Book 11- Knit the Season

Knit the Season is the third in the Friday Night Knitting Club series by Kate Jacobs, a series that never should've been, in my opinion.

In this tome, dead Georgia's daughter Dakota is trying to focus on her future: graduate from culinary school and run the knitting cafe and knit shop, Walker and Daughter. But life's changes have a way of causing havoc on plans. Anita is still trying to re-schedule her wedding to Marty after her son's fake heart attack canceled the last one. Catherine is trying to decide if she should be willing to love again as she furthers her romance with Italian Marco. Her other friends Darwin and Lucie are juggling their own new and expanding families.

Will it all come crashing down around Dakota when she's invited by her father James, whom she suspects of having a new girlfriend, to spend Christmas in Scotland with her great-grandmother and her maternal grandparents Bess and Tom? What happens if Peri decides to move to Paris to make her pocketbooks Vogue magazine famous? What will happen to Walker & Daughter? And will Dakota survive?

I adored the very first book The Friday Nigh Knitting Club. I thought it was smart and well written and never really gave any consideration that Jacobs might pen a sequel, let alone turn it into a series. I think this will be the last book I read about this particular crew because I'm just tired of it. It's taking on the drudgery and trudgery that a series can (and more often, sadly, does), and is no longer fresh and fun. The plot is stretch thin and Dakota oscillates between a child and a woman, while the adult around her who helped raised her are never sure to treat her like the little girl they knew or the adult she is, but this conflict doesn't come across well in the writing. There are often platitude lines that sound like something from a Hallmark card, rather than "real" dialogue. I think the story is a bit weak and cheeky, and could really be a Lifetime Movie for the Holidays plot.

I wish the characters the best, but my journey with them stops here.

Book 9- The Gift

The Gift by Irish writer Cecelia Ahern is one of those "teach you a life lesson" sort of books, that just feels preaching, like a giant sermon or a Chicken Soup for the Soul sort of thing.

Lou is a jerk with a great job who buys lots of stuff and had lots of money but treats his family, his wife, and his children like crap, and claims he works all the time and is married to his job so he can provide for THEM even though we all know it's just for himself. Not only is he a crappy son (misses dinner with his parents on purpose, plans ways to avoid them, and hands off his father's 70th birthday party to his assistant that he's screwing), father (his daughter says she doesn't like him and his son screams in fear of him when Lou gets close, he doesn't know his children's ages, either) and husband (he cheats on his wife repeatedly with anything in a skirt and goes out drinking with the boys to avoid going home) but he's also a malicious employee, going after a job of a man who used to work in his office who had a nervous breakdown.

So he meets Gabe, a homeless guy and for some crazy reason he gives Gabe a job in the mailroom of his building. Then strange things start to happen and Lou is feeling stressed, knowing he has to be in two places at once. Gabe offers to help him out. And though they do look alike, this isn't a case where Gabe tries to be Lou's twin, but uses "magic" of sorts to help.

And there's a tragic ending. The entire story is told by a close to retirement age cop to a young kid who committed vandalism on Christmas day. The old cop tells the story to the bratty, foul mouthed teenager in an effort to teach him a lesson.

This story is trite and has been told in so many variations in the past, I was amazed it could get published again. I had zero sympathy for the main character Lou, none whatsoever. I realise it was released in time for Christmas but it still rings flat to me.

I was very disappointed in this novel because in the past I have been a fan of author Cecelia Ahern who authored PS I Love You and Thanks for the Memories. I always love that her books are set in Ireland, and specifically I was overjoyed at the settings of Dublin and Howth, both places I've been and have delighted in. But not even my joy with Dublin could make me enjoy this novel. Maybe the next one?