Unraveled, Week 53/2025

It feels pretty special that the last Wednesday of the year is also the last day of the year -- and it feels like we've gotten a bonus week, too! I don't think Kat is doing a link-up today, but I'm always happy to join her and the Unravelers.

Our vacation has gotten a bit more chaotic this week because my brother and his family came down to join us on Sunday, so we've shuffled bedrooms and bathrooms and had to reorient our schedules around those of a 1-year-old and a 2 1/2-year-old. But it's been fun. My aunt and uncle, who spend their winters on the other coast of Florida, drove over to spend some time with us on Monday, and yesterday nearly all of us (the Mister stayed behind to do some work) went to the Naples Zoo. I've even spotted some unusual wildlife in the housing development:

Don't worry; I took this photo from far away and cropped it.

There are man-made bodies of water throughout this place, and there are signs up all over saying not to go in the water or disturb the alligators, but I always figured that was just bluffing. I've never spotted one this close before that wasn't in a zoo or nature preserve!

I honestly haven't been knitting a ton, especially in comparison to years past, but I did finish the cowl -- even weaving in all my ends and blocking! And I also wrote up a draft of the pattern so I can get it to my tech editor before we head home! (See how much I can get done when I'm not working and catering to the whims of a very cute but demanding dog?)

For the last couple of days, I've been focusing on what I hope will be my last finished project for the year:

I had about 40 g of yarn left on Monday night, so I'm hoping if I give it a lot of attention today, I just might get it done.

Reading time has, of course, been more plentiful, and I've finished several more books in the past week.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 2 was just as delightful as the first. I can imagine that one day I might want to own physical copies one day, but they've been great on audio. In the second installment, Emma learns more about the mysterious tenant who is renting Lapis Lazuli Minor, makes the acquaintance of a friend's "cousin" serving as her chaperone, comes to the aid of current and former classmates at her school, and has an interesting interaction with a duke. She continues to work to ensure she can keep her home, in spite of her cousin's efforts to spend all the money left to her. I gave it 4 stars -- and I expect to finish Vol. 3 today!

In Kin, we meet Niecy and Annie, two motherless girls raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, Niecy left orphaned by a murder/suicide and Annie abandoned when her mother left town. United in friendship from their early days sleeping in the same cradle, they together have to navigate life as Black women in the Jim Crow South as they approach adulthood and their lives begin to diverge. For Niecy, that means going to Spelman College and being exposed to a more privileged life to which she can aspire. For Annie, it means heading to Memphis in the middle of the night to search for her long-missing mother. Both encounter the racism of segregation, the challenges of being poor, the complications of failed first relationships, and the unreasonable expectations of women. Through it all, their friendship is a constant.
What Tayari Jones has captured in this novel is the power of female relationships and the deep impact that the lack of a loving mother can have on a girl's development. She also paints an unflinching portrait of what life was like for a poor Black woman in the South in the '60s, when the limitations imposed by segregation only added to the lack of options available to women in general. More than anything, she shows that it's not blood that makes someone kin. Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published February 24, 2026. I gave it 4 stars.

My Chanukah gift to myself this year (mainly because my request came too late for anyone else to buy them for me) was volumes I-III of On the Calculation of Volume. Translated from the Danish, these short novels tell the story of Tara Selter, who discovers on a work trip that she is trapped in time, reliving the 18th of November over and over again. While this might sound like the movie Groundhog Day, it's much more serious. In Vol. I, Tara is struggling to understand what is happening and, returning home to her husband, tries to come up with both an explanation and a way to get time to start working as it should again. Each day he is surprised to see her, and each day she explains what has happened again. Together they attempt to formulate some sort of logic to what stays changed and what reverts to how it was at the beginning of the day, but Tara realizes that this approach isn't sustainable in the long run. I gave 4 stars to Vol. 1 and immediately started Vol. II; in fact, as I'm writing this post ahead of time, I may have already finished it.

I took a pause in my listening of Emma Lion's journals to listen to 107 Days, read by Kamala Harris. Reading a book about a recent presidential campaign isn't necessarily exciting because you know the outcome and lived through it, but I was still interested to hear about the details and the experience from Harris' perspective. And of course I opted to get the audio because I wanted to hear it in her voice. Listening to this book brought back the hope and the excitement I felt last year, even though I knew that the outcome wouldn't change, and I think I appreciated the campaign even more getting the inside story. I also felt much more hopeful at the end hearing what gives Harris hope for our country's future. I won't recommend it to readers trying to avoid politics, but it was a bit of a balm for me after the year we've had, and I gave it 4 stars.

Tonight we'll be having a quiet evening in; even without taking the little ones into account, I'm well past the age where it's exciting to stay up late. It's gotten unusually chilly here, so I'll be going for a run this morning and then likely spending the day inside. I plan to knit and read, play with my niblings, and spend the day with my immediate family, and I really can't ask for a much better last day of the year than that.

Thank you, dear readers, for spending another year with me. I think it was a hard year for many of us, and I don't expect the change of the calendar to magically make things better. My wish for you in 2026 is that it's a year in which you're able to find joy and love and good health. May the new year bring you happy times with your loved ones, an abundance of good books, and a world in which you can still find beauty and kindness. I will be back on Friday with a look back at my reading this past year. Until then, thanks for being part of one of the best parts of my 2025 and happy new year!