Two on Tuesday

This week, the "two" refers to the two sweater WIPs, both of which are still in progress and not likely to be done anytime soon. But there has been some forward movement.

For one thing, I finished the back of the Mister's Neighborly Cardigan on Sunday evening, right down to weaving in ends from joining in new skeins (the little yarn butterflies you see are reserved for seaming).

This is decidedly the most boring piece of the sweater, so I'm glad to have it finished up. I plan to start knitting the first of the front pieces tonight. The fronts at least have cables on them, so the knitting should be a little more engaging.

Meanwhile, I've added a handful of rows to my Floozy and have finished the very fun spiky section:

Please forgive the quality of the photo, but it's the best I can do when it's as gray outside as it has been. I think you can still see the stitches, which is what's important. The way this effect is achieved is really quite ingenious, but I don't want to give away the secret sauce by telling you how it's done. It's certainly the slowest part of the colorwork, so I'm glad that it's finished.

I've actually got one more WIP on the needles as of yesterday, a second sock for a pair that was started as a pattern submission that didn't make the cut (and thus is now with my tech editor for self-publishing), but there's not much to see just yet, so I'll share when it's done.

Because my WIPs aren't terribly exciting at this point, let's talk about reading! I've finished quite a few books since I last posted about what I'm reading, but I'm just going to highlight a handful of the best.

• The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton: I enjoyed this but found that it seemed to go on a little longer than it needed to. I didn't see the plot twist coming, and that always makes me happy (I just hate it when I've figured out a mystery long before the answer is revealed). I gave it four stars.
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: I had gotten on the wait list for this book at the library because it was one of those books that everyone seemed to be reading and talking about, and it did not disappoint. I adored this book. It's beautifully written and has amazing character development. I gave it 5 enthusiastic stars.
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: This was also a book with a lot of buzz, and I enjoyed it, though at times it was difficult to read. I gave it four stars.
• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid: I started reading this book when (no joke) I was waiting to give blood and needed a way to pass the time. It was a title that I'd heard from award and best-seller lists, and it was available from the library, so I borrowed and started it then and there. While it's hard to describe the plot of the book because the setting is so vague, the writing is simply gorgeous. Hamid has a way of making run-on sentences a thing of beauty rather than something to avoid. I gave it four stars.
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: After loving Little Fires so much, I was very keen to read Ng's previous book. I enjoyed it a lot, though not as much as Little Fires. The premise of the story is a sad one, and once again Ng triumphs in her amazingly in-depth character studies. I gave it four stars.
• Circe by Madeline Miller: I very much enjoyed this book and the imaginative way that Miller has chosen to take the stories of notable characters from Greek myth, but it didn't pull me in quite as strongly as The Song of Achilles did. I gave it four stars.

Goodreads tells me that I've read 64 books so far this year, which is just bonkers considering that my initial goal was 25 and that was a step up from last year. Three cheers for the library and ebooks!