Unraveled Wednesday: 4/1/26

I’m happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today with a Hitchhiker photo that looks much the same as last week, but if I had remembered to take a photo while it was still light out, you might be able to spy 9 more teeth. 

The temperature got up to 80 degrees for the past two days so it was kind of sweaty and uncomfortable to have the Hitchhiker on my lap. I think today is supposed to be another unseasonably warm day, but hopefully we'll get back to better temperatures so it will be more comfortable to work on this. I can see that I need to finish this before summer really gets going!

I finished two books this week; one was a decent read and one was spectacular. Set in 1977 suburban Rochester, Lake Effect explores a moment of restlessness that ripples through two families, beginning with Nina’s impulsive affair and radiating outward into her daughter Clara’s life for years to come. Sweeney is at her best when she captures the quiet dissatisfaction of adulthood and the way a single choice can fracture a family’s sense of stability. The writing is observant and often wry, especially in its portrayal of marriage, longing, and the stories people tell themselves to justify their actions.

But this is also a book where nearly everyone behaves badly, and not always in ways that feel illuminating. The adults make reckless, self-absorbed choices, but what’s more frustrating is how those patterns echo into the next generation. Clara, as a grown woman, remains stuck in the emotional wake of her mother’s decisions, yet she, too, makes choices that are difficult to sympathize with. Instead of deepening the novel’s themes, this generational mirroring sometimes makes the story feel repetitive rather than revelatory.

The title is a strong and fitting metaphor. A lake effect storm, when cold air sweeps over warmer water and produces sudden, intense snowfall, perfectly captures the emotional climate of the book. Small shifts in temperature lead to outsized, unexpected consequences, and Sweeney seems interested in how quickly lives can be altered by moments of desire or impulsivity. Still, like those storms, the impact here can feel more blustery than transformative.

In the end, Lake Effect has moments of insight and emotional truth, but it didn’t fully cohere for me. It was kind of a fun read for me to see just how badly the characters could behave, but not one that lingered much past the last page for me. This was three stars for me.

I’ll admit it: I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to leave Olive Kitteridge behind. There’s something about Olive, her sharp edges, her loneliness, her unexpected tenderness, that lingers long after the last page. So when I opened The Things We Never Say, I did so with a tiny bit of reluctance, unsure if I was ready to trade her in for Strout's newest character.

But Elizabeth Strout knows exactly what she’s doing.

Artie Dam is, in many ways, the opposite of Olive, gentler, quieter, more inwardly unsettled, but he is every bit as real. He’s a good man, simply trying to live in a world that often feels confusing and off-kilter. Strout captures his inner life with such precision that his questions, about marriage, about how little we truly know even the people we love, and about truth and the things we never say are ones that felt much like questions I've asked myself.

And that’s the magic here: nothing “big” needs to happen for everything to feel enormous. A single revelation ripples outward, forcing Artie (and the reader) to reconsider what a life is made of, what we say, what we don’t, and what it costs to keep certain truths buried.

What sets Strout apart, too, is her ability to write about the current political and cultural climate with honesty and restraint. She doesn’t grandstand or simplify; instead, she lets it seep naturally into her characters’ lives, the way it does in ours, through unease, conversation, silence, sometimes quiet division, and being appalled and horrified daily. It’s one of the few portrayals in fiction that has actually felt true. As always, her prose is deceptively simple, clean, precise, and deeply compassionate. She sees her characters clearly, flaws and all, and loves them anyway. And because she does, we do, too.

There’s a passing reference to Olive Kitteridge that made me inordinately happy, one of those small, perfect moments that reminds you all of Strout’s characters exist in the same emotional universe. It felt like running into an old friend when you least expect it.

By the end, I wasn’t missing Olive anymore (well, not quite as much). Artie Dam had taken his place beside her as another beautifully drawn, fully human character trying to make sense of things that don’t always make sense.

Five stars for a novel that feels both intimate and expansive, and for a writer who continues to illuminate the quiet, complicated truths of being alive.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Random House for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on May 5, 2026. 

What are you making and reading this April Fool's Day?