The Friday Night Knitting Club

by Kate Jacobs

When this book opens up, we meet a young woman in her late thirties named Georgia Walker. Georgia is a single mother to a vibrant twelve year old daughter named Dakota. Georgia is also the owner and proprietor of Walker & Daughter, a yarn and knitting shop in New York City. It isn't long before we start meeting some of Georgia's associates and customers. One at a time we are introduced to individual woman who are all very different. What began as a lark and as an impromptu gathering quickly becomes a regular nightly event, dubbed the Friday Night Knitting Club.

We get glimpses into Georgia and Dakota's daily life together, and we learn that Georgia is a very strong woman, and her daughter is taking after her. And then Dakota's estranged father enters the picture, regretful of missing the first twelve years of Dakota's life. Georgia is very cautious about letting him back into their lives, their relationship ended when he became unfaithful, and he left without even seeing his daughter once.

This novel was touted as a great story about women and friendship and family. And I get that, I do, but I really found this novel lacking in so many ways. I enjoyed the storyline for the most part. I found it believable, and it almost had me digging out my knitting needles to give knitting another whirl. But the dialogue really bothered me. It really was poorly done- the conversations these people had with each other simply didn't make sense some of the time. A conversation that should be deep and meaningful is wrapped up in just a sentence or two. The dialogue just felt really contrived to me at times, and really took away from the story, in my opinion.

Other things just seemed inconsistent to me. One of the characters creates a line of felted purses, and of course, another club member knows a buyer for Bloomingdale's and gets Bloomies to order some of these felted purses. I know a thing or two about retail and buying, and that just was not believable to me. Idealistic and nice, maybe, but not realistic in the least.

I don't know. I did enjoy the book, I enjoyed the characters, but felt there could have been so much more substance to each one of them. I also just learned that a movie is in production, featuring Julia Roberts as Georgia Walker. It will be interesting to see, but I daresay (without spoiling the ending too much) we've already seen Steel Magnolia's once. I think a movie version could give some great depth to the people in this novel, so with any luck it will improve upon the story.

I recommend this book with reservations. There are many, many holes, unanswered questions, and unresolved issues. I can only hope that a sequel is in the works to shed some light on the lives of the other members of The Friday Night Knitting Club. It's an enjoyable enough story, but it didn't move me to tears, or keep me up late into the night. It was a good read, but not one I'll likely pick up again.