2008: #29 – The Friday Night Knitting Club (Kate Jacobs)

Book #29 was The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs. The back of the book reads:

Juggling the demands of her yarn shop and single-handedly raising a teenage daughter has made Georgia Walker grateful for her Friday Night Knitting Club. Her friends are happy to escape their lives too, even for just a few hours. But when Georgia’s ex suddenly reappears, demanding a role in their daughter’s life, her whole world is shattered.

Luckily, Georgia’s friends are there, sharing their own tales of intimacy, heartbreak, and miracle making. And when the unthinkable happens, these women will discover that what they’ve created isn’t just a knitting club: it’s a sisterhood.

I don’t usually find myself picking books from the “chick lit” genre, but I read this for my initial foray into Books-a-Million’s book clubs. I liked this, but Georgia’s involvement in the club always seemed sort of periphery. It was always more Anita’s thing than Georgia’s, and I think allowing it to continue was just another way for Georgia to pretend that she was letting people in while she continued to keep them at arm’s length. I think it’s hard for even the reader to really get to know Georgia, and for that reason I connected more with some of the other characters, mainly Anita, Darwin, and Lucie. What happens to Georgia seems sudden and even unnecessary, almost turning this novel about “sisterhood” into a public service announcement. But overall I did enjoy reading this, and it’s even made me think about picking up knitting again (which I haven’t done in probably 20 years)!

Page count: 366 | Approximate word count: 109,800

2007: From Potter’s Field (Patricia Cornwell)
2006: Divided in Death (J.D. Robb)
2005: Abandoned Prayers (Gregg Olsen)