the perfect setting and all of the characters in this were great. This book had me captivated from the first page and I was turning pages until the end. It was written really well and I look forward to reading more books from this author. I loved reading this book and would recommend this one to any reader, especially to any reader who loves a good mystery. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine/ Delacorte Press for this amazing read in exchange of my honest review of A Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrienne Young.

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5!

I am a newbie to the suspense/mystery genre, but I really enjoyed this novel! It had come across my Instagram feed a couple months ago and I knew I wanted to give it a try. And while it’s definitely different from the majority of my reads(fantasy and/or romance), it did not disappoint!

This book seriously kept me guessing the entire time. I thought I knew where things were going, and then I’d be sent for another mental and emotional loop, discovering that I assumed wrong. We live in James’ head, and she is a bit of an unreliable narrator, since she is obviously biased towards Johnny. We never truly get to know Johnny as he’s already dead at the beginning of the book, but her discussions and thoughts of him tread a thin line between affection and fear, trust and dread.

I also loved the rekindled love between Micah and James, and it made me so happy that they got a HEA.

I sometimes got confused about timelines, particularly in regard to Micah and when James left for school. It made it sound like James, Micah, and Johnny became the main trio after Griffin’s death, but that was also referred to as the time James decided to pack her bags and leave…so I was a little confused there. There was also a lot more f-bombs than I care for, especially when it seemed to be the only curse word ever used in the book lol.

I am excited to read more of Adrienne Young’s work!

I went into this blind, and I would highly recommend approaching this book that way! I really enjoyed it and had no idea where it was going to go. This was so beautifully written and contained so much suspense and intrigue. I thought I had most of the twists figured out and ended up being completely wrong. I couldn't put this down and enjoyed reading through the story so much!

However, I definitely don't think this was marketed correctly. I would not classify this as sci-fi or fantasy at all. It's more of a mystery/thriller. I love a good mystery book, so this was not disappointing to me whatsoever, but I do think people need to be aware of that before going in.

Adrienne Young is one of my must read authors and A Sea of Unspoken things did not disappoint. This one made me feel all the feels!

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this gorgeous book!

I’m a huge fan of Adrienne Young, and A Sea of Unspoken Things just helps solidify my love for her work! I collect all her books, and I will be getting a physical copy of this one to add to my shelves. Her writing is so lush and beautiful, the sensory imagery she uses bringing her books to life. I felt like I was in those woods in Six Rivers with James, feeling, seeing, hearing, and smelling everything right along with her. Every time I thought I had this book’s plot figured out, another twist kept me on my toes. I couldn’t stop reading once I started, and the ending was just perfect!

Such a great, atmospheric book! Do we really know our friends and family like we think we do? James has to dig into her twin brother’s final days to determine what happened to him. So many twists and turns!

When Johnny Golden dies unexpectedly, his sister, James, returns to their dreary hometown to sort through his affairs. She reveals more than she had anticipated.

Perfect mystery for a rainy day. Steady pacing. Very vibey. Characters are all believable, though I wasn’t sold on the romantic relationship between the FMC and another character. Multiple reveals and twists that keep the plot interesting. Vague paranormal element.
Excellent narration on the audiobook.

Thank you to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for the gifted ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 ⭐️ rounded up!!

“we could fill an ocean with the things we never said”

small town, mystery thriller, literary fiction, with magical realism, and incredible atmospheric writing!! the uniqueness of this book is what i loved!! the psychological connection between james (btw james is a girl!!) and johnny was so intriguing and i truly didn’t predict anything that happened!

my main problem was the first half of the book was just slow and repetitive. the second half i flew through and LOVED, but the first 40% was just a bit blah for me. i also wish we got more info/depth for james. she fell a little flat and got lost in the mystery. but overall i really enjoyed the stunning writing and the way the plot picked up was great!!

big thank you to netgalley, random house publishing & delacortepress for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!!!

I went into this one excited but as I started reading, it felt a bit slow and like I had no clue where the journey was taking me. Once it picked up and details started coming together, i definitely started to enjoy it more. The twin telepathy aspect was fun and kept me constantly guessing. I truthfully could not guess the ending until right before it happened. I will say the ending, although unpredictable, felt a bit anticlimactic. This one won’t stop me from reading more by this author though because I do love her writing and characters.

A SEA OF UNSPOKEN THINGS is the type of story that urges you to keep reading longer than you should even while it fills you with so many differing emotions that it hurts you physically. As always, Adrienne Young's writing is perfect. She captures the haunting beauty of Northern California so well that it becomes a side character, driving the characters' behaviors and serving as an ominous yet mesmerizing witness to everything James uncovers. The plot proceeds at the right pace, neither too slow to bog down the story nor too fast to prevent adequate resolution. James Golden, as the main character, shows growth in even the few weeks over which the story occurs and remains motivated by a fascinating blend of loyalty and love that don't always work together. Plus, that little touch of gothic she infuses into the storyline adds that little extra to make her latest story truly special. I believe A SEA OF UNSPOKEN THINGS is Ms. Young's best novel to date. I've long been a fan of her stories, but with this one, she earns her place on my "automatic buy" list. I can't think of a better novel with which to start the new year.

An atmospheric small town mystery. A bond between twins with a rift neither understood. I enjoyed the literary setting and the characters in general; however, the mystery felt…lack luster. I couldn’t help but think that all these people really just need to learn to communicate. The ultimate twists did not sum up the plot well enough for me and I absolutely did not enjoy the ending. Give me more of the beginning when the writing painted a picture of emotions.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group Ballentine, and author Adrienne Young for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. “A Sea of Unspoken Things” is expected to be published January 7, 2025!

This was my first book of Adrienne Young’s and I enjoyed it SO MUCH. The immersible setting and mystery was so well etched into the plot I was hooked the whole book.

I was rooting for the characters & was being dragged along with them to each plot twist, thinking I was clever when I was actually right where the author wanted me.

The added layers slowly coming unfurled contributed to the depth of the characters and making them more relatable.

I definitely recommend this book for anyone looking for a thriller that explores notes of grief, trauma, and familial ties.

content warnings: death, murder, guns, gun violence, blood, animal death, physical violence, mentions of attempted suicide

i love adrienne young's adult novels, spells for forgetting and the unmaking of june farrow, and i was so excited to hear about a sea of unspoken things and receive an arc. a sea of unspoken things has all of the things that i've come to expect from an adrienne young novel; lush descriptions, an atmosphere that makes you feel like you're part of the story, and character's that feel real and distinct.

as someone who lives in the san francisco bay area, i loved that this book was set in northern california. though i live in a very populated city and not a small town like six rivers, it was so easy to picture six rivers and the woods. it felt familiar to me, it felt like a place i've visited countless times before and that was really special to me. throughout the book james talks about six rivers being removed from the city, of the forest having a sort of magic and feeling alive and i felt that through every page. young has a real talent for making her books feel alive, and i think that's my favorite thing about her writing.

i thought all of the characters were great and really well explored. i loved being in james' pov, and really felt for her throughout the story. the explorations of twins and what happens when one of them dies was really so interesting, and james and johnny gave me major nell and luke crain from the haunting of hill house vibes, which was just everything. the grief that james felt over losing her brother was heartbreaking and overwhelming, and i thought that this book was a really beautiful exploration of grief and how it affects all of us differently, and the complicated feelings that come with grief, especially if in their death, you uncover secrets about the person you're grieving. johnny may have died before the story began, but he felt so alive throughout the book and james and micah's memories of him, and the rest of the town's as well.

this is much more mystery focused than young's previous adult novels, and as a reader whose favorite genre is mystery, that was great for me, and i loved the way the mystery unfolded. this is not a fast paced mystery; like the town it's set in, it's a little sleepy and slow, but it grows as time goes on and once you get hooked it's hard to leave. i won't lie, it did take me a little while to get into the story, but once i got into it i didn't want to stop reading, it had a slow build that i really enjoyed. there were a few different ways the mystery could've played out. one of the reveals i didn't see coming, but i thought it made complete sense and i was surprised that i didn't pick up on it right away, but the hints were there all along. one of the reveals i did see coming, but that didn't make it any less heartbreaking.

overall, i really enjoyed a sea of unspoken things and think it's another great edition to adrienne young's body of work. if you've enjoyed her other novels, i definitely suggest checking it out!

Adrienne Young does it again and I never doubted her for a second. This is why she is my auto-read auto-buy author. The way she writes is truly unlike any other. She has a way of taking a place you may have never visited but you feel like you are also returning home. Six Rivers National Park is now on my travel wishlist.
As I was reading I could feel the bone-chilling wind and smell the freshness of being surrounded by those massive towering trees. Everything was cozy and eerie and I loved it.
I felt myself clenching my Kindle, worrying about James and Smoke, the most handsome book dog I ever did read about. James would keep digging and I would keep wanting to tell her to leave and stay safe but obviously to keep going! Everyone was a suspect and no one was safe. You think about how a small town, everyone seems so nice and welcoming but the truth is it is a hard harsh world, everyone looks out for each other but they will turn on you just as easily.
Johnny was a kind soul but wild and no one truly knew him, and as much as James thought she did, even she, his twin, barely did. But she has to try, the connection between them, that strong emotional bond, it’s magic. She can feel him near her the more and more she learns.
This story is truly one of closure and discovery. The things left unsaid always have a way of coming out.

first read of 2025 is officially complete & it didn’t disappoint. If you’re looking for an atmospheric, ever-evolving story with twists and turns that keep you guessing. look no further. Not gonna lie, it was a slow start for me but the last 50% I was INVESTED. I will say, some things didn’t flesh out as much as I would have liked & I wanted to know more about what happened to certain characters after the big reveal. Likeee gimme an epilogue plzzzzzz. All in all, still absolutely recommend picking it up if you’ve liked Adrienne Young’s other books or are intrigued by this!