Book Review: "A Life In Stitches - Knitting My Way Through Love, Loss, and Laughter"

For any of those of you who may not know me personally, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I love to knit. No no, I mean really love to knit. And I'm blessed that I'm in a position where I can earn money doing what I love. Now, that said - finding this book was an absolute act of serendipity, as it was beside another, completely unrelated book on the shelf that I was actively seeking out, but the second I saw this one, I knew I had to grab it too. And what a sweet surprise I was in for!

First off, the author is from Oakland, California. Read as...less than 20 minutes away from me. O_O That was new for me; usually the closest a local author to me comes is about San Francisco! This was immediately followed by the crazy thought of omg, how come I don't know this person? We should totally be friends! Well, while I'm not crazy enough to go out of my way to seek her out or anything, the more I read about the stories of her life, the more and more I realized they closely mirror my own, and it almost felt like reading about a slightly older version of myself. It was the strangest feeling, but a really good one, needless to say. It was almost like feeling validated in my hobbies of choice; seeing that yes, there truly ARE others out there who not only partake in them, but succeed very much with them!

So enough about me. Back to the book. This is totally a feel-good book, and while it definitely helps to also be a knitter, I'm sure you could probably still get a lot out of it even if you don't personally know a thing about the craft. These are stories all throughout different stages of the author's life, from childhood onward. And this isn't your grandma's story: this is about a modern woman, living with her domestic partner, making her way in the world through not-so-traditional means, while at the same time, when you think about it.... what could possibly be more traditional than knitting and writing in the big scheme of things? There are tons of parallels of old and new throughout all the stories in the book.

Maybe I'm just a nerd, but I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of this book. :) 5 stars for you, Rachael Herron!