Unraveled Wednesday | Week 5 of 2025

Well, hello! Once again, I’m finishing up this post on Tuesday night. Waking up for writing has been difficult for me lately and I don’t want to leave anything to chance. I don’t want to mess up this little Unraveled streak I’ve had!

Today I’m linking up with Kat for Unraveled Wednesday, a weekly get-together for bloggers who love to read and stitch. I’m sharing a sweater swatch and three finished books – so, despite feeling a bit ragged, I have quite a bit to share with you!

Knitting:

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I swatched for the Moon Mint sweater this week. I recognized, after binding off, that I misread the stitch pattern for the body and am so thankful that I got this mistake out of my system before I cast on 290 stitches and had to undo them all! So now I can go into this pattern understanding what my needles are supposed to do and not make the same errors. Either way, this swatch indicates that I am on gauge with a US3 needle (bottom half). I also swatched with a US2 (top half) because I tend to have to go down a needle size but that was unnecessary, thank goodness.

I am hoping to cast on tonight? Maybe not. 290 stitches feels sort of daunting right now. We will see how I’m feeling as the evening wears on. But I’m pretty excited about how those greens are playing together, despite being a little worried that the small bumps aren’t very visible.

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Reading:

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
This is the story of 8 teenage girls who are competing for The Daughters of America cup – an elite boxing tournament for young women. The structure is unique – the brackets at the front of the book outlines the order of the fights. Each chapter focuses on the girls in the fight as Bullwinkel shows us bits and pieces of how the girl ended up where she is.

We learn why each girl wants to be the best boxer in the country and their reasons are vast and varied. They are from a broad range of walks of life and each brings something different to the ring. Most rewarding for me was when we saw glimpses into their futures, the places where their perseverance and experiences will take them.

I often found this book to be repetitive and to only scratch the surface of these girls’ lives. I wanted more! And the sport of boxing is pretty violent and I’m struggling with violence right now, so this was probably not the right time for me to read this one. I gave it 3.25 stars.

(With this book, I have now read all 13 books from the 2024 Booker Longlist!)

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Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
“There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, remember?”

I decided to reread Iron Flame while I was waiting for my preorder of Onyx Storm and it was an excellent decision. I enjoyed the second reading as much as the first and things made a lot more sense this go round. I feel like I’ll be going into Onyx Storm with a solid understanding of what’s happening.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot of this book because doing so would ruin the ending of the first book in the series, Fourth Wing. But in general – Violet is a cadet at Basgiath War College and is learning to become a dragon rider. Over time, she uncovers the truth about her country and the secrets the founders kept from its citizens under the guise of keeping them safe. In this second novel, Violet and her cohort fight for what they believe is right. In the first book, Violet and Xaden begin as enemies but that quickly changes. Their relationship takes quite a few hits in this second book — the biggest comes in the last few pages of Iron Flame. I cannot wait to read Onyx Storm. (And I adore Xaden!!)

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Madwoman: A Novel by Chelsea Bieker
Madwoman is an incredible description of domestic violence and all the reasons women choose to stay. This book is a thriller – Clove is working hard to outrun the trauma of witnessing the most heinous domestic violence as a child. She has lied to her incredible husband about her childhood and the debt she’s racked up as she tries to buy her way to peace. It all catches up to her when she receives a letter from her jailed mother — despite thinking that her mother believes that Clove died as a teenager. Her mother begs for her help, believing that she can be freed now that domestic violence is viewed differently, that what she did that fateful night could be considered self defense. Clove has no desire to allow her past to catch up with her.

This book is full of twists and turns that are somewhat obvious, but it doesn’t change the fact that the emotions and fear on the pages felt taut and urgent. I really enjoyed reading this and found myself breathless during the last 40 pages or so, worried about what was going to happen. Was the ending realistic? No, I don’t think so. And still – this book left me riveted.

Madwoman is on this year’s Aspen Words longlist and I’m crossing my fingers that it makes the shortlist! (Also, I’ve now read 9 out of the 14 books on the list. woohoo!)

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And with that, friends, I am off! We are expecting about 3″ of snow tonight which has me looking forward to my walk tomorrow. I hope your week is going well so far. Take good care!