Book Review: "The Friday Night Knitting Club"

I have to admit, when I first heard mention of The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs on the Goodreads website, I was instantaneously filled with glee. You see, I just picked up knitting as a new hobby last November. Everything about it still excites and thrills me. To see that it was the cornerstone of a novel? Oh my goodness! Instantly it was filed into my "to reads" list (of which, if any of you have me added over on that site, know is quite the lengthy and extensive list indeed). I'm limited only by what my local library system has on its shelves, and many times, they don't have some of the titles that I get most excited about. I was delighted to see that this one, they did have. I found it slightly daunting that almost every review for this book on the website were about 2 stars and below on average. Still, I pressed forward, figuring that the people rating it so low probably aren't even knitters and "just don't get it".

The story itself is very much a Seinfeld-esque set-up. Set in NYC, the story basically outlines the life and adventures of Georgia Walker, owner of the Walker & Daughter yarn shop, as well as her family and friends. For much of the book, nothing particularly noteworthy happens as far as plot - it's one of those stories where it's just a slice of life in each of these characters' lives. I almost found it hard to keep turning the pages, but I wanted to see where it was going. There had to be some good reason that this story got published, other than the kitschy literary devices of using aspects of knitting to teach life lessons.

And then I reached the bombshell. A mere few chapters before the end of the book.

I'll give you a spoiler: the main character dies.

And you do NOT see it coming. At all.

It's enough to tear at your heartstrings - I actually did cry when I hit this part of the story. I didn't emotionally connect with much of anything else in the entire book, but when THAT happened...oh my lord. Where did THAT come from?? It TOTALLY blindsides you, but at the same time, it happens in a very realistic way. You DON'T always see it coming when you lose a close friend. Sometimes they literally are fine one minute, and within a matter of hours, they're gone. I think the reality of this drives deep at home, and THIS is what places the book in amongst the best-sellers lists.

I feel like the dramatic moments should have been spaces out intermittently across the length of the book, rather than keeping everything SO calm and casual almost the entirety of the book and saving it all up for the ending. The writing style was also fairly dry and kind of boring for the majority of the book, which makes trying to continue reading particularly difficult. But I did it, and I'm glad I did. Now....two more books to this series to get through...

I rate this book a 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.