Marguerite has magical hearing aids here, so she already has a huge advantage by that alone, because in a pre-Industrial world like Valonia, having these is like having the most top-notch hearing aids or even a cochlear implant in a Medieval-like world, and that alone makes her act and feel like she's a hearing girl. This isn't the first time I've read a book with a deaf character, and I happen to have interacted with deaf as well as blind people all my life, both verbal and non-verbal, cochlear implantees and those that use hearing aids and some that don't, so I may have different expectations for how realistic I judge a portrayal to be, and this isn't it. Unfortunately, this is also what made the story fail for me. This alone was what attracted me to the book, a character with a consequential disability that, by its very nature, is going to affect all aspects of her life. So what set Unravel apart was the protagonist, Princess Marguerite de Perdrix, being deaf.
Fairly easy and straightforward, no surprises or innovations. The premise is fairly standard for the genre: a pseudo-European style world ruled by a kind monarch whose throne is coveted by an evil relative that gets rid of the legitimate heir to usurp it, heir that then flees with the help of a wily commoner, lives hidden to train and prepare for a while, then returns and retakes the throne.
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