Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Cannonball Review #1: Knitting Under the Influence by Claire LeZebnik

I am finally (almost) out of school and can actually read something that is not a Marketing textbook.

Hooray!
*throws confetti*

Since I couldn't take anything remotely serious, my first book of the summer is "Knitting Under the Influence" by Claire LeZebnik. This book was lent by a lovely friend who knew that if I read something that I actually had to think about, I might throw myself off a bridge.

The plot is thus: Three girlfriends in L.A. meet up once a week to knit and drown their sorrows in cocktails. At one point they are actually doing this in a bar, which seems highly unlikely. I can't even count the number of things I've had spilled on me in a bar, and as a stitcher, there's no way in hell those drunks (or me drunk) are getting anywhere near my yarn (which is surprisingly expensive).

At any rate, the girls all have problems. Lucy is a lab researcher who kills rats for a living, but feels really bad about it since she apparently had some childhood dream to become a vet and save animals. Is this what passes for irony? Next there's Sari, a do-gooder who works at an autism clinic. Enter the good looking jock who used to pick on her autistic brother in high school. Shocker, he's got an autistic kid now and needs her help. And then there's Kathleen, who is completely dependent on her movie star sisters, and rebels by...running away from home? At 27? Seriously? All of their "problems" ultimately boil down to men-folk troubles. Lucy's boyfriend is being targeted by some PETA people, and he's a real a-hole to everyone, Lucy included. Sari wants the high school jock guy, and Kathleen is...planning to marry for money, and actively working (scoff) toward this goal.

In the end each character gets exactly what they want and everyone is all smiles. Because, of course, what else would happen? God forbid we have emotional growth.

Overall, I feel like I am being more harsh than this book really warrants. The writing is...well, not good. But for a summer-coming off of 4 years of college-beachy read, you could do a lot worse. You will finish the book not really caring about the characters (in fact, I had to look up their names for this post) but the good news is that you won't exactly hate them either.

And there are cocktail recipes in the back that are based on the knitting projects in the book. Because why not?

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