Unraveled, Week 11/2026

It's Wednesday again, friends, and it's time once again to join Kat and the Unravelers. Part of me thought I was being a bit silly casting on a fingering weight sweater when it had been so warm, but I knew that March in Pittsburgh is highly unpredictable and that turns out to have been the case. While it was 61ºF on Monday morning and I went for my run wearing nothing on top of my workout clothes but a light jacket to keep dry in the intermittent rain, by late afternoon it was snowing. Some parts of our area got six inches! I'd say we got about two, but because it had been raining all day and the snow was wet and then the temperature dropped overnight, we also had some ice. I can't say I was surprised that Molly had a two-hour delay yesterday, and actually I was pleased because it meant I couldn't go into the office for my meeting and had to join remotely so I could drive her to school for the 10 a.m. start. Oh darn!

In any case, while I still expect the weather to likely be too warm for a sweater by the time I finish it, I am making progress on it. I've started the colorwork, a little slow going at this point because there are some long floats, but once I move further through the chart it should move a little faster. There's just not that much to see right now.

I'm working through the gusset decreases of the second sock of the current pair, so I'm starting to think about what socks to cast on next (perhaps a pair for one of my sisters-in-law?).

It's been another excellent week of reading, largely done with my ears.

In Gliff, Ali Smith gave us a post-apocalyptic world where people disappeared without explanation and two young siblings left on their own made their way in the world with the help of a horse. In Glyph, adult sisters Petra and Patch haven't spoken in a long time but begin to talk again when Patch sends Petra a book that turns out to be Gliff. This gesture leads Petra to think about their childhood and the stories she told her younger sister to help her cope with her fear after a distant relative told them a story that scared her, in the process making up a ghost with an amazing realistic backstory -- something that ended up being an important part of their young lives in the wake of their mother's death. Patch, meanwhile, is dealing with her adopted teenage daughter's questioning of authority. An unexpected visitor in Petra's apartment brings the sisters together again, leading them both to question how much of their childhood stories were invented and what was real.

As is typical of Ali Smith's work, this novel isn't easy to describe or categorize, but it is fascinating and consuming. I've seen some reviews complain that it's overtly political and anti-war, but notably there is no specific conflict or position mentioned, only hinted at. What shines here are the stories, the dialogue, and the relationships. I gave it 4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published May 19, 2026.

Having recently read and enjoyed Tayari Jones's latest, I decided to turn to her backlist and read Silver Sparrow, a novel I'd heard praised often but never gotten around to reading. It tells the story of two half sisters, nearly exactly the same age. One is illegitimate but knows of the existence of the other. The other is the result of a marriage that came about due to a teenage pregnancy years earlier. As the two girls mature, the smallness of the Black community in Atlanta brings them close together again and again, so you know it's only a matter of time before everything is out in the open. Each sister is given an opportunity to narrate her own story, giving the reader a perspective from both sides. I really enjoyed this, especially because the audiobook had a different narrator for each sister's part, and the format allows Jones to showcase her strength in depicting female relationships. I gave it 4 stars.

The Beginner's Goodbye is an older book (it was published in 2012) that came across my radar recently when it was mentioned on the What Should I Read Next podcast. I'd actually never read anything by Anne Tyler before, if you can believe that! This one is about Aaron, a man in his mid-30s mourning the loss of his wife, Dorothy, in an accident. As he mourns, he reflects on their life together -- how they met, how they dated, and what their married life was like -- as he seems unable to move on with his life other than going to work every day at his family's vanity publishing company. I thought the story was entertaining enough, and the narrator was animated and enjoyable to listen to, but I had a hard time accepting that he was supposed to be working as an editor given that I caught at least three grammatical errors (something I'm surprised Tyler's editor didn't catch!). It wasn't a very long book and kept me entertained while I was out exercising, but I'm not in a rush to read more of Tyler's work. I gave it 3 stars.

I'd had All the Colors of the Dark on my Kindle shelf for a while, but two recent positive reviews by podcasters I listen to pushed me to finally read it. This is a book you need to be ready for, not only because it's nearly 600 pages long and because it deals with some, well, dark stuff. It centers around the friendship of Patch (so called because he was born with only eye), being raised by single mother, and Saint, an orphaned girl living with her widowed grandmother. The story starts in the 1970s in a small town in Missouri, one of several in the state where girls have disappeared. When Patch stops the abduction of a classmate, the consequences of that action unfurl over decades and impact several members of this small community. I had mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the story of the friendship of Patch and Saint, who feel like outsiders who don't fit in until they find each other, was beautiful, and the book itself certainly kept me reading. But it also felt unnecessarily long, and there was something about the writing that didn't sit quite right with me, though it's hard to put my finger on exactly why. The author is British, and at times it felt like he was trying too hard to make his narrative sound American (I noted that he failed several times at this by using the term "conker" for what I'd call a buckeye; I've only ever heard this term used by Brits). There were also instances where a verb was used as a noun and descriptive phrases that seemed convoluted to the point of not making much sense. On top of this, I thought some of the plot points were a bit derivative (I couldn't help thinking of The OA and The Shawshank Redemption). Despite these issues, I did enjoy it overall. I dithered about my rating but ultimately settled on 4 stars -- it gave me several afternoons' enjoyment, after all.

Finally, partially influenced by a trailer of an upcoming TV series, I decided to reread The Testaments. I read it when it first came out in 2019 -- it was a rare hardback book that I preordered -- but didn't remember many details, so I decided to listen this time. Perhaps the current state of the world also has made me seek out stories where oppressive governments are taken down from within. In any case, I enjoyed the reread just as much as I did my first one, and I really appreciated the cast, including Margaret Atwood herself, doing the narration. I know some readers were unhappy with this sequel, but it was hugely satisfying for me. I gave it 5 stars (again).

I'm still slowly working my way through The Odyssey, and I've just started The Paris Express. I'm about a quarter of the way through both.

What are you making and reading this week? And have you seen snow, too?

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Well, that was an interesting weekend. The bulk of the day Friday was delightful. It was sunny and pleasant, I went for a good run, I had a relaxing afternoon reading while Ruthie napped, and then the Mister and I went out for dinner. But toward the late afternoon, the wind started picking up. The lights flickered in the restaurant as we were eating our salads, and shortly after we got our entrees, the power went out for good. The Mister was able to look at the status of our internet on his phone and confirmed that the power was out at home, too. We were able to finish our meal, left information so they could process our payment the next day, and picked Molly up. There wasn't much to do at home when we got back other than take Ruthie out and put her to bed and go to bed ourselves. Thankfully the power came back on around 9:30 -- especially given that there are still people without power -- and when I got out to walk on Saturday morning, in addition to lots of branches and debris everywhere, I found this a few blocks from our house:

You might need to click to make the photo bigger, but that's a traffic light next to the person standing at the corner. The wire holding it up across that street completely snapped, and power was still out at the intersection the last time I checked on Sunday. I'm hoping they'll be fixing it soon -- many of the drivers I saw going through there didn't seem to know what to do at an intersection with the lights out!

We were out on the later side on Saturday, too, at that bat mitzvah. We left shortly after 8, and dinner still hadn't been served, so we picked up some takeout on the way home. After getting Ruthie to bed, I had to fold laundry and we had to make our grocery list, and then it was time to go to bed myself. All of that is to say that I didn't really make any progress at all on my sweater over the weekend and this is all I have to show for it so far!

I have to do a bunch of short rows and some more increases before I get into the colorwork, but I'm feeling confident that as long as I get a couple of evenings with it, I will get there and have some actual progress to share on the blog later this week.

And thanks to the longer nap times Ruthie has had the past several days, I've done a lot on the socks:

This photo was taken Sunday morning; by the end of the day, I'd completed about six inches of leg on that second sock. You can see a little of the pooling on the heel. To be honest, I think it actually looks pretty cool! The colors are all close enough that it's not glaringly obvious. I was expecting it, having experienced it a number of times in the past when knitting with Lorna's Laces yarn. It doesn't bother me, and I know my mother-in-law won't know the difference. I'm hoping she likes the ribbed sole; I have a pair I knit years ago with a ribbed sole that feel like a massage when they're warm, so I thought they might help with her neuropathy.

We've got a pretty normal week ahead, though I'm sure it'll be busy as it's Molly's last week of school before spring break and the teachers seem to be cramming in a lot of assessments. I have my annual physical on Wednesday, at which I'm expecting my doctor to tell me I'm now eligible to get a colonoscopy (ah, the joys of getting older!). And we're expecting more up and down weather -- rain most of today changing to snow this evening after it was 70 yesterday. Hope your Monday is off to a good start, or at least a non-dramatic one!

"Spring" Break

I am officially on vacation today as it's "spring holiday" (faculty and staff always get off the Friday of spring break week), though it doesn't feel much like spring today. We had a truly wild day of weather on Wednesday. It was raining when I got up, it rained on me when I went for my run (despite the radar being clear and the sun shining at the same time!), and then we had a tornado warning at around 2 p.m. (despite it being completely calm outside; seems it was only radar indicated)! Ruthie got good use out of her new raincoat on our walks:

Yesterday we woke up to temps back in the 30s and windchills in the 20s, so I had to get out my winter coat, hat, and mittens again. Even though everything is blooming and greening up, it's a good reminder that technically it's still winter and anything can happen for a while yet.

Even though I'm not working today, I'll still be keeping roughly the same normal schedule. I'll try to run this morning, then come home and clean the bathrooms, and likely do a couple loads of laundry. Molly is staying after school to attend a flag football game, so Ruthie and I can enjoy a slightly longer afternoon snooze time, during which I hope to finish up this sock:

I decided to try some ribbing on the entirety of the sole, thinking it'd provide a cushy bottom for my mother-in-law, who deals with neuropathy in her feet. You can see that I did get a bit of pooling at the gusset, but it's really only obvious if you look for it.

I also measured my swatch in full daylight yesterday and determined that I am close enough on gauge to go ahead with my sweater. I'm getting 26 stitches over 4 inches rather than the called-for 25, but I'm willing to bet that when I'm working on a much larger piece, my tension will ease up a bit. I'm going to make the second size (finished bust of 40 inches, for 5 inches of positive ease), so even if my gauge is a bit tighter, it's not likely to be a problem. I hope to have some progress to share on Monday!

We've got a number of things on the social calendar this weekend, mostly for Molly, but the Mister and I have a bat mitzvah to go to tomorrow night and we've been told it's cocktail attire, so I have to go through my closet and find something to wear! There will still be plenty of time for reading, knitting, and puppy snuggling, though.

I hope your weekend has time in it for all the things that bring you joy -- and be sure to embrace that joy, friends! We need it now more than ever.

Unraveled, Week 10/2026

Hello and happy hump day! I am bracing for some strong storms coming through later today and hoping I can still squeeze in a run before the rain starts. But first, time to join in with Kat and the Unravelers!

I had a delightful birthday, in part thanks to all the lovely messages you left on my post on Monday. I started off by running farther than I've managed before without having to stop and walk: 7 miles! The weather was gorgeous all day, I got a free drink at Starbucks, and the Mister came home with Bundtlets for dessert so I didn't have to bake myself my own cake. My father also sent me flowers; I think he felt bad that he was out of town.

I also started swatching for my sweater, which is still in progress (fingering weight sweaters take time, so naturally so do their swatches!).

I'm hoping that by the end of the week, I'll know if I can cast on using the recommended needle size or if I need to swatch again.

It's been another good week of reading, with four finishes!

If I had to pick one word to describe I Am Agatha, it would be spare. There are few extraneous details, minimal background given on the main character, and not much in the way of plot. That is not to said, however, that these are drawbacks. Rather, they are fitting for a main character inspired by an artist whose work is all about minimalist lines and grids.

Agatha Smithson (the fictionalized characterization of artist Agnes Martin) is an outsider in New Mexico, living in a primitive house she built herself after fleeing New York City following some sort of mental breakdown. When she arrives in New Mexico, she falls in love with Alice, a widow slowly fading into dementia. As Alice's condition worsens, Agatha is determined to move her to Agatha's home, a step complicated by Alice's unwillingness to leave the backyard grave of her daughter, Lorna, and by Alice's son, Frank Jr., who wants to move his mother into a care home. Agatha is stubborn and determined, however, so she enlists a young neighbor boy who is always eager to help her in a plan to move Lorna so that Alice will feel at home. Alice is missing as all of this is happening, though, and soon it becomes apparent that Agatha isn't the only one keeping secrets in this small town.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Agatha is abrasive and bossy, and she's not afraid of hurting people by doing what she thinks is best for them. But she is loyal to those who are important to her and unapologetic about who she is. I gave it 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published March 17, 2026.

I was reminded recently that I'd wanted to read more by Valérie Perrin because I enjoyed Fresh Water for Flowers. Forgotten on Sunday was actually her first book but was only relatively recently translated into English. This novel tells two stories that intersect. First, there is Justine, who is in her early 20s and working as a nursing assistant at a nursing home. She grew up with her grandparents and her cousin, Jules, after their two sets of parents were killed in car accident when they were both children. One of the residents Justine cares for is Hélène, a woman in her 90s whose life story -- and love story -- Justine is recording for her family. We soon learn that there are secrets in both women's pasts and that love can be very complicated. This was a beautiful story that I very much enjoyed listening to, although I was annoyed by the narrator's inconsistent skill with French pronunciation (it took me a while, for instance, to realize that a character's name was Rose because she kept pronouncing it "Hose"). This might be better on the page for that reason. In spite of these annoyances, I gave it 4 stars.

Liar's Dice is a debut novel. For all of their young lives, Dolores and Mita have been alike, and not just because they're identical twins. They seem to be able to read each other's thoughts and even have a secret way of communicating. But then Mita begins having seizures and starts losing control of her body, leading to doctors' appointments and time spent in hospitals. And then one day she is gone -- much like many of those who speak out against the regime in early 1970s Brazil. Dolores is told that Mita has gone to live in a children's hospital in their father's native England, but she isn't so sure. Now she is alone at home and lonely at her new school, where she's struggling because she hasn't yet learned to read. But a new friend who, like Dolores, is a native Brazilian and isn't wealthy, and a caring teacher help her to find her way, and she becomes determined to earn enough money to fly to England and see for herself whether her twin is still alive.

Dolores is a sympathetic character, and I felt her sadness at the loss of her twin and her frustration with parents for their unwillingness to discuss her sister and moving on as if she never existed. I did find some of her activities in the seedier parts of Rio to be a bit hard to believe, but without much knowledge of Brazil in the 1970s, I can't say whether they were realistic or not. My biggest complaint in reading this novel is the amount of Portuguese used without a translation; it wasn't until I finished that I found a glossary in the back. Perhaps I would have enjoyed the book more if I had more background knowledge of the history of the setting, but all the same I admired Dolores's tenacity and loyalty to her sister. I gave it 3 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published April 28, 2026.

Finally, if you are an American concerned about the current state of affairs in this country, I'd highly recommend On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. This very short work of nonfiction (I read it easily in an afternoon) offer 20 concrete ways to fight against tyranny by illustrating how tyrants and dictators took power in the 20th century and detailing how fledgling democracies failed. The bottom line is that there are things that even the average person with no political power can do to fight this kind of extremism and to contribute to saving the democratic ideals envisioned by the founding fathers. This is one I know I'll come back to for encouragement. I gave it 4 stars.

As I continue to very slowly make my way through The Odyssey (I haven't even made it to the poem yet -- I'm still in the introduction!), I've also gotten a new ARC I'm very excited about and just started yesterday.

What are you making and reading this week?

45

As you might guess from the title of this post, today is my 45th birthday. I would prefer for my birthday to fall on any day other than Monday, but that's not exactly something you can choose, and I was actually born on a Monday, so I suppose it's fitting. What is unusual is that it's going to be sunny and close to 70ºF today -- usually it's dreary, cold, and snowy! So I think I can deal with Monday because of that.

We had a really nice weekend, especially Saturday. We hit a record high of 78ºF -- and then had a thunderstorm move through in the afternoon! It felt more like early June than early March! The house got so warm that we actually opened windows in our bedroom overnight so we could sleep comfortably. Yesterday was significantly cooler but still pleasant. And we had a delicious celebrator dinner out on Saturday at one of our favorite restaurants.

As promised, I've got a better photo to share of my mother's socks along with a full write up of the project:

Pattern: forest floor by Sara Bauer (Ravelry link), size M
Yarn: Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply in Peppercorn, 89 g/324 yds. used
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm
Started/Completed: January 1/March 4
Mods: omitted cables on back of leg and ribbing on sole for arch; subbed my own usual heel and toe

If the name of this pattern's designer sounds familiar to you, it may be because she was the host of the Yarns at Yin Hoo podcast. I listened to her for many years and enjoyed her calm approach to crafting, cooking, and poetry. In recent years, Sara had been been battling metastatic breast cancer, though you wouldn't know it to listen to her podcasts -- she was always positive and upbeat, seeking to make the most of her situation. She sadly passed away last June, so I thought knitting one of her patterns would be a good tribute to her (even if it did take me a while to get around to it). I used one of the skeins of fingering that I picked up off the freebie table at SSK last year, and I thought this mossy green was a great match for the pattern. I opted to keep them relatively simple other than the lace pattern stitch in part because I thought the cables would make them tight and maybe uncomfortable and in part to keep the focus on the lace. Now I just hope they're not too big for my narrow-footed mother! These will be put away for either Mother's Day or her birthday in June.

I spent some of my downtime over the weekend finishing up the knitting of this hat, which you last saw when I was only a few rounds into the colorwork.

I kept the main motif at the very center of the panel the same but scaled down the rest and eliminated some rounds to make it fit on a hat. I still need to pull the yarn through the final stitches and weave in some ends (obviously), and then I'll move on to blocking and embroidery.

As if all this green yarn wasn't enough (can you tell I've got spring on the brain?), I've cast on a new pair of socks for my mother-in-law, and I'm using the very last of the yarn that came home with me from SSK!

The colors got a bit washed out by the sunshine, but I think the photo is good enough to show this fun micro-striping thing that's happening. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Solemate, a blend of superwash merino, nylon, and something called Outlast viscose that's supposed to help regulate temperature and thus keep your feet feeling comfortable. I can't say how effective it is, having never knit with it before, but my mother-in-law deals with neuropathy in her feet, so I thought it might feel good to her. After all that lace in the last pair, I'm back to my usual plain vanilla sock, and considering I cast this on last Thursday and am already nearly done with the leg, I think that was a good move. I imagine I might get some crazy pooling in the gusset of these, or maybe I'll get even thinner stripes. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

As much as I love green, especially at this time of year, my next project will not be knit using green yarn. The replacement sweater I've picked out is the Speculoos Sweater (Ravelry link) using handspun (provided the gauge works out) from my precious Southern Cross Fibre stash. I'll be aiming to use this for the main color:

Thunderstruck on Bond wool

and this for the colorwork in the yoke:

Pebbles on a mystery wool base

One unfortunate thing about getting older (at least is an adult) is that you still have work, walk the dog, and make dinner on your birthday, so I'm thinking of getting started on this new sweater as my gift to myself. I might also make myself a cake, as I happen to have ingredients on hand! Otherwise, it'll just be a normal day. I'll be sure to enjoy the unusually warm weather on my run and walks with Ruthie, and I'd encourage you to enjoy what the day brings as well. Remember that if you have a treat to celebrate a friend's birthday, the calories don't count!

Good News to End the Week

This past week has been something, hasn't it? Molly's had a really hard week at school, it's been raining off and on since Monday, and, well, you all know about what's been going on in the world (and if you don't, trust me, you don't want to). So I thought I'd round out the week by focusing on some good things that have happened this week.

Good Thing 1:
Last week I had a breast MRI. This is the third time I've had one in addition to my annual mammogram because of a family history and dense tissue. I was getting a bit concerned that I hadn't gotten my results at the end of the week (my appointment was midday on Thursday) because I usually get them the same day as my appointment or the next. But I got the results first thing Monday morning: all normal!

Good Thing 2:
Thanks to the warmer temperatures we've had and to the rain, the last pile of snow in our backyard has finally melted. Hurrah!

Good Thing 3:
After taking almost two months to finish the first one, I've finished the second sock of the pair for my mother and they're just what I hoped! You'll have to forgive the crummy photo (it's been gloomy all week). Obviously they're blocking and still wet, but I'm hopeful the sun will make an appearance sometime this weekend and I can take some better photos for an official FO post.

Good Thing 4:
I completely forgot to mention it on Monday, but our dryer is fixed! For those of you wondering how a dryer could leak (I know I was), the issue was that the exhaust tube had somehow fallen out of its socket, so all the hot moist air that would normally be shunted outside was instead hitting the dryer, condensing, and pooling out. Our handyman was able to get it reconnected and secured it better than it was originally, and we've been doing laundry all week with no issues.

Good Thing 5:
I've found another sweater to knit now that I've decided not to continue with Shakespeare in Love, and I have some handspun that should be perfect for it, so I will be swatching soon.

Good Thing 6:
My birthday is on Monday, and for the first time I can remember, it won't be cold and/or snowy. In fact, it's supposed to be sunny and near 70ºF! Of course, it is a Monday and I still have to work, but it'll be nice taking Ruthie for walks without having to be all bundled up.

We got plans for a birthday dinner out with my mother (my father will be away) and my in-laws on Saturday evening, but otherwise I'm planning a quiet weekend. With the time change, Ruthie will likely sleep in on Sunday, but we're losing an hour of sleep, so I'm not sure it'll matter. At least there will be more daylight!

I hope you've got some good things happening in your life right now and that you are able to take a nap on Sunday afternoon if you need it!

Unraveled, Week 9/2026

Good morning and happy soggy Wednesday! The rain came in overnight Monday and will be with us for a while, so I'm making good use of my raincoat. At least at this time of year, I'm less bothered by the fact that it's heavy and doesn't breathe. But enough about the weather -- time to join in with Kat and the Unravelers!

I appreciate all the thoughts and opinions on my sweater WIP. For now, I'm leaving it where it is, though I am leaning toward ripping it out and moving on to something else. If I really wanted the sweater, I would carry on and accept that it'd just take me a long time to knit it, but I looked at completed projects on Ravelry and am not sure I really would wear it anymore, and frankly I'd rather decide that now, when I've only invested a handful of evenings working on it, than after finishing the darn thing. Well, I guess I have made up my mind after all!

In the meantime, I cast on a new project, a hat to match this cowl. It's not much to look at yet, but it should grow and look more like a hat soon.

The rain isn't doing the colors any favors, but I'm using the leftovers from the cowl, just reversed. I changed up the colorwork just a bit to work with the smaller scale. I'm hoping that it works out because the main motif is a 10-stitch repeat, which limits the sizing a bit.

Thanks to that big project I was expecting turning into a no-show, I had a big reading week, with five finishes. Because of the volume, I'm going to stick with some shorter reviews this week.

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

3.5 stars

This novel is two stories in two timelines tied together by a house. Nellie is a 1950s housewife with an older husband who is demanding and unforgiving. Alice, in more or less present day, recently left her demanding job in publicity to try to write a novel and is feeling unmoored in her new suburban NYC house, where she is alone for much of the day while her husband works in the city and studies for his actuarial exams. When Alice finds a cookbook and old women's magazines in the house's basement, she gains insight into Nellie's life and begins to examine her own life and marriage. I enjoyed the dual timelines and the look at a woman's life -- including how little has changed over the decades -- but was somewhat dissatisfied with the ending, which seemed a little rushed and unfinished compared to the rest of the book.

What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown

4 stars

Jane has been raised in a remote cabin in Montana by her father following the death of her mother when she was just a toddler. He has homeschooled her, teaching her math, philosophy, and his negative views of the outside world. One day he brings a computer home so that Jane can help him publish his manifesto, and she discovers there is more to the world -- and that perhaps he hasn't been entirely truthful about their past. When he involves her in a violent act, she realizes that she needs to escape to find out the truth, only to land in Silicon Valley at the height of the explosion of the internet. She has to decide which version of reality is right for her and must grapple with whether to turn her father in when it means implicating herself as well.

Tilt by Emma Pattee

3 stars

Annie is 37 weeks pregnant and at IKEA to buy a crib when an earthquake hits and devastates Portland, Oregon, where she lives. Over the course of a day, she tries to make her way across the city to find her husband, along the way encountering the best and worst of human behavior, reflecting on her life and marriage, and remembering her mother. I thought it was an interesting way to make the reader think about how unprepared we are for a major disaster, both logistically and as a society that doesn't value helping others, but I didn't love Annie as a main character.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

3 stars

This is a thriller set during a wedding weekend on a remote Irish island. We know something bad has happened in the present and alternate between finding out what that is and flashing back to the days leading up to it, as told through the points of view of multiple characters: the bride, the best man, the bridesmaid, the plus-one. I knew going into this not to expect fine literature and really only chose to read it because I thought it would be entertaining while I was running. I figured out most of the twists ahead of time, so it wasn't all that suspenseful to me. Still, it kept my attention well enough, and I enjoyed cast of narrators.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

3 stars

This book has been sitting on my bedroom chair for months, and I finally read it after Jane talked about it last week. The format is unusual; rather than a traditional narrative or even short stories, it's made up of a series of brief scenes that are rather similar to the episodic nature of our memories of childhood and that give us glimpses into the life of Esperanza, a Latina girl growing up in a house (on Mango Street) in Chicago. I enjoyed these little snapshots of her life, but I did not find the book to be as engaging as I expected because it was so broken up.

I am currently reading an ARC and am excited to start a buddy read with Katie of The Odyssey tonight!

Also, not to bury the lede, but I've just published my new colorwork cowl pattern. You can find it on Ravelry and Payhip.