Praise for Unfixed
I won't be able to sleep tonight. Just cry. This is way more than a page turner. It's a bloody masterpiece. The writing is exquisite. It takes you on a journey you didn’t know you needed - Kim Vanbruggen, former journalist and CEO.
Kimberly Warner’s Unfixed is a wonder. Beyond a mesmerizing story, it’s a master class in lyric memoir. While the language is poetic—lilting, transfixing—the syntax is wild. It whips up a tempest that’s unsettling and destabilizing—the perfect match of form to content for this extraordinary memoir. - Kate Jackson, media journalist
I had the pleasure of discovering Warner on Substack when this spellbinding story was being serialised. To read it again in print only strengthens the impact and shores up the belief that her writing transcends the normal run of words on the page. Her story is one of depth and mystery, divine curiosity and unmoored faith in that which binds us; the impending nature of that which we can't control and the unerring search for each other. She lives by her words, to be unfixed in a world continually trying to insist we must do the opposite while being exactly as she is. This is more than a memoir, the story of a search on the wild seas of her life, it is a prayer and a song and pure light. You will love her. - Eleanor Anstruther, author A Perfect Explanation & Fallout
Warner's deeply moving account of her surprise parentage and health challenges would be compelling purely for the events alone, but Unfixed is not another crowded tour through tragedy. This isn't grief-slumming. But with a predisposition towards wisdom and an innate kindness, Warner makes a case for reconciliation with one's grief and circumstances, offering us a vision of how one can be knocked sideways, hold course at an odd angle, and find one's truest self. A beautiful memoir. - Adam Nathan, author 100 Stories
The act of reading Unfixed does something very interesting to time itself. A call and response across decades and worlds weaves through the narrative and lingers in the mind in just the way that a dream sometimes does. The revelations, when they come, aren't show-stopping reveals. They're bits of treasure having layers of sand dusted off them under the watchful eye of the author—the archaeologist. There's an undulation, too, which is practically a character in itself threading through the memoir. At times I'd even find myself swaying as I read. Warner has really managed something very special here (aside from achieving time travel) as she takes her reader on multiple journeys, through which we're somehow, unknowingly made to pay attention with as much presence and sincerity and surrender as she does. It's a lesson in humility, and in seeing the world anew. The only way it could have enchanted me more is if it had washed up on a shore inside a glass bottle. - Chloe Hope, writer Death & Birds
Unfixed is a marvel of personal revelation, empathy and a real-life story of discovery. What Warner has done is to blend her own unusual illness—a kind of real-life floating—with the discovery of her parentage: Two stories of fracture and healing that don’t depend on resolution. The result is a heartrending memoir that will give you hope and believe not only in storytelling but also in goodness. - Mary Tabor, author Who By Fire & The Woman Who Never Cooked
I cannot recommend this serialized memoir enough. Here’s why. Guess who else pull up seats at this tea party? Honesty. Deep reflection. Mercy. Stunning prose. Kimberly’s story is gripping in itself. But/And so is the writing. I particularly love a writer whose work calls me to an empty page. I don’t quite know how to put it in words, other than it’s like a conversation I want to be part of through my own writing. - Holly Starley, freelancer, editor
Kimberly’s recounting of her childhood is so alive and raw. She writes about her parents’ crazy choices with the open, judgment-free perception of a child while infusing it with the wisdom and facile language of a woman who’s lived a full life. This memoir is personal and intimate, but it also provides a window into American life in the 1970s when so much was being questioned about marriage and family and sexuality. - Ben Wakeman, author The Memory of My Shadow
This story has all the makings of a limited series. It has perfect A and B storylines, two mysteries running in parallel timelines, two layered characters with two hearts both in deep conflict with themselves, both fueling the engines for the overall story—yearning curiosity versus fear/delight at what one discovers about one's parentage. It's so Noah Hawley meets folk mystery. - Alisa Kennedy Jones, publisher, author Gotham Girl, Interrupted
Chilling. Horror. Kimberly’s words are so powerful, I felt as if I were going through the experience with her. - Sara Davidson, NYT best-selling author
A story written by unfixed living, more mysterious and thrilling than mystery thriller fiction. Kimberly Warner’s writing is alive, carried by the strength and weight of emotions, and a deep searching. Unfixed takes the reader on a wild ride — not only through the personal life of this gifted writer, and through surprising twists of an extra-ordinary family constellation — but at heart through the inner landscape of consciousness itself. Unfixed is a poetic, unflinching, intriguing memoir about losing all that once was familiar, finding new ground in the unknown, and regenerating life from the most intimate cellular level. A captivating and enjoyable read. - Veronika Bond, author Synchronosophy: A Rough Guide to the Feral Side of Life
It is so rare when a writer eradicates language after reading their work and replaces that absence with pure feeling. That silence is where the healing and magic thrive. Such achingly beautiful words on loss. - Jenovia Webb, author, trauma advocate and speaker
Tremendous writing. The unease is inescapable. - Kenny Farquharson - senior columnist with The Times, Edinburgh
I am never not breathtaken when I read this memoir. So raw. So unassuming. So immediate. This is forceful writing that drives straight to the heart. - Renée Eli, Ph.D, transdisciplinary scholar, educator
Unfixed is the kind of memoir that lingers long after the final page. With its blend of mystery, heart, and self-discovery, it feels both personal and universal. Warner’s writing invites readers to reflect on their own histories, to see that even in life’s most disorienting moments, there’s beauty in uncertainty. It’s a tender, skillfully written reminder that sometimes the most profound transformations come not from finding all the answers, but from learning to live gracefully among the questions. - Amanda Sedlak Hevener., media journalist
