Unraveling, Week 35/2025

Happy Wednesday, friends. The world is still a bit of a dumpster fire, but at least it's no longer hotter than Hades here. We've had quite a bit of rain, including an unexpected downpour yesterday when I was taking Ruthie to the vet to get her second round of vaccinations, so I'm still very much in the mode of not bothering to try to blow-dry my hair or look presentable. But I did manage to run on Monday -- not as much as usual, because it was super humid, but it was something!

But let's back up a bit. I have to share a photo from Ruthie's playdate last Friday, at which much fun was had by all:

Bagel and Ruthie ran around the whole time (while Star, Bagel's older sister, mostly ignored their shenanigans) and got on very well together. At one point they even disappeared upstairs somewhere, where I hope they didn't get into too much trouble! She also had a fun time at puppy class on Saturday morning (we were one for two on car sickness), and we had very enjoyable afternoons sitting together on the couch. We've basically given up on keeping her off of it and got a slipcover, on top of which I have "her" blanket on the chaise portion, and it's very comfortable to sit there with her napping next to me. As a result of those naps, I've gotten a fair amount of knitting done on my hat:

She was asleep, otherwise I'd never have risked this!

I haven't measured the length of the hat or weighed my yarn, but I can't tell you it's about 2/3 of a Ruthie!

And significant progress has been made on my Midsommarkrans -- just look at this!

I've completed the lace chart for the v-necks on both the front and the back. There's a small gusset chart under each arm, too, that brings the edging together nicely. I have a feeling that there's going to be a lot more of this tank to share the next time you see it!

I've done a fair amount of reading in the past week while Ruthie has been napping and finished two books.

While the news of Indigenous children dying at residential schools in North America in the 19th and 20th centuries has only relatively recently been widely reported, it is something that their communities have known the whole time. The Knowing: How the Oppression of Indigenous Peoples Continues to Echo Today takes on the subject of the residential schools in Canada and shows how it was part of a larger effort by colonizers to oppress and erase First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. The author is a journalist with a long history of writing about Canada's Indigenous peoples and is herself Indigenous. Woven throughout her exploration of the residential school system is a memoir of sorts; part of her impetus for writing the book was trying to figure out what had happened to her great-grandmother, who was essentially imprisoned and died in a psychiatric hospital. This is a difficult book to read. It doesn't hold back in detailing the cruelty in ripping children from their families and communities to place them in residential schools where they faced substandard living conditions, frequent spread of illness and disease, and often starvation. And that is to say nothing of the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse often inflicted upon them. While the book focuses on Canada, it's clear that the residential school system in the United States was no different and, in some cases, even influenced its neighbor to the north. Nothing can undo the harm that was done, but I believe in learning about it, we can show our respect for those who have been lost. I gave it 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing/Hanover Square Press for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published July 15, 2025.

My other finish this week was a backlist title ahead of one of my library holds. A Separation came out in 2017; I have Katie Kitamura's most recent book on hold, and Mary suggested I explore some of her backlist in the meantime. This one had no wait from the library, so I thought I try it. This is a quiet novel, mostly the thoughts of the unnamed narrator. There is a small amount of dialogue, but notably it's not in quotation marks, so sometimes it's hard to tell what's been spoken and what's only been thought. The plot, such as it is, is minimal: At the outset, the narrator has gotten a call from her mother-in-law, who believes all is not right with her son, who has traveled on his own to Greece, ostensibly to conduct research for a book he is writing. What the narrator knows and her mother-in-law does not, however, is that she and her husband have separated, but he asked her to keep it a secret for the time being. And now she is being sent after him to see what has happened to him and is finding herself split between the almost ex-wife she knows she is and the wife everyone else believes her to be and trying to navigate that split identity as she searches for her husband, who has gone missing. I could certainly see the author's writing ability, but some of my enjoyment of the book was diminished because I couldn't turn my editor brain off (the comma splices, oy vey!). It's at least relatively short, so not a long read, but still it's one I'd recommend to very few people (Vera, this one is not for you!). I gave it 3 stars.

What are you making and reading this week? Be sure to visit Kat and the other Unravelers to see what they're up to!