In terms of story, The Unbalancing was a 5/5 for me.

A restless star slumbers under the waters near Gelle-Geu. Ranra, the new starkeeper, is troubled by the unusual behavior of the star and must face the problems it is causing head on. This is made worse by the past inactions of her predecessors, who ignored the issues at every turn.

Erígra, a reclusive poet, has the temperament and innate ability to be an effective starkeeper, but wants to be left alone to tend to their garden and write among the quince trees. Despite the insistences from heir ancestor, Semberi, that they are the only one who can solve the problem of the star.

When Ranra and Erígra come together, they fall in love and shore up each other's weaknesses while trying to heal their wounded star. They rally the entire island in a race against the clock to save their island and culture from certain destruction.

I loved the plot so much – the ignored and dying star felt like a moving and timely allegory for the climate crisis we currently face. I loved the concept of a community banding together to combine their individual abilities into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Spoiler

Even if the initially defined goal of healing the star and saving the island was not outright achieved, they still saved their culture and survived as a people. This ended the book on a still-hopeful note that I enjoyed and found uplifting.

Where the book fell flat for me was the world building and character development. I know that The Unbalancing is part of a larger world of existing works by R.B. Lemberg, but I felt a bit dropped into this world without much context of explanation. Overall, I would love more world building to really round out the setting and make all the characters' actions and motivations feel more grounded. (Though I am, admittedly, a bit of a world building fiend. I can never get enough.)

The characters felt a bit ill-defined beyond their general archetypes, and the writing seemed to skitter lightly across their surfaces. The relationship developments felt extremely rushed to me – at times it seemed that we were getting quick montages of their feelings and we just needed to trust and absorb that these characters were experiencing the emotions being conveyed.

Finally, I admit that while I don't typically enjoy lore-specific cursing and swearing, every time the characters dropped a hearty "Pluck you", I absolutely loved it. A+ work on those.

Thank you to Tachyon Publications for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!