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1 out of 5
by
Michelle
from
Washington, DC | Dec 7, 2007
I just picked this up at the library because there was nothing else there. The reviews I've scanned give me pause, but hey, I haven't read any blatant chick-lit in quite a while...we'll see.
*****
And one week later, I can say this: I hated this book. I hated the way the author used nothing but sentence fragments. To emphasize her points. Everyone thinks and speaks in four. Word. Sentences. Can you imagine reading this writing style for an entire book?
Because it continues for the entire 300+ pages.
You would think that the phalanx of editors and advisors that she thanks at the end would have put a stop to the madness and introduced her to the concept of the semicolon. Or at the very least an em dash or two. But no.
And the melodrama! I think I read that it's being made into a movie, which doesn't surprise me at all. It's like the author wrote a book that she hoped would eventually be made into a movie. A bunch of women, one of whom becomes mortally ill ... hey, that worked for Steel Magnolias, why not for a knitting club? It'll be a hit!
So if you're in the mood for a poorly written book that tugs at your heartstrings in a very calculating way, this is the book for you.
25 people found this review helpful
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1 out of 5
by
La Petite Américaine
from
37100, Italy | Dec 9, 2008
Reading this book made me want to gouge my own eyes out with knitting needles. My throat got sore from all of the groaning I did page after page. Let me give you some examples of suckiness:
All the non-white characters are described as having cafe au lait skin or mocha skin.
Some of the sloppy writing and editing did turn out to be quite funny, such as when a character remembers visiting her grandmother in Scotland and they "sat by the fire wearing nothing but their socks." Since I assume granny and child don't sit naked save for their socks by the fire, it was good for a shudder and a laugh.
There's a graduate student named (wait for it) DARWIN. Oh GAD! Because she's in grad school. So she's smart. So she should be named Darwin. GAH!!!
The grandmother is a sage old woman with an answer to everything, with excellent life advice, including such gems as "Life is what you make of it." Oh. Really? OMG! I'm enlightened.
Knitting is supposed to be a central theme, but really it's just there as an excuse to call this crappy mixture of boring women's lives a "valid" book.
When one of the guys meets up with another guy for a beer, he says "I think I'm falling in love with my family." And the other guy clinks his beer bottle and says, "Congratulations, you've just become a man." Oh. Yes. Because men talk this way. When they have vaginas and are actually women. GAD!!
The main character is killed off by cancer because, you know, she was such a saintly, good character, so why not kill her to inspire some tears and create some sort of heartwarming feeling in readers? Besides, where was the story going anyway ... if she didn't die the ending would have to have been "and they lived happily ever after."
Yah, bad book, story sucked, it was too long, writing was terrible, and it was obviously published just because the author has worked in publishing for years.
Sucked.
39 people found this review helpful
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3 out of 5
by
Michele
from
Tucson, AZ | Jun 26, 2007
Knitting is a Nice Device, But . . .
The idea of a knitting group--a group of women gathering on a regular basis forming bonds of friendship and sharing life experiences--was the alluring premise of this book, and the reason I bought it. That's definitely what this book is. But is it a riveting story? Did I fall in love with the characters and turn pages with eager anticipation to see how the story would play out? No and no. I struggled turning pages of this book as much as I'd probably struggle trying to knit a sweater. This was like the waste of expensive yarn, a piece crafted with a big idea and little talent.
The writing isn't bad, but I wouldn't describe this effort as "well-written." It's average at best, lacking originality or memorable prose, and I felt it was littered with clichés and contrived dialog. As for story, it's primarily character-driven with focus on the main character, Georgia Walker, a single mother who owns a yarn shop/knitting business on the upper west side of Manhattan. The club consists of her daughter Dakota, a bi-racial 12-year-old, who flits in and out of the club with baked goods and entrepreneurial ambitions, and is as charming and annoying as any 12-year old; a widow named Anita who is Georgia's "mentor;" an "academic" named Darwin (who annoys everyone in the club as well as this reader); a 40-year-old single woman (who I believe works on a documentary about the knitting club) who fools a date into getting her pregnant; an aspiring purse designer and part-time worker in the shop; a woman in her mid-40s hoping to get into law school; and probably the most entertaining character, Georgia's childhood friend Cat (nee Cathy) who is an uptown socialite on the verge of divorce. When she's on the page, at least there's some conflict you can sink your teeth into.
Dakota's father, James, returns to Georgia's life in this tale, and is a cardboard character who fails to charm the reader as much as he seemingly charms everyone else. And Georgia's grandmother, a 90-something Scottish sage comes into play as a touchstone to...something. I think Georgia's visit abroad is supposed to be really important but it wasn't until page 260 when Georgia receives some life changing news that the question, "What IS this book ABOUT?" had an answer.
The Friday Night Knitting Club is a debut novel and I believe it has a first novel feel. It made me think, "nice effort and good for the author for getting it published;" however, I cannot recommend it. There was, however, one quote from the book I thought was rich, and this was in regard to mother-daughter relationships: ". . . what these daughters really wanted was to be able to bare their souls to the one person in the world who would love them without restraint, whose approval was priceless, who would find them and their myriad life issues endlessly fascinating." If my daughter wrote this book, I would indeed be proud of her.
13 people found this review helpful
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2 out of 5
by
Leighann
from
The United States | Apr 11, 2008
I'm giving this two stars: averaging one star for the first half and three for the second half. Through the first half of the book I kept thinking, "how are they going to make a movie of this?" It was just all these separate women and their individual stories and none seemed to have anything to do with the others. They did all come together at the end, though. The first thing that really got my attention was in Darwin's story. She was talking about how she was a good girl, but she didn't want to be a good girl. She said that she didn't want to burn money for her dead ancestors on Chinese New Year. Having grown up in Asia, I can tell you no one burns money or anything else during Chinese New Year (which lasts for 15 days). Money is burned for dead ancestors at the Feast of the Hungry Ghosts. I just hate it when authors write about something they don't know about and don't bother to check it out. She also mentioned about not wanting to go the Sunday School and skipping church. Anyone going to church likely isn't burning money for dead ancestors in any case. The part about Julia Roberts was weird, too. If the lady was so certain Ms. Roberts was going to show up at that particular yarn store on that particular, why not just hang around by the front door? If someone bought and returned the same item all day long at my store (if I had one) I'd put a stop to it. And why did she stagger in slurring something about "roooobbbeerrrs" at the end of the day? Was she drunk? Overheated? Dehydrated? Deranged? That was just kind of left dangling. I also didn't understand about the letters.
Georgia had gotten two letters from James that she never opened. Yet he was sending checks to help with Dakota's expenses and she opened all those. How is it she opened the later envelopes that contained checks but not the first two where he said he wanted to get back together? I wondered, too, about the evening gowns Georgia knitted. If she was capable of doing that, why did she wait to be asked? She could have knitted a few and sold them to some boutiques. For someone who managed to be a single parent and run her own business and do a good job at both, she seemed to be short-sighted about breaking into the fashion business. Peri got right down to business with her knitted purses and had them in store windows in no time. And my final question was about the trip to Scotland. Georgia decided Dakota could miss a little school since it was "just seventh grade". I thought they'd only be gone a week. When it was revealed they spend a month in Scotland, I figured she'd just missed the last week of school. Then they came back and Dakota had to go back to school. It doesn't matter what grade you're in, missing a month means you're going to have repeat the grade. No one can miss that much school. They'd probably withdraw your enrollment.
I wasn't too impressed with the character who tricked her date into getting her pregnant. That was just uncalled for. Who conducts themselves like that? I also could have done without the bad language. These are all college educated women, surely they didn't have to resort to four-letter words to get their points across.
It could have been a good book, but there were so many thing that just made no sense to me. I think the movie might be better, though. If they just hit the highlights it should make a good story.
11 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
Kellie
from
Charlotte, NC | Jun 19, 2008
This was a very moving, character driven novel. Loaded with emotion, The Friday Night Knitting Club is about women who become friends through a knitting club that was formed by accident. Walker & Daughter is a knitting store formed by single mom Georgia. With the help of her dear friend Anita, Georgia runs this NYC store with not only great knitting supplies and projects, but with some friendly guidance and advice, (not necessarily on knitting). The knitting club forms when a handful of women start coming to the store on a regular basis every Friday evening. These women come together and start to develop friendships that help get them through some stressful times in their lives. I thought the book started out with a bang. I wanted to keep reading until I finished. The second part of the book went from a thoughtful, emotional character driven style to a more story-telling narrative. This didn’t take away from the novel but it was obviously different. I couldn’t wait to get to the end to find out what happened. I probably read it way too fast. One of the interesting things about this book: The author used the craft of knitting as her introduction to each of her chapters. Excellent book! Highly recommend!
8 people found this review helpful