My pliers and I have a strained relationship too.

That saggy lattice struggle is so real, mine always turns into a blob. Freezing after rolling makes sense since the butter gets cold again right before it hits the oven. Gonna try this on my next pie for sure.

Six to five is basically a coin flip, so I get why it felt messy. My club in Portland tried the back to back thing once with a two book series and by page 80 of book two I was skimming because the world had stopped feeling new. Waiting a month or two between books gave me time to actually miss the characters, and I caught way more on the reread anyway. Momentum sounds nice but a palate cleanser is not wasted time, it just lets the first book breathe.