Unraveled Wednesday: 3/25/26

I’m happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today with a bit more knitting on the Dream Hitchhiker.

It probably doesn't look much different since the last time, but I added 12 more teeth, and I'm getting ready to start the third skein. There's quite a bit more to go, but it's pleasurable knitting, so I'm not in a rush. 

I finished two ARCs this week; one was pretty good and the second one was perfect. The Burning Side is one of those family dramas that pulls you in with crisis, a devastating house fire, and then slowly reveals the deeper, quieter burns already smoldering beneath the surface.

Sarah Damoff does an especially strong job capturing the complicated emotions of an extended family. The novel moves between perspectives, April, Leo, and April’s mother Deb, giving us a layered look at marriage, parenthood, aging, and the long shadows cast by childhood. The range of issues woven into the story is ambitious: divorce, dyslexia, Alzheimer’s, grief, and the logistical and emotional fallout of losing a home. At its best, the book holds all of this with real compassion and insight.

I particularly appreciated how Damoff portrays the push and pull of family life, the way support and strain often come from the same people. Deb’s sections, especially as she navigates her husband’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, felt grounded and deeply human. There’s a sense throughout the novel that love persists even when it’s strained, imperfect, or hard-won.

That said, the writing occasionally tips into the overwrought. There are moments where the prose feels a bit too heavy, as if reaching for emotional depth but landing instead in repetition or excess. A lighter touch in some sections would have made the strongest moments land even harder.

Still, despite those uneven patches, I found myself genuinely invested in this family and their outcome. Damoff’s strength lies in her empathy, and by the end, what lingers is not just the trauma they endure, but the ways they continue to choose one another. This is a thoughtful, emotionally rich novel about what survives, both materially and emotionally, after everything else burns. Three and a half stars rounded up.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on May 19, 2026. There is a goodreads giveaway if you are interested. 

I didn’t think Douglas Stuart could surpass Shuggie Bain or Young Mungo for me, but John of John is, without question, his finest work yet.

From its opening pages, this novel feels both intimate and expansive, rooted deeply in the rugged beauty of the Isle of Harris while quietly unraveling the emotional terrain of a son returning home. John-Calum’s homecoming is not just geographic; it’s a reckoning with identity, desire, faith, and the complicated inheritance of family expectations. Stuart captures this tension with such precision that even the smallest interactions hum with meaning.

What struck me most is the emotional restraint paired with devastating clarity. The relationship between Cal and his father is rendered with an almost unbearable honesty, love and disappointment braided so tightly together they’re nearly indistinguishable. And then there’s Ella, whose sharp tongue and hard-won pragmatism provide both relief and depth, embodying a different kind of survival.

Stuart’s prose is as luminous as ever, spare, poetic, and deeply attentive to place. The island itself feels alive: harsh, beautiful, and unyielding, mirroring the inner lives of its characters. Every detail, from lambing to weaving, grounds the story in a tactile reality that makes the emotional stakes feel even higher.

This is a novel about the quiet courage it takes to live truthfully, especially in places and families where silence has long been the norm. It’s about the cost of that truth, but also its necessity.

Devastating, tender, and exquisitely crafted, John of John is a masterpiece. Thank you to Edelweiss and Grove Press for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on May 5, 2026. 

What are you making and reading this last Wednesday in March?