Ok, so this is the kind of book that is typically a DNF for me, but this one was so incredibly well written. I loved the dark academia vibes, and it was incredibly well researched.

I think this is one of those books that will have a huge following. It just didn't resonate with me.

To start with, I have a hard time with first person writing. It's just a personal preference, but I find it hard to really connect to. In addition to the first person narrative, the writing feels very repetitive. I can't count how many times the statement, "Suddenly I understood," or "I saw something I missed before," or some variation of those statements show up. It was a little annoying. I didn't like being in Robin's head all the time.

The story is really good. It's a little hard to follow at times, because it's so twisty and misleading, but that just adds to the frantic, jumbled atmosphere, and Templeman really makes that work.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC, my opinions are shared freely.

Robin is researching the history of witches which leads her to a small college in the mountains of Colorado. There her research leads to disturbing and supernatural answers. The story unfolds as a series of clues revealing the truth. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, so I'll stop there. This mystery feels a bit gothic and a bit dark academia, though it is set during summer when the students are absent and the story revolves around the strange campus/staff/research. The author brings in medicinal plants, mystical traditions, and supernatural beings to the story, making this a complex and interesting work.

From the first page, this novel is the love-child of dark academia and modern gothic: dusty libraries, occult marginalia, a staff that might be cult or might be tenure-track, take your pick. Templeman knows atmosphere. The estate on the ridge feels alive in that Hill House way: observing, remembering, hungry. Whenever lights flickered, I swear my own floorboards creaked in solidarity.

What surprised me most is how fun the structure is. Chapter epigraphs read like footnotes from a forbidden syllabus—psalms, physics, poetry—each one a wink that the text is unreliable. The plot itself spirals: missing researcher, sleep-walking heroine, reality tearing at the seams. I won’t spoil the experience reading this for the first time, but it’s deliciously weird and surprisingly tragic.

I do have *some* quibbles. The middle third is a dense thicket of academic name-dropping (Voynich, Crowley, Coleridge, rinse-repeat) that can feel like cramming for comps. And several side characters blur together—easier to tag them by discipline than personality. Yet by the climax, those very flaws click into place, It feels as though Robin’s world *should* feel over-researched and depersonalized; she’s been an experiment the whole time.

If The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo had gone on a writing retreat with House of Leaves and invited Shirley Jackson as the mentor, you’d get something like this—glamour, dread, and a narrator you can’t entirely trust.

Bottom line: brainy, creepy, and just self-aware enough to be clever without sacrificing heart. I closed the book, stared at my ceiling. I love settling into the sensation of finishing a read and not quite knowing what to do once being immersed in that world is over. Templeman’s horror lingers—not in jump scares, but in the unsettling thought that scholarship itself might be summoning something best left alone.

Full review posted; now off to triple-lock my study door.

I devoured this book. I read the entire thing in a day. The supernatural aspect entwined with the science was captivating. The mystery kept me turning every page. The twists and reveals genuinely shocked me everytime. I started out feeling so confused but everything was laid out by the end. I was very satisfied

I had a hard time getting into this book and an even harder time finishing it. The writing is very dry and the characters were lacking depth. While the premise was very interesting I felt that there wasn't enough of anything fleshed out well enough to fulfill the gothic academia genre.

McCormick Templeman has written a very unusual book. Although they aren’t all that similar, I kept thinking of “The House on Needless Street” by Catriona Ward while I was reading.

Robin Quain intended to write her doctoral dissertation on the history of European witchcraft and folklore. All was going fairly well until her best friend Charles stole the piece de resistance of her research. Robin decides, with the help of another friend, to try again and write something even better.

A college in Colorado has some resources that sound promising. Robin goes there and here is where the book becomes really scary. I couldn’t tell what was true and what wasn’t. But I think that was the author’s aim!

“Atlas of Unknowable Things” is well-paced and the characters are mysterious. Who is honest? Who is out to kill Robin, if anyone? I recommend this book if you’re in the mood for something spooky. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy. This is my honest review.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman is a supernatural mystery, in which an academic searches for clues about their research and a mysterious disappearance in a remote college. The story solidly fits into the category of dark academia, with the variation that it’s about university staff, rather than students.

I think that the author very much succeeded at creating a frenzied, high stakes mystery with twists and turns. From the outset, the ending is somewhat unexpected, although the framework for the reality of the situation is artfully left in a trail of bread crumbs.

However, the book was not fully a success for me. I felt as if the characters were lacking, and at times as if there was a lack of development of the setting and motivations. The narrator and main character, Robin, is described as monomaniacal in the first few chapters. That proves to be an apt description, as she feels very flat with the exception of her drive to find Isabelle and the relic she was drawn in by. The characters feel interchangeable, and there isn’t a lot to distinguish them except by what they teach. The conversations aren’t particularly individualized and for the majority of the book they seem cardboard.

In lieu of development or personalities, it appears as if there is just a nonstop blurting out of references. Samuel Coleridge Taylor! Steve Miller Band! The Voynich Manual! Gilles de Rais! It’s a nonstop parade of references that seems not particularly natural, and seems like in lieu of doing the crafting of the story that this acts as a stand in.

I’m sure that for some people this would be a wonderful choice. It has occult references and is set in a very interesting collegiate setting. For me, I was unable to get past how wooden the scaffolding felt, and how tedious the middle section of the book felt.

I’m giving this a 2.5/5 where applicable, rounded up to a 3/5.

For fans of dark academia, light fantasy, horror, and general weirdness, Atlas of Unknowable Things has what you’re looking for.

Robin is a college professor working towards her PhD and tenure when her best friend Charles betrays her by stealing her research and using it for his own gains. Charles gets everything Robin was working towards, and she is left to start over. When she is accepted for a fellowship at remote Hildegard College in the Colorado woods, she thinks she may have found exactly what she needs to rebuild. When she arrives, she finds a small group of faculty working over the summer, each strange in their own way, but seemingly friendly and extremely supportive of her research into witchcraft and the occult.

As Robin gets to know Dorian, Lexi, Aspen, and Finn, things start to become stranger and stranger, with ominous clues to what the group may be concealing about the real purpose of the college and the small island she’s warned away from. Things aren’t what the seem, at all.

The plot builds slowly but steadily, like a gradually inflating balloon, and by the time you notice it’s stretched to its limit, it’s too late to avoid the inevitable bang. The payoff in the last few chapters was totally worth the slow burn, with plenty of horror and clues coming together. This book will be 5 stars for a certain type of reader that revels in weird, confusing, liminal narratives. This book reminded me of Catherine House, so if you liked that book I think you’ll love this one.

When I first saw this book, I was excited! It seemed quite interesting. Getting into the story was difficult, not sure if dry is the right word to describe. I perserved and can only say, it was not for me!

I am grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

From the very beginning I was thrilled to be pulled into a fabulously eerie vibe. The mysteries upon mysteries with little background for the main character made for lots of theorizing, and rarely was any guess correct. (One you'll see coming, but the why of it all is still shocking.) I loved all the uniquely creepy details but found that I couldn't look at some of the details too closely or else it becomes too hard to keep suspending disbelief.
What kept this from being a full five star read for me is that the ending is full of vague things that are simply there to wrap-up the story. (I can fix the thing! I don't need to expand on what the thing is or how the thing got there.) And I wish that if we were going to spend time exploring the persistent and sometimes cyclical nature of evil, that the ending provided something slightly more concrete in terms of what would happen next.
Overall, this was a thrill to read.

Thank you NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Robin, a recently betrayed Historian, finds a residency to Hildegard College, a renowned college known for it's innovation, she knows it's exactly what she needs. Except things aren't what they seem at Hildegard, and the professor that is the key to Robin's work is missing.

In the end, I wanted to like Atlas of Unknowable Things more than I did. It's adult gothic academia, and the premise was incredibly interesting to me. But the lore/background was not fleshed out enough for a gothic academia. There's a lot of talk about the "others," the ones in charge, the "theys" we never see, but the picture never fully forms, because we don't get enough info.

With that said, it was not terrible, and I did find myself interested enough to finish it in just 2 sittings, so it retains its 3 star for being able to keep my attention.

This is a wonderfully weird story and not easy to describe! The story grabbed me from the first page and kept me hooked to the end. I have a problem with reading where I get half way and lose interest so kudos to this author! I lived the strange school and he historical documents referenced with ancient plants. The main character kept me off guard most of the time so I did not catch on to the twist till 3/4 way through so a great book overall. Not all of the loose ends felt tied up at the end so I took a star off for that thank you NetGalley for this read!

This book was a mixed bag for me. I started out liking it and was intrigued by the mystery. Unfortunately, the further I got the more annoyed I got with the MC and the whole set up. There were so many unanswered questions and I found the whole thing so hard to believe. 3 stars for me.

Fantastic! The concept was original and the writing was atmospheric. I am into this story and I’m glad I read it. Perfect read.

3.5/5

I've heard great things about this author, so I decided to give this book a go! It sounded really interesting and I liked the cover.

I really enjoyed the writing of this book. It was almost lyrical and incredibly descriptive, but not quite flowery. It made for a really nice reading experience and I think a lot of readers will appreciate it.

I did find some elements of this book to be repetitive, but it was a rather short book, so I didn't mind too much.

This follows Robin who is doing a research project, but she starts noticing some strange happenings.

This is a very mystery-heavy story that almost feels like a scavenger hunt for the reader. (If I'm not mistaken, that's something this author is known for.)

Overall, I had a good time reading this and think a lot of people will also enjoy this. Especially the dark academia lovers! If you like The Secret History or Ninth House or anything like that, I think you'll enjoy this. Feels like a mix of those books a bit.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.

I received a free copy of, Atlas of Unknowable Things, by McCormick Templeman, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Robin writes on the occult, she goes to a group of like minded people to talk about occults and the like, but things are not always what they appear to be. This book was a little to weird and out there for me

Thank you to NetGalley for this review copy. This book was so creepy. I loved how Robin was “talking” to us the entire time and you could really see how her situation was unsettling and the sense of dread on the page was palpable. I enjoyed the cast of characters and thought the ending was good, if not wrapped up rather quickly. 3.75 stars.

Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman presents a compelling blend of academic mystery, gothic atmosphere, and supernatural intrigue. The novel establishes a rich setting in Hildegard College, a remote institution nestled in the Rocky Mountains, known for its scientific prowess and botanical gardens. This juxtaposition of scientific rigor and natural beauty immediately sets a tone for the exploration of themes hinted at in the summary: the search for meaning in the scientific versus the sublime.

The protagonist, historian Robin Quain, arrives at Hildegard under the guise of examining ancient manuscripts, but her true objective—locating a specific artifact before a rival—adds a layer of personal stakes and a sense of urgency to her research. This initial premise promises a treasure hunt within an academic framework, which is a classic and often engaging setup.

The summary effectively builds suspense by introducing the unsettling peculiarities of Hildegard College: "Strange sounds echo across the alpine lake, lights flicker through the pines, and the faculty seem more like Jazz-age glitterati than academics." These details evoke a gothic sensibility, suggesting that beneath the veneer of academic respectability lie hidden truths and perhaps even dangers. The sudden disappearance of a key professor further deepens the mystery, hinting at a cover-up or something more sinister.


Overall, Atlas of Unknowable Things is a well-crafted novel that promises a captivating read for those who enjoy academic mysteries with a strong sense of atmosphere, a touch of the supernatural, and a thoughtful exploration of the boundaries between science and the inexplicable. The summary effectively highlights the key elements of plot, character motivation, and thematic concerns, making it sound like a truly intriguing and immersive experience.

This dark academia explores folklore and the occult as Robin races to find an artifact before her rival does. This had a lot of elements that I normally love, like folklore, monsters, and mysterious artifacts, but I just didn't connect to the writing or pacing. A few things also weren't resolved enough for my liking. While it wound up not being for me, I can see it appealing to others who like slow burn dark academia with mystical elements.