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!

Book Review: "Knit The Season (A Friday Night Knitting Club Novel #3)"

Knit the Season is the final installment of the Friday Night Knitting Club trilogy by Kate Jacbons...and what a fine end to a series if ever I saw one. She gives our beloved characters a lovely send off.

As with many series finales, this book was writen to tie up loose ends. And that it does. Dakota is trying to find her footing in life as everything else around her seems to be changing in one way or another. As she's adjusting to all these shifts, she's still mourning the loss of her mother. As she prepares for this year's holiday season, it seems everybody has a story to share with her about her mother, all stories she'd never heard before, and all of which shed new light on what kind of person Georgia was. The little girl who thought she knew her mother better than anybody quickly finds out that there was quite about about the type of person her mother was that she didn't know about at all.

Given the twist endings of the first two books, I was on pins and needles (literally needles...I was knitting while reading the majority of this book) in tripidation of something bad happening at the end of this book. Especially with Gran slowing down, I kept fearing she might be the next Walker to go or something. I was relieved to not only find out she wasn't, but that there's no tragic twist ending on this book. Rather, the opposite.

Personally I love these books and wish this weren't the end of them, but who knows....maybe she'll write more of them someday! 5 out of 5 rating!

Book Review: "Knit Two (A Friday Night Knitting Club Novel, #2)"

The sequel to The Friday Night Knitting Club, Knit Two by Kate Jacobs brings back almost all of the old characters (minus Georgia, of course) from the first book so that we can see were everybody ended up 5 years later (and beyond, when you reach the end of this one). Unlike the first novel, which centered around Georgia, this book is a bit more equal opportunity to the rest of the characters and gives all of them more time to develop each of their storylines and personalities more in full. For this, I actually prefer this sequel to the original, but the sense of loss is palpable throughout the entire thing, and you can't help but feel like you, yourself, have lost a friend as well while reading it. While most of the other reviews I've seen of this book rave about how they like how Catherine got more of a storyline in this one, I guess I'm rooting for the underdog here. I love the fact that Anita, the lovable old woman, got so much page-time as it were to detail her engagement, upcoming nuptials, and the search for her long-lost sister. Of course, I also love everything about the Rome trip. ;) And it's kind of cool getting to see Darwin in so much more of a domestic role now. A lot can change in 5 years, and this book definitely goes into it. The story has a bit of a twist ending that yanked at my heartstrings, similar to how the first book did that at the end too, but I think it tied up some loose ends, as odd as it may be to say so over that particular ending.

I flew through this book quite a bit faster than the last one, and I'm rating it a bit higher; this one gets a 4 out of 5 star review.

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.