The Unwilding
The Unwilding by Marina Kemp is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including The Guardian, for a Consensus Score of 13 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedKemp's second novel plants an outsider, a young writer named Zoe, inside a fading literary family in 1990s Sicily, then follows the fallout across decades and continents. Reviewers reached for Brideshead Revisited and Saltburn as reference points but generally credited Kemp with avoiding the staleness of that comparison, largely because she refuses to let any single character narrate the family's damage as simple truth. Critics praised the writing on grief specifically for not smoothing over its ugliness, though several felt the book runs longer than its material needs.
In the press
“a powerfully compelling dissection of the creative process”
The Guardian“Kemp's luminous prose and emotional sensitivity make for a novel rich in psychological insight”
The Observer
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Guardian | 0.85 | 0.70 | 1.00× | 0.59 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.59 → 13 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is The Unwilding on?
The Unwilding appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including The Guardian.
What is its Consensus Score?
The Unwilding has a Consensus Score of 13 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.