This is a book that will sit with you long after you finish reading it. Striker is not a likable character, but she's not supposed to be. She looks for the worst in people so that she's not surprised or hurt when she eventually sees it. Because she will eventually see it.

The sense of place in the Unveiling is fantastic. Quan Barry is very talented at putting you right on that Antarctic island with the vicious birds, melting ice, and thermal vents. It's isolating and terrifying, and the experimental storytelling really helps with the feeling of unease that permeates the book.

A lot of people will go into this novel wanting it to be a survival horror, and to a certain degree it is. It is a depiction of the survival of Black people in the US. It confronts those realities head-on and it engages with the discomforting idea that white people are racist, even if you think you aren't. That will make people uncomfortable and want to hate this book, but I encourage white readers to embrace that discomfort and sit with it.

Requested this one because I adored the author's earlier We Ride Upon Sticks. This has some of the same qualities (really out there premise, and willingness to really get into it). But, the main character just did not hit for me and made this one, unfortunately, a bit of a miss.

pretty good and well-written horror-ish book. the vibes are intricately constructed, but at points they sort of leave the plot behind, and by the ending reality and fiction are so frayed that nothing is clear, which does weaken the book a little. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

ARC PROVIDED BY NETGALLEY

“The problem with Antarctica was the twenty-four-hour sun. Even with your eyes closed the light made it hard to keep out the stuff you wanted to keep out. Stuff like this.”

Quan Barry’s latest seems poised to be a very divisive novel due in part to it being very different from what readers may be expecting. This is the third book of Barry’s that I've read after We Ride Upon Sticks and When I'm Gone, Look for Me in the East, with all three being vastly different works. I loved both of those books so I was excited to get the opportunity to read The Unveiling early. While I didn't end up enjoying this latest book as much, I came away feeling that Quan Barry is one of the most interesting writers working today. There can't be many authors whose books diverge this much when it comes to setting, characters, subject material and writing style.

As for my thoughts on The Unveiling I went in expecting a straightforward horror novel that might be reminiscent of the film The Thing due to the shared setting. The novel does begin that way and when something calamitous occurs to the kayak tour group it feels like the kick-off to this type of story. However, you come to realize this is a story that is hard to pin down and is more of a challenge to the reader than I was expecting. I initially struggled both because this novel lacks a traditional story structure and it is told within a single chapter titled ‘Christmas Eve’. The lack of multiple chapters is something that I expect many readers will have difficulty with, especially because this book is taxing when it comes to keeping things straight. Despite early struggles, I persevered due to trust in Quan Barry’s talents and I do enjoy weird, challenging books from time to time. And this novel does excel with weird, unsettling moments from the jump. What helped me start to enjoy this book was changing my thinking about the type of story I was reading. I realized that reading this book was how it feels to read the great Helen Oyeyemi, who similarly writes novels that don’t really fit how they are described. White is for Witching by Oyeyemi is described as a ghost story and a gothic horror, but that’s merely the canvas for Oyeyemi to paint something very distinct. Barry is doing something akin to this in The Unveiling and that allowed me to let go of trying to keep reality straight in the story and attempting to fit it into a traditional horror story in my head.

The Unveiling has many creepy and disturbing moments and the characters are often focused on survival, but what Quan Barry is actually presenting is an exploration of family and belonging at, what feels like, the end of the world. The protagonist of the story is a black woman who wants to be known as ‘Striker’ rather than her given name as ‘Veronique.’ Striker immediately starts thinking of the other members of the tour group as names and labels that she’s invented and frequently has difficulty remembering what their actual names are. She labels an older wealthy man as ‘Baron’ and his wife ‘La Grande Dame,’ another woman as ‘Tech Titan’ and she thinks of one man as simply ‘brown dad.’ Striker, and by extension, the reader is made to think of these characters as archetypes rather than fleshed out people. You come to realize that Striker has difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction. But even with her psychological issues she is still able to consistently use the chosen name of a trans member of the tour group. Throughout the story the tour group has arguments about various subjects like race, trans rights, capitalism, slavery and climate change. The backdrop of these arguments, not necessarily the content, is what is the key to what the author is trying to say. These characters are stranded at the figurative ‘ends of the earth’ miles away from any civilization. It also may be the literal end of the world in part due to climate change. Despite being Antarctica the temperature is never an issue, it’s constantly in the 50s, which several characters remark upon as probably being a bad sign for the planet. Several characters also believe that the calamitous event that caused them to be stranded is a world-ending event, possibly a global nuclear war. The Unveiling is a story where contemporary archetypal characters are discussing contemporary issues when the world is on the verge of ending or already has ended, depending on who you ask.

With The Unveiling, Quan Barry has given readers a Kafkaesque story of survival that attempts to capture the zeitgeist. This book is frequently challenging and at times rewarding. However, it doesn’t always work and I feel some readers may be left disappointed. Quan Barry’s talents do still shine through and I’m excited to see where she may go next.

I really enjoyed this one. The author’s previous work was excellent as well, so that doesn’t surprise me, but from a stylistic and tonal perspective, this is very different than We Ride Upon Sticks. This is far darker and more bleak, which makes sense. I think the book’s emphasis on the impacts of race and our racial legacy is also very well-done. If you’re interested in socially-aware horror, I’d suggest checking out this book.

I've read all of Quan Barry's work now and there's two things I really admire about her. One, you never really know what you're getting with her, and two, she completely commits to whatever it is she's giving you. Teenage witchcraft, Mongolian monks, and Antarctic nightmares - she's got the range! I'll always be interested in her work because of this. I won't lie and say that the surrealism in The Unveiling was always easy or enjoyable, but that's obviously by design and I think, if one can stick with Striker and the crew, they'll be rewarded with a memorable experience. Additionally, despite the confusion and seemingly disconnected scenarios, I do think there is a very coherent journey and message by the end of the novel. The key is being aware of the surrealism and letting the story wash over you, I think! Once you're able to look back over it all, you can glean more meaning than you can while in the thick of it. I suspect I'll be thinking back on it myself for quite a bit!

(3.5/4 stars)

I'm really not sure where to start with this one. The premise in the NetGalley description sounded so cool and unique and horrifying and fantastic. I was so excited to see what the author would do with a horror novel set in Antarctica.

The things I enjoyed about the book included: (1) the facts and factoids, (2) the depictions of horror were pretty gory and wild, (3) it reminded me of the X-Files Antarctica storyline, and (4) the layout of the book including the random redactions, italics, and photos.

I almost marked this as a DNF and moved on but I really really wanted to be proven wrong. At the risk of sounding like a poop, the main issue that I really struggled (and failed) to get past was that I really did not like the main character Striker, who was an extremely unlikeable, negative and cynical misanthrope (exactly the type of people mentioned in the book that do not fare well with others sailing to the end of the earth). After pages and pages of negativity and open hostility towards everyone and in her internal dialogue, in the next breath, she would make a very un-funny joke that always fell flat. In an attempt to possibly make her into a lighter more relatable character, Striker also said extremely cringey things like, "mo' money mo' problems" and "you dig?" at the end of a sentence. I struggled to muster up any empathy for her and I found her extremely irritating and generally unpleasant.

This is all even before getting to the meat of the book, which had SO MUCH going on and none of it made any sense at all. The story regularly flashed back to Striker's youth which told the story of her and her sister being adopted into a white family and the various trauma she has faced which made her into the person she is today - understandable, and I get how that could be valuable to the story. The story also included dialogue between Striker and her "friends" from home that took place in her head - friends that may or may not even exist. However, I often struggled to understand how these things fit in and related to the absolutely over the top bat shit events taking place while stranded on the Antarctic island. In case this is a spoiler, I'll mark it as such, but I still have no idea what the actual hell was going on - of the VERY REAL non-hyperbolic possibilities mentioned, I have MANY QUESTIONS -

(MARKED AS SPOILER ON GOODREADS):
did a submarine surface and knock them off course, or did an iceberg calve - what even caused the accident that led them to be stranded? Was Striker regularly disassociating and having a psychotic break in installments? Was there actually something supernatural talking place?!? Was Striker suffering withdrawals from Colozapine resulting in hallucinations? Were there ghosts of ancient mariners and a psychotic dentist from Scotland haunting a cabin? Was Striker's sister marking rocks and cairns for her to find, if so, why - did nothing ever come of that? Was time actually passing or were they in some sort of time loop where it was 12:14pm on Christmas Eve the entire time? Was Antartica actually heating up while they were there? Was the world destroyed by nuclear war? Was something on the island (some microbe or something in the volcanic gas) making them all insane? What was in the redacted sections of text?!?!?! WHAT HAPPENED?!

Anyway - there are themes of isolation (obviously), racism, trauma, delusions, mental illness, and potentially others, but I am baffled as to what they are and what I was supposed to take away from this book, aside from some pretty cool factoids. There was also a ton of flowery poetic prose that, while beautiful, did very little to enhance the story, provide any kind of explanation, or move the story forward.

In any case, I am still so appreciative of the opportunity to read and review this book. I'd love to read this author's other book, We Ride Upon Sticks, which looks to be something I'd enjoy. Thank you, NetGalley and Grove Atlantic/Grove Press for the eARC!

I was surprised to see some of the negative reviews of this novel, because I felt like I did what it wanted to very well: a sleek, isolating survival thriller that offers a unique perspective on the glory of legacy. The plot moves slowly, there are a lot of characters, and for a section in the middle I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this one; I can see how some readers got a little lost in the narrative. But about 60% of the way through, I started getting very invested in Striker's story - what was real? What was a hallucination? - and the tale of microaggressions in complete isolation had me racing to the end. I'd recommend this one to those who want a patient thriller.

There were parts of this book I enjoyed and others I struggled with. I was very intrigued by the premise. A thriller set in the Antarctic sounded so intriguing but some parts just didn’t work out for me.

*Longer review to come*

I liked this one. The writing is good and the pacing just right. I had good time reading it. Longer review to come.

This book is a fun, freaky blend of literary fiction and horror, set in the icy wilds of Antarctica. It follows Striker, a film scout, on a fancy cruise that turns into a nightmare when she's stranded on a harsh island with geothermal weirdness and aggressive birds. Barry throws in sharp humor while digging into themes like race, guilt, and our inner demons—proving we're the real haunted ones.
I actually really liked this one.

I definitely strugglef to become immersed in this one, not because Barry doesn't use beautiful language, but because I could not relate to any of the characters enough to fully submerge myself in the novel's icy waters. It took a lot of effort to power through this book and I say that as a reader of strange, literary fiction.

2 stars

Similar to the cover, this started in the form of an Antarctic chilling thriller which I was all set for. Then every time things were about to get good they took it away from me to the point that the early part of the book was very confusing and I had to check the formatting across multiple platforms.

The tension build up was a strong point. This could’ve been great if it stuck to that but I got a bit lost I’m afraid.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with a review copy of this text in exchange for an honest review. Now I was immediately interested in the premise and it was one of the main things that drew me to requesting the book - a thriller set in a desolate location sounded exactly like the kind of story that would grip me and keep me reading until I had finished.

However, personal preference here, I really struggled to jive with the narration style in the book, and I think one of the main reasons for that is just that so many of the characters are quite unlikeable. It's hard to root for a group of survivors when you don't particular feel a strong sense of worry or care for them - so unfortunately I just didn't enjoy reading this book very much.

Thank you once again to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read this text!

I feel like with this book I was confused the entire time. I found it hard to get into the story and so many characters and craziness. I did really like the setting and the feeling that came with that.

Thank you Netgalley and Grove Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Quan Barry’s “The Unveiling” is an unsettling, disorienting, and deeply layered novel that plunges readers into the icy desolation of the Antarctic—and the even colder landscape of isolation, identity, and hidden trauma. If you’re looking for a straightforward survival thriller, this isn’t it. Instead, Barry offers a challenging blend of Arctic horror, social commentary, unreliable narration, and existential dread that will either haunt you or leave you baffled—or possibly both.

The story follows Striker, a film scout on a work trip scouting Antarctic locations for an upcoming movie. As the only Black woman among a largely white group, she already feels isolated before a kayaking accident strands her and a handful of others on a remote island. But survival against the elements quickly takes a backseat to stranger, more haunting dangers—some external, some disturbingly internal.

Barry's writing is consistently strong, with breathtaking descriptions of the frozen landscape and a relentless undercurrent of dread. The plot plays expertly with reality, hallucination, and memory, often blurring them until neither Striker nor the reader can be certain what’s real. Blackout sequences, striking visual formatting (including blackout poetry), and fragmented memories immerse the reader in Striker’s increasingly unstable perspective.

However, the book is also deeply confusing. Narratively, it becomes a labyrinth of contradictions, where time, space, and even life and death feel fluid. Striker frequently loses consciousness, the story hops between past and present, and moments that seem supernatural could just as easily be attributed to madness. If you crave clarity in your reading, you may find yourself frustrated.

One of the most powerful elements of “The Unveiling" is its searing exploration of racial isolation and microaggressions, even (and especially) during extreme survival situations. Barry captures the subtle and not-so-subtle racism Striker faces, highlighting how systemic inequities persist even when humanity is stripped down to its barest, most desperate instincts. Some of the continued focus on racial tensions, even in life-or-death moments, to feel strained or out of place amidst the survival story.

Overall, “The Unveiling” is a bold, experimental novel that demands patience and a willingness to sit with uncertainty. It’s less about plot resolution and more about experience—being lost, both literally and metaphorically, and confronting the truths that surface when everything else is stripped away. A surreal, chilling journey into the heart of isolation, identity, and survival—but be warned: “The Unveiling” doesn't hand you a map. It drops you into the blizzard and asks if you’re ready to find your own way out.

This book was very well-written, and I absolutely loved the setting. Barry did a great job putting the reader in Antarctica and the feeling of impending doom that she set up. The book's frequent conversations on societal issues were at first a bit jarring, but then weaved into the story and became something I looked forward to. It made the interpersonal relations richer and added layers to the storyline. Although I enjoyed the novel, the stylistic choice not to have chapter breaks made the book difficult to follow when reading it over several days.

The premise of this book is amazing and drew me in immediately, the cover too.
The idea of a group of people stranded in the Antarctic and having to find a way to survive is so intriguing, and a perfect setting for some suspense and horror.

However the narrative and writing style were not at all what I expected.
I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, and I kept getting confused about what was happening.

I feel like the underlying message here is that sometimes the worst horrors come from within, and it was a journey for the characters to reach this revelation.

What I did love was the descriptions, I think the author did a great job of building the imagery for us. She set a really good creepy scene.

Thank you Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC.

"It was amazing what water could make you believe. Water was the original trickster"

I am still unsure what was creepier, this book or the bloke beside me while I read it on the train to Bratislava. Having read Barry's other writings I was super excited to dive into the freezing waters of this book and I was not disappointed!
This book is eerie and unsettling in a way that perfectly fitted the Antarctic setting, with a perfect mix of characters and a relatable yet mysterious protagonist and a little spoonful of gore, it was my perfect mix for a horror novel.

on goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7482082792

The Unveiling promises to be a thought-provoking addition to Barry's oeuvre, appealing to readers who appreciate literary fiction that challenges conventional storytelling. With its rich thematic content and evocative prose, the novel is poised to resonate with those interested in narratives that explore the depths of human experience.