Unraveled Wednesday: 10/30/24

I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers today with another look at the green hat. (Really, I'm here hoping to see more pictures of Franklin Delano Pug!) I've knit another repeat of the cable pattern to hopefully make the hat a little deeper. I should finish this and know if it's worked to my satisfaction by next week. If it works like I hope it will, I'll unravel the previously knit blue hat and re-knit it with the extra repeat of the cable pattern. Fingers crossed ...

I did get out of my election-induced fetal position to read a few books and I even managed to write accompanying reviews. First up is Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. This is a difficult book for me to rate, and I really think it needs to be discussed. I think I enjoyed (maybe appreciated is a better word) it more than Rooney's other books and I especially like how she dealt with grief. Peter and Ivan are two emotionally stunted brothers dealing with the death of their father. This is a watershed moment in the lives of most people but they both seem to think that they're just going to attend the funeral and go on with their lives as usual. I wonder if the book would have been different if Rooney had written about two sisters. Rooney's writing style of staccato sentence fragments for Peter's chapters initially drove me nuts and he was also fairly unlikable. I felt like people, including his family, underestimated Ivan and seemed to think he was the same person he had been as an adolescent, but that is the nature of families. I didn't understand the big drama around the age gap between Ivan and Margaret.

I have to give this book 3.5 stars but can't round up. It's the book for Read With Us and our discussions always give me fresh perspectives. I very much look forward to our discussion and may feel differently after I hear from others in the group in January, but for now, it's just a 3.5 for me.

Next, I finished an ARC entitled Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan. I'm not usually a fan of dystopian novels (they often feel too close to a near-future reality) but a friend raved about Awake in the Floating City and made it sound like something I had to read. Thanks, Kat; you were right! It is set in a future San Francisco where climate change means that it rains all the time and the few remaining people live in high-rise apartments as there is no land. Commerce and gardens exist on the rooftops and many people have fled.

That is the dystopian part but the book is really an exploration of the relationship between Mia and her caretaker Bo. Bo has presumably lost her mother in the flooding and even though she had the chance to leave with her cousin and uncle, she can't bring herself to leave. She becomes a caretaker to Mia and also immerses herself in Mia's history and the history of San Francisco. This becomes a way for Bo to begin making art once again after a long hiatus. Kwan's prose is lovely as she explores the beautiful relationships that can happen even as the world is drowning, and how art can play an important part.

Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on May 13, 2025.

Lastly, I read This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay. I found This is Going to Hurt on Hoopla while searching for a diversionary audiobook. It fit the bill and I quickly became interested in Adam Kay's diary of his time working for the National Health Service. I appreciated his account of progressing from House Officer to Senior Registrar and learning how the NHS compares to the health system in the United States. It seems that they are both awful in different ways. There is plenty of humor in the book, and snark seems to be a part of Kay's personality in addition to being a way to cope. There are also plenty of poignant moments and Kay writes all of them well. This one was four stars for me. 

What are you making and reading this week?