Unraveled Wednesday: 5/28/25

I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers with another installment in the current Hitchhiker. I've knit and knit on the penultimate color and it has seemed to take twice as long as many of the others (and I'm still not done with it!)

It probably wasn't the smartest thing to head out to the front lawn and fling the Hitchhiker down when John had just mowed, but that just means I'll be picking bits of grass off of it while I knit tonight.   

This project has officially become a slog. Maybe it feels so slow because I have the yarn for my next project (not a Hitchhiker!) nearby and I keep petting its alpaca, silk, and cashmere loveliness. I'm quite tempted to cast on but I fear that I'll never finish the Hitchhiker if I do. So I will slog on and hopefully finish this one soon.

I finished two books this week, and I'll start with the worst first. Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is a novel that clearly aims high—lyrical prose, weighty themes, and a dramatic emotional arc—but unfortunately, it collapses under the weight of its own ambition.

The core of the story revolves around a tortured love triangle involving Beth who is married to Frank and her former love, Gabriel. This could have added emotional complexity but instead felt overwrought and strangely hollow. The three central characters—each nursing their own brand of poetic suffering—move through the plot in a haze of longing, regret, and endless internal monologue. It often reads like a melodramatic stage play where everyone is perpetually mid-soliloquy.

While Hall's prose is undeniably vivid, it's also relentlessly ornate. Nearly every sentence strains for significance. Descriptions that could be poignant in moderation become exhausting when every raindrop is symbolic and every glance a metaphor. I found myself pulled out of the narrative again and again by lines that seemed more concerned with sounding profound than actually being profound.

There are a few moments when Hall’s vision of a fractured landscape mirroring emotional disintegration really works. But the vagueness of the setting and the lack of consistent internal logic made it hard to connect. Things just happen, often with little grounding, to push the love triangle forward—or to stall it dramatically.

In the end, Broken Country feels like a novel that wants to say something big about love, identity, and grief, but gets lost in its own reflection. It may resonate more with readers who enjoy poetic, impressionistic storytelling and don’t mind when plot and character development take a back seat to atmosphere. Two stars and a note to myself: Avoid celebrity book club choices in the future.

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén is a quietly devastating novel that follows 89-year-old Bo as he navigates the loss of autonomy in his rural Swedish home. Receiving round-the-clock care—and grappling with his son’s insistence that his dog Sixten be rehomed—Bo embarks on an emotional reckoning, piecing together memories of childhood, marriage, and lifelong friendships as he confronts the reality of his dwindling time.

Narrated in Bo’s gentle, unadorned voice and punctuated by the log-book entries of his caregivers, the structure deftly mirrors the fractured nature of his mind and the fragments of a life well lived. Ridzén’s prose is unpretentious yet evocative, capturing small moments, such as sunlight on snow or the soft weight of a loyal dog in your lap, that add to the atmosphere of the book.

Bo’s internal monologue rings true, especially in his poignant conversations with the memory of his wife. The interspersed care-team logs offer an objective counterpoint to Bo’s subjective reflections, underscoring how the everyday becomes extraordinary in hindsight. Aging, regret, and the struggle to express love are explored with compassion and insight.

While Bo is richly drawn, figures like his son Hans and longtime friend Ture occasionally felt slightly underdeveloped. I wished that more had been written about what Hans was thinking and feeling. The novel’s gentle pace perfectly suits its meditative tone. The momentum felt slow at times but fit perfectly with the tone of the book.

Overall, When the Cranes Fly South is a moving meditation on memory, dignity, and the quiet heroism at the end of life. It offers a profoundly life-affirming portrait of love and loss and is highly recommended for readers drawn to character-driven stories that balance sorrow with soulful tenderness. This one was four stars for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on August 5, 2025.

What are you making and reading this week?