Unraveled, Week 35/2026

Wednesday again, but the first of September! This particular Wednesday, the Mister and I are also celebrating our 19th anniversary. We will have to wait to celebrate until Friday, though, as he's still away at a work conference. But I donated blood yesterday in the room where we had our reception, and that felt appropriate! 

I won't postpone linking up with Kat and the Unravelers, however, so here's an update on my making and reading.

I have not done much knitting this week, mainly because I haven't had much free time being the only adult in the house, but I've finished a positively enormous mitten (that I'm hoping will become a normal-sized mitten once it's felted):

I'm making the largest size in this pattern (why not, given I was trying to use up yarn?) and was happy to see that I have more than half left from what I started with, so I won't be playing any yarn chicken this time around. I was able to get the cuff done on Monday evening and moved on to the hand last night, and I think I'll be able to wrap up the pair by the end of the week.

Although I didn't get a chance to take a photo, I did wind up a skein of handspun so I can swatch for my next sweater, which I hope to be able to cast on a week from today.

I finished four books this past week. Two were okay, one was really good, and one I loved.

I listened to 10 Marchfield Square on a whim because it was available on Hoopla and sounded like it would keep my interest. It's a murder mystery set in an apartment building owned by an older widow. When one of the tenants is murdered, followed shortly by the possible murder of his wife, and the owner is unsatisfied with how the police are investigating, she enlists two other tenants -- a writer struggling to find inspiration for his next book and a cleaner -- to try to solve the case on their own. I thought it got a little convoluted at times and I did figure out the killer before the end, but I thought the narrator did a pretty good job (aside from her unfortunate habit of pronouncing dogs as "dogses"). It was a two-day listen and kept me mostly engaged, so it was fine. I gave it 3 stars.

Both my father and mother read Heft and passed their copy along to me after I had recommended God of the Woods by the same author to them. This book focuses on two individuals: Arthur Opp, a 550-pound man who hasn't left his house in years because of his size, and Kel Keller, a teenager struggling to take care of his alcoholic single mother who longs to play professional baseball. They are connected through Kel's mother, Charlene, who was once Arthur's student when he taught college and with whom he continued corresponding for many years after. Both are struggling to connect with others and to be fully vulnerable with others. I thought the characters were interesting but the story was sad. I didn't love it but didn't hate it. I gave it 3 stars.

I have loved the two other Laurie Frankel books I've read this year, so I thought I'd try another. One Two Three is about three sisters -- triplets -- who live in a small town that was once poisoned by the local chemical company. Their father died before they were born, and their mother has been fighting for their entire lives to try to get justice. Mab is the firstborn who can't wait to get out of town but also can't imagine losing her sisters. Monday is on the autism spectrum, prefers to wear and eat only yellow things, and has appointed herself town librarian since the library closed. Mirabel, brilliant and observant, is confined to a wheelchair and can only speak by using an assistive device. Their family's life is challenging, but they're getting by. And then the family behind the chemical company returns to town with a plan to reopen the plant, prompting the three sisters to join forces to try to find evidence to support their mother's lawsuit or at least convince the townspeople not to take the risk. These three young women are such wonderful characters, and their interactions with one another -- their support of each other, how well they understand each other -- are funny and sad and heartfelt. I really enjoyed my time with them. I gave this book 4 stars.

A story of mothers and daughters, of the challenges of being a parent and also a person, Mothersick focuses primarily on Mara and Nell, sisters who made a pact never to get married or have children after their father had an affair and their mother, Andy, seemed to abandon them. But then Mara broke the pact when she met her partner and has just given birth to her son, Gabriel. She finds motherhood and her child unlike anything she could have imagined, almost every moment a gift, but also realizes that in becoming a mother, she's had to give up part of herself, the part that was creative and imaginative and that previously provided her for family. Nell, meanwhile, has entered a whirlwind romance with Lenny, a wealthy American who wants a traditional family to make up for the broken family in which he grew up in, and though she can accept that she's willing to break the marriage part of the pact, she's not sure she'll ever come around to the idea of children. While their mother is traveling all over the world and making art, the sisters are supported by their aunt, Jean, who provides them with the love, advice, and acceptance they always wanted but never got from their mother, and Jean finds in her nieces some of the joy in being a parent that she always wanted but wasn't able to have. Over the course of a year, these three women deal with all the usual challenges of being a woman in the world as they grapple with trying to understand why Andy seemed to be so afraid to be a mother and trying to forgive her for leaving. The prose in this book is lush, the kind of writing that you have to read slowly to fully understand and appreciate. The characters are flawed but lovable because they are so real. They have old traumas they have kept secret and new challenges to their sense of self, both of which threaten their relationships with one another. What resonated most for me was the very relatable sense that women, especially women who are mothers, are expected both to be everything -- partners, caretakers, parents, homemakers, career women, etc. -- and to give up the things that matter to them as people (careers, time, hobbies, friends) in the service of caring for others. The unspoken message in this book is that we are at our lowest, we almost always want our mother to care for us -- but what if that mother has not been cared for herself and doesn't know how to provide the love her children need? I gave this one 5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in return for an honest review. This book will be published April 27, 2027.

I'm currently reading The Artist and the Feast (digital) and Shy Creatures (on paper). I'm getting caught up on podcasts at the moment but will likely be ready for a new audiobook later this week.

Finally, I just wanted to let you all know that my new sock pattern, Kesbie, has been published. You'll find it on Ravelry and Payhip.