Friday Night Knitting Club

Books that feature a certain craft have become popular for the last few years. Somehow Friday Night Knitting Club made it to the New York Times bestseller list. They all seem to follow a similar theme. A story about women who gather to share their love of a craft while helping each other or solving a mystery (some are murder mysteries, go figure). This one, of course, features knitting.

A few years ago I read The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber. It is a similar story about a single woman who opens a yarn store. I didn't love this particular story but the characters interested me enough to finish it. I never did read the sequel(s).

The Friday Night Knitting Club is about several characters but centers on a single mom who, you guessed it, opens a knitting shop. Several women gather on Friday nights to stitch and gab about their lives.

I only read the first few chapters. None of the characters interested me at all. It's the same boring feminist literature that is so common. A struggling single mom becomes pregnant by a jerk who becomes an absentee dad until one day when he decides to grow up. Each and every character has some bad relationship which contributes to their need to pick up knitting for therapy. Boring.

I have to be fair and say that I returned the book. I can't say if the book gets better. I have heard there is some kind of tear jerker ending, but I wasn't willing to wade through the muck to get to it. The story has mediocre reviews, despite being on the NYT bestseller list. Even so, it has spawned at least two sequels: Knit Two and Knit the Season I am not opposed to reading these kinds of books, but for goodness sake they need to be a bit more interesting. Maybe like The Persian Pickle Club.

Book rating: I'd rather purl.