I picked up this book expecting a heartwarming story about women bonding over fancy yarn and clacking needles. Instead, the novel, determined to show an edgier side of knitting, meandered, struggled to find its voice and ultimately fell flat. Jacobs also sprinkled the text with mild profanity and occasionally the f-word.
The characters, although unconventional knitters, were cliché – the feminist grad student torn between family and idealism, a single mom struggling as an ex-boyfriend returns to build a relationship with their daughter, and a shallow New York socialite in a loveless marriage.
Unattached to the characters and annoyed by the lack of a cohesive story, I finally put it down, like so many of my own knitting projects, unfinished.
I completely disagree with labeling this as “DIRT”. Perhaps the reviewer didn’t finish the book? Sure…there was a little language BUT I enjoyed the relationship amongst the women in the knitting group and how they helped and lifted one another up amongst their individual problems. I thought it was a tad surreal that the old boyfriend came back and actually got back together and they lived happily ever after, if only that was a typical scenario in real life. I felt that the relationship between the main knitter and best friend was comforting to read how they made amends. Perhaps I don’t understand your ratings but I’ve read much worse books and to label this as “DIRT” I feel is a bit strong.
Melodi, thanks for the input. DIRT always means the reviewer didn’t finish the book because it already had a fair amount of strong content. Usually that just means the book would have been given a “high” rating had they gone ahead and finished. DIRT as a rating also doesn’t really mean that the book wasn’t well written; it just is a statement on content early on in the book. It’s also going to vary reviewer to reviewer; the other “regular” ratings won’t vary reviewer to reviewer. Someone else might have picked this up and finished it just fine and just given it a “high.” Thanks again for commenting, because the more information that we are able to provide our readers, the better. Your comment might tell someone who visits that they’d still like to read it, despite one reviewer’s feeling about the book being not worth “reading time.”