Knit Two

October 15, 2008
More-of-the-same sequel to The Friday Night Knitting Club (2007).

A predictable array of personal issues and preoccupations once again dominate the pages as Jacobs returns to the scene of her bestselling debut. Manhattan 's Walker & Daughter yarn shop provides the central setting for a group of women to knit and empathize; only its original proprietor, Georgia, is missing, having died from cancer in the first novel. Georgia 's biracial daughter Dakota is now 18, a student at New York University who is experiencing her first interest in a man. Peri, who took over the yarn business, worries that Dakota wants to supplant her (she doesn 't). Peri 's best friend KC has a high-powered job, but feels perimenopausal and anxious. Surrogate grandmother to Dakota, 78-year-old widow Anita, is finally marrying her lover. Georgia 's best friend Catherine feels the need for a family rather than more lovers. Lucie and Darwin are preoccupied with their mothering skills. Dilemmas concerning work, love, siblings, parenting and children are parceled out in various combinations to each character in an efficient but uninventive narrative that opens with a welter of links and recaps, continues minus any central focus and ends with most problems neatly solved.

Devotees of the formulaic original will likely enjoy this update, but new readers may balk at the banal observations, easy resolutions and group hugs.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2008
Jacobs's sequel delves into the lives of characters first introduced in the popular "The Friday Night Knitting Club". Five years after Georgia has died of ovarian cancer, her daughter Dakota and various members of Georgia's knitting club still occasionally meet at her knit shop. On the surface, the story is about what has happened to these women who formed deep bonds of friendship while learning to knit. Yet it really investigates grief and how each of the characters learns to come to terms with the loss of Georgia. Readers might find some of the events a tad un-realistic and the individual plotlines for each character a touch predictable as they develop and intertwine. Still, the novel's humor and pathos manage to make the women and especially Dakota very real and enjoyable to know. Knitting is not completely forgotten, as readers are left with a sense of how the craft has calmed these souls as they journey through their individual stories of acceptance and personal growth. Fans of Debbie Macomber's Blossom Street series ("The Shop on Blossom Street, A Good Yarn, Back on Blossom Street", and "Twenty Wishes") will find much to enjoy here. Definitely a required purchase for all public libraries.Margaret Hanes, Warren P.L., MI

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2008
Jacobs follow-up to the popular novel The Friday Night Knitting Club (2007) opens five years after Georgia Walkers tragic death from ovarian cancer. Her daughter, Dakota, is now a freshman at NYU, and Georgias former employee, Peri, is running Georgias yarn shop, Walker and Daughter. The group Georgia formed, the Friday Night Knitting Club, lives onin her absence despite how different all of the members are. Seventy-eight-year-old Anita is planning her wedding to deli owner Marty, despite opposition from her children. Serious professor Darwin is dealing with first-time motherhood and is frustrated that her best friend, Lucie, isnt around to help. Lucie is trying to juggle her career as a producer with caring for her aging mother and difficult daughter. Georgias best friend, Catherine, is reassessing her life and her failed relationships. Reading Jacobs second knitting novelis as warming and cheering asvisiting old friends. News of aforthcomingmovie version of the first book will increase demand.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)