Come and join the Knitting Club yourself (The Friday Night Knitting Club - Kate Jacobs)

Member Name: mummy2harry

Product:	The Friday Night Knitting Club - Kate Jacobs
Date:	10/12/07 (153 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written story, well developed characters, a great read

Disadvantages: I found it a little tough to get into

I actually finished reading this book about a day before I went on holiday but I didn't get a chance to review it before then so I hope I won't forget anything as it was such a brilliant book, I want to be able to give it the good review that it deserves!

This isn't the normal sort of book that I would pick up, as I stupidly presumed it was about knitting and that was it! I finally got around to reading a synopsis of it on Amazon, and when I read that it was also going to be turned into a film starring Julia Roberts, I thought that maybe it would be quite good, so I popped down to the library and took out a hardback copy, which was quite large but I started to read and was pleasantly surprised by it!

The story follows a woman named Georgia Walker and her daughter Dakota, who both live in New York City. Georgia runs a small yarn shop in the city, called Walker and Daughter which supplies wools and patterns to people who love to knit. The shop has a little group of regulars who pop in to get their wools and advice from Georgia and her assistants, and soon enough the group begin to meet on a Friday for a session of the Friday Night Knitting Club.

The group are a diverse group of women, from a wealthy businesswoman who was widowed a few years ago, and who gave Georgia the impetus to actually open her shop after having her daughter 10 years ago. Anita helps out at the shop, and also looks after Dakota, as her own grandchildren live very far away and she is incredibly close to the mother and daughter. There is also a PhD student named Darwin, who doesn't actually knit but attends for a chat and to escape her chat. There is also a television producer, a rich socialite who has recently seperated from her husband and a student who also works in the shop, so a wide variety of characters.

I found the story was very well written and easy to read which made it a pleasure. I will be honest and say I found it hard to get into at the start, as there was just a lot of narrative and introduction of the characters, but once I was into the writing style of the author, I appreciated her writing and her narrative which was very detailed, and which gave a great and interesting background story to not only the main characters of Georgia and Dakota, but of all of the characters, so you can really sympathise with them and get involved in their stories, making it a great read.

I think for a debut novel, this is a superb one, and one which will be an incredibly popular novel. Although I haven't seen that it has been widely publicised in England yet, I expect that this will fly off the shelves and out of the libraries when the film is released sometime next year, especially with a big star such as Julia Roberts headlining the movie! The writer has taken a somewhat old-fashioned hobby such as knitting, and has made it interesting with a good lot of information about knitting throughout the book, which isn't boring yet helps you to understand the knitting speak dotted throughout the book. There isn't anything over-technical but just some general information, and it gave me an interest in re-learning some of the knitting skills I have lost!

If you enjoy a well-written, interesting novel, then this is the book for you. It is essentially a book following the lives of a group of women, with the odd bit of knitting thrown in through the book, and is such an easy and wonderful read. You can really immerse yourself in the story, and I am unashamed to say that I really did shed a tear at the ending, which is possibly the biggest shock-ending I have ever read in a book!

The book is now out in paperback on Amazon for £3.49, but sells in bookshops for the RRP of £6.99. The book is published by Hodder Paperback and contains 432 pages. ISBN: 978-0340922194. By Kate Jacobs. For more information on the author, see her website; http://www.katejacobsbooks.com.

Thank you for reading.

Summary: Superb story