Unraveled Wednesday: 1/7/26

I’m happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today, with some (hopefully) better mittens in progress and continued Hitchhiker knitting. 

I haven't knit the thumb yet, but the Comfy Gusset Mittens are a much better fit for my hand. Jane sent me a link to a great youtube video about knitting perfect thumb gussets that I think will be helpful in knitting the thumbs without gaps. 

The gray Hitchhiker is growing slowly but surely. I'm a bit tired of mittens but i should probably finish the pair and actually knit the thumbs before I quit. But I am glad to have this Hitchhiker on the needles as it's what I've wanted to work on recently.

I caught up on some ARCs over the holidays but I'll save my thoughts on those for closer to the publication dates, especially because they aren't published for three months or more. I did read The Rest of Our Lives and found it a bit underwhelming. It begins with a genuinely intriguing premise; a man who has quietly promised himself that because of her affair, he will leave his wife once their children are grown has finally reached that moment. Instead of turning back home after dropping his daughter off at university, he keeps driving west. The first chapter is strong: reflective, restrained, and full of promise about what this reckoning might mean.

Unfortunately, for me, the novel doesn’t live up to that early potential. While the setup suggests an emotionally charged exploration of marriage, betrayal, regret, and self-deception, the story quickly loses focus. As the road trip progresses, the book devolves into something more random, a series of loosely connected visits, memories, and observations that never quite cohere into a satisfying whole. The narrative begins to feel like a string of digressions rather than a journey with momentum or purpose.

There are moments of insight along the way, and Markovits is clearly interested in the quiet textures of middle age: the ways we rationalize our choices, the things we avoid naming, and the lives we might have lived. But those ideas are often buried under rambling reflections and disconnected bits and pieces, which left me feeling impatient rather than contemplative.

This is a novel with an interesting premise and real promise at the start, but one that goes quickly downhill after that. I can see it working better for readers who enjoy meandering, introspective road trip novels, but I finished it wishing it had stayed closer to the emotional clarity of its opening pages. Two and a half stars rounded up.

What are you making and reading this week?