Unraveled Wednesday: 10/15/25

I’m happily joining Kat and the Unravelers today, with a completed pair of shortie socks. (Kat is on vacation but Wednesdays are always Unraveled for me.) I tried to take a photo in the wild, but it was disappointing at best.

 This one on Ryan's dining room table is a bit better. 

I'm not sure Jess will be as excited by these as I am, but I knit socks for her before and she hasn't yet said, "Stop knitting me these stupid socks." My idea of a fun time would be to wear contrasting socks as a pair but I like to live on the wild side. :-) I'm back to happily knitting the rainbow scarf, but that might also be finished soon, so I should think about casting on another project - maybe something for Justin for Christmas, but he's a little bit more difficult to knit for than Ryan. 

I finished two books last week. They were both four stars for me but I'll apologize up front since they are both ARCs that won't be published until next February. This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman is a beautifully written collection of interconnected vignettes that together form a warm, funny, and deeply human portrait of a family that can’t seem to stop tripping over its own love. The Rubensteins, particularly sisters Sylvia and Helen, anchor the stories, but Goodman widens her lens to include their children and grandchildren, capturing the shifting dynamics, misunderstandings, and enduring bonds that stretch across generations.

Goodman has always had a gift for observing the small gestures and quiet tensions that make family life both maddening and precious. Here, she distills those moments into perfectly honed snapshots, tiny domestic scenes that tell a much larger story about belonging, memory, and forgiveness. Whether she’s writing about an argument over an apple cake or the unspoken expectations between parents and children, Goodman does so with warmth, wit, and compassion.

Though the Rubensteins are a Jewish family, Goodman’s insights into sibling rivalry, parental pressure, and the ache of loss are universal. Readers of any background will recognize their own family in these pages, the love, the stubbornness, and the moments of grace that somehow keep everyone tethered.

This Is Not About Us doesn’t demand to be read in a single sitting, but it rewards those who linger over its pages, letting the connections between stories reveal themselves gradually. A wise, affectionate, and quietly powerful book about the way families fracture and heal again and again.

Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on February 10, 2026. 

Sadeqa Johnson’s Keeper of Lost Children showcases her gift for weaving complex histories together with deep emotional resonance. Set in the aftermath of World War II and spanning decades, this novel brings together three seemingly separate lives, Ethel, Ozzie, and Sophia, whose stories eventually converge in unexpected and moving ways.

Johnson’s premise is powerful: she shines light on the “Brown Babies” of postwar Germany, mixed-race children born to Black American soldiers and German women, often left in social limbo in both Germany and the United States, and ties that painful history to questions of belonging and identity in the U.S. Civil Rights era. The sections set in Occupied Germany are particularly vivid; the imagery of ruined cities, loss, and resilience lingers long after reading. Ozzie’s perspective, especially, offers a poignant look at the contradictions of fighting for freedom abroad while facing racism within one’s own ranks.

That said, the novel doesn’t always maintain even pacing. The transitions between timelines can feel abrupt, and at times the emotional impact of one story is diluted by the quick shift to another. Some character motivations, especially Ethel’s, could have used a bit more depth to match the strength of the historical backdrop.

Still, Johnson’s elegant prose and compassion for her characters carry the book. Keeper of Lost Children is both heartbreaking and hopeful, a meditation on motherhood, legacy, and the ways love can endure across distance and time. It is a thoughtful, moving, and worthwhile read for fans of layered historical fiction. This was 3.5 stars for me, rounded up because I learned much more about the mixed-race children born to Black American soldiers and German women and how some of them fared after the war.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this book. it will be published on February 10, 2026.  

What are you making and reading this week?