From Publishers Weekly
Three L.A. girlfriends keep it together with their Sunday morning knitting circle in LaZebnik's sophomore warm-fuzzy (after Same as It Never Was). Charming, irresponsible Kathleen Winters is dependent on her identical twin sisters (semi-famous actresses reminiscent of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen) for a paycheck and a home. After drunkenly spilling family secrets to a reporter, she sets off in a turquoise Mini Cooper to find an apartment and job of her own. Meanwhile, scientific researcher Lucy Cameron questions her career and love life as her lab and her self-righteous boyfriend become the targets of animal rights activists. Sari Hill faces the deepest conflict of all when the same "good-looking asshole" who tortured her brother in high school shows up with his autistic son at the autism clinic where she works. Each young woman re-examines her beliefs as the knitting projects—a hot pink bikini, a midnight blue baby blanket, a sweater—pass by. The tangled paths to three satisfying resolutions are marked by hot sex, an adorable gray kitten and, above all else, girl talk. LaZebnik juggles periods of personal crisis while maintaining her characters' complex individuality. Social knitters, especially, will relate to the bond that strengthens over the click-clack of the girls' needles. (Sept. 14)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
When you're in your late twenties and nothing in your life seems to be falling into place, knitting is an awfully seductive way to spend your free time. After all, as long as you're following the instructions, you can knit row after row with the knowledge that the pattern will emerge and you'll end up with just what you wanted. Life, on the other hand, doesn't come with a stitch counter, so Kathleen, Sari, and Lucy, the heroines of KNITTING UNDER THE INFLUENCE, just have to figure things out as they go along.
Their weekly Sunday knitting circle is the only thing holding them together as Kathleen is cut off financially by her family and forced to enter `the real world' for the very first time at the age of twenty-seven, Sari finds herself falling for the man who made her life a living hell in high school but who now desperately needs her help, and Lucy finds herself torn between emotion and reason when her lab and her boyfriend are assailed by an animal-rights group.
At their club meetings, they discuss the really important questions: how bad is it, really, to marry for money if you like the guy a lot anyway? Can you ever forgive someone for something truly atrocious that they've done? Is it better to be unhappily coupled than happily alone? And the little ones: Can you wear a bra with a hand-knit tube top? Is it ever acceptable to knit something for a boyfriend? And why do your stitches become lopsided after your second martini?
In Claire LaZebnik's hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking novel, Sari, Lucy, and Kathleen's lives intersect, overlap, unravel, and come back together-the result is an utterly satisfying read.
Their weekly Sunday knitting circle is the only thing holding them together as Kathleen is cut off financially by her family and forced to enter `the real world' for the very first time at the age of twenty-seven, Sari finds herself falling for the man who made her life a living hell in high school but who now desperately needs her help, and Lucy finds herself torn between emotion and reason when her lab and her boyfriend are assailed by an animal-rights group.
At their club meetings, they discuss the really important questions: how bad is it, really, to marry for money if you like the guy a lot anyway? Can you ever forgive someone for something truly atrocious that they've done? Is it better to be unhappily coupled than happily alone? And the little ones: Can you wear a bra with a hand-knit tube top? Is it ever acceptable to knit something for a boyfriend? And why do your stitches become lopsided after your second martini?
In Claire LaZebnik's hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking novel, Sari, Lucy, and Kathleen's lives intersect, overlap, unravel, and come back together-the result is an utterly satisfying read.
