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?