Keeper of the Lost Cities #9.5 Unraveled Part 1 The Review Bombing

This post contains some spoilers for this book.

Unraveled has been review-bombed on the American sites.  I decided to get that bit of unpleasantness out of the way with this post before I get into all of my thoughts in future posts.

People who are extremely religious are deeply offended that this book mentions gay people in two different places in extremely brief passages.  They have blasted this book with one-star reviews on all of the different American book sites.  The complainers have caused some people who haven't read the book to think that Shannon has put sex scenes in the book.  Um, no.  This is a middle-grade series published by a major publishing company, Simon & Schuster.  Sex scenes and anything remotely graphic would never be in a middle-grade book published by a major company.

On page 140, a male jogger makes this statement.

"My husband is a counseling psychologist."

On page 261, a female waitress states the following.

"In fact, my wife and I go at least once a month to check up on our koala buddies."

The lead-in to the next mention is important.  This is what Alvar has to say on page 265.

"I did [pick up my first match list].  And I dated pretty much everyone on it.  But it felt so... forced.  That's why I never picked up any other lists.  It's like, 'Here are the people you're genetically compatible with.  Go fall in love with one of them so you can have a baby with a powerful special ability.' "

Alvar goes on to say that love is much more important, and that it should be based only on that.  Alvar then makes an observation.

Page 265  "And did you notice?  The waitress said she has a wife."  "That's true," Keefe realized.  "And now that I think about it, I actually met a guy in London who talked about his husband."  "Yeah, it's really cool."

Keefe and Alvar then discuss whether the Council could ever decide to end matchmaking.  

That's it.  The only mention of gay people in 418 pages is what I just quoted, but it was enough to anger some fans. 

I went through the one-star reviews and noted some of the more extreme comments.  I have placed line breaks between each reviewer's thoughts.  If you're LGBTQ+, please be advised that these reviews will difficult to read, so you might want to skim or skip them.

ok like HELLO what to say what to say i know what to say THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST BOOKS IVE EVER READ like help... shannon did not need to add LGBTQ in even if they were minor characters it is not only disgusting but also wrong.

This book has ruined my week and the entire Keeper series for me. 

The author chose to force LGBTQ+ content into a book meant for children and sets the stage for Alvar to be featured as gay in future books or as an avenue to bring homosexuality to the elven world. So sad that she ruined her series this way.

This one clearly has a agenda for our kids. Controversal topics that are inappropriate for young readers.

The author said book 9.5 was essential before reading book 10 and now we know why. We won’t be purchasing or reading book 10 or any future work by her because now we know she cares more about checking a "fair representation" box more than she cares about her readers. So disappointing.

This book has an agenda and is not appropriate for children.

I used to respect Shannon as an author, but now I have zero respect for her she ruined the whole series for me. it was my favorite series now it's my least favorite. Didn't finish and will return.

Really too bad Shannon felt like she needed to go down that road when she had so much potential with this series! She just lost a lot of business for attacking the foundation of the family.

The author has decided to add homosexual characters which is completely unnecessary and inappropriate for the children this series is targeted at.

Okay.  There's a lot I could say, but I will refrain aside from mentioning that I don't have a problem with the content.  On my previous readings of the series, I had already thought that gay humans would likely be mentioned at some point in the series.  After all, if gay humans exist, then gay elves should exist as well, right?  I certainly noticed both references as I read this book for the first time, and I wasn't surprised to see Shannon do it.  The mention of gay humans is used to make a statement about what is flawed about the elves' match system.  That's all it is.  

From the talk with Roshani Choksi on December 5, 2024, sponsored by Brookline Booksmith, Shannon Messenger made this statement:

"I always take myself out of it.  I never put anything in just because I want it to be there.  I never leave anything out just because I don't want it in there.  I'm always going... what makes the most sense for this... what is the story telling me it needs...  I really try to put myself in the shoes of the character and just be...  what are they experiencing right now?  What are they thinking?  What are they feeling?  What are they noticing?  And that's what goes into the book." 

She wasn't trying to fulfill a quota or anything like that.  It made sense for Keefe and Alvar to acknowledge that they had been around a couple of gay humans and then tie it to the match system.  

All Shannon has done is acknowledge that gay people exist.  And they do.  Nothing more should be read into it. 

Christian fans feel betrayed because they say that Shannon promised never to have gay people in her Keeper books.  I wish I could find the exact quote or video of what she said.  The best I can figure out is that Shannon said something about gay people not being a part of the elven worldbuilding, which they wouldn't be because of how the elf match system works.  I don't know whether Shannon actually promised anything as a definitive statement.  It doesn't matter, since these fans believe that she did.

I recently purchased the French and German editions.  I ran the Unraveled reviews through a translator to see what Europeans have to say about the book.  I noticed that European readers have no problem with the content, and there has been no review bombing on the international Amazon sites.  On the UK site only, I found maybe one or two reviews that mentioned displeasure at having gay humans mentioned in the book.  Other than that, people outside the United States are unfazed by the content.  It's just this one group of Americans who are upset.