The Friday Night Knitting Club

I picked up this book several times at Barnes and Noble, but kept putting it back down.  So when I saw it at the local thrift store I grabbed it.  I wish I hadn't waited so long, it is definitely worth the cost of buying.  


Georgia Walker is a single mom who owns a yarn store, Walker and Daughter.  Her daughter Dakota is a spitfire of a 12 year old who bakes for what becomes regular meetings.  A cast of women, both strong and weak makes the story balanced and even keel.  Anita is a 72 year old woman who is finding friendships and love later in life.  K.C. is a typical multi-tasking New Yorker.  Lucie is a quiet woman who is finding her voice.  Darwin is a feminist doing her research while separating herself from these women she doesn't understand.  Peri is a student working in the store part time as she goes for her own dreams.  Each woman becomes integral to the story, important to the life story of each other.  


After the last dud of a book I read, this was more than refreshing.  It weaves the stories of several women's lives as they intertwine into one beautifully knit piece.  Women with different stories, different sorrows, all come to these meetings.  Tentative at first, they grow to trust and love one another, a rare thing in their New York setting.  It has you feeling a range of emotions as the story unravels, until the ending wraps it up on a note of hope.  Of moving through the bullshit, moving through the hard times and being okay.  Dropped stitches, yarn woven too tightly or too loosely.  No one is perfect, but in the end the novel is a divine way to lose yourself.  


It discusses how hard it is to make friends later in life.  It's true.  More set in our ways of how we like our friendships, our expectations, it becomes harder to find people who fit the molds we've chosen.  But when we ease up a bit, when we choose to see people as they are with no expectations of who we want them to be for us, we find the thing we're looking for.  This novel is exactly what I was looking for though I expected it to be another fluff novel, good for a quick read.  Instead it turned out to be a quick read because I couldn't put it down.  Please check it out, I highly recommend it.  


(G suggested I do the Amazon Associate thing on here, so I am giving it a go.  If you click the link and buy the book then I think I get something like 1%.  But it does make posting images of books on here a whole lot easier!)