Review: The Knitting Circle

Summary: After the sudden loss of her only child, Mary Baxter joins a knitting circle in Providence, Rhode Island, as a way to fill the empty hours and lonely days. The women welcome her, each teaching Mary a new knitting technique and, as they do, revealing their own personal stories of loss, love, and hope. Eventually Mary is able to tell her own story of grief and in so doing reclaims her love for her husband, faces the hard truths about her relationship with her mother, and finds the spark of life again. - ww norton

I love to read and knit so I thought THE KNITTING CIRCLE by Ann Hood would be perfect for me. I enjoyed the book and the characters, but I have to admit that I didn't realize the book was going to be so sad. Each character that Mary meets in the knitting circle is there because knitting has helped them through some major life crisis. I agree with the idea that knitting is therapeutic -- I'm just glad that the therapy it provides for me is more stress-relieving. After reading this book, I realized that I would love to be part of a weekly knitting circle!

What I didn't know when I started reading this book was that this book was semi-autobiographical. The author tells the reader in the foreward for the reading group guide that she, like Mary, lost a 5 year old daughter. She credits knitting with saving her life. Ms. Hood also says that she met many troubled women through different knitting circles; and knitting "gave comfort and even hope through life's trials" for them too. Knowing that the author was writing this book from her own experiences definitely made the book more touching for me.

One thing I really enjoyed about the novel was how Ms. Hood had quotations from various knitting books at the beginning of each chapter. I also liked how she tied the different parts of the book into knitting terms such as casting on, knit 2 together, and casting off. For example near the end of the book when the characters had developed and began to recover from their trials, the part heading was called "Casting Off." (In knitting, casting off is removing your project from the knitting needles after you have finished.)

While this book didn't really have many surprises for me, I still thought the book was enjoyable. I think that the overall messages in the book are very true. I know that knitting is an outlet for some people and can help them with their troubles. In addition, I believe that finding people with similar interests can lead to beautiful friendships. But what I liked most about the book was the message that you can't start healing yourself until you help others. I hope I can remember this message next time I'm feeling sorry for myself and my little problems.

THE KNITTING CIRCLE does have a lot of themes to talk about such as death of a child, mourning, marital issues, illness, healing and friendships. It would definintely be fun to discuss it with your friends (or your knitting circle or your book club.)

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