Customer Reviews

Tightening the Knot

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book was good for an entertaining, somewhat "fluffy" read. I didn't really feel like the author took a whole lot of time to develop her characters or their backgrounds, which would have made this a much richer story. Towards the end, it felt as if she ran out of time (or ideas) and threw together an artificially "happy" ending. Very disappointing end to what could have been a really, really good book. It's worth the 99 cents that I paid for it, but I would have been upset if I had paid more!

Tightening the Knot by Amanda Hamm is a heartwarming tale of a young couple who is having difficulties in their marriage. These difficulties are rooted in the secret grudge that Meredith and her husband Greg are nursing towards each other. In an attempt to save their marriage, Meredith and Greg agree to attend a couple's only seminar called 'Tightening the Knot'.

Though the problems Meredith and Greg faces are serious, Hamm cleverly uses humor to play against the otherwise oppressive tone of the story. The reader is also given an intimate look at Meredith and Greg's lives and the way their broken marriage affects them in their relationship with other people including family, friends, and coworkers.

Tightening the Knot isn't the kind of book I'm known for reading. But it was a wonderful change of place from my genre driven reading habits and introduced me to a kind of fiction that I am now happy to say I am eager to read. The story is rather straightforward, but delicately told. I was impressed also by Hamm's deceptively simple prose style and the intriguing personalities that people her story. A personal delight for me was the fact that this is a book that anyone can read. There is no profanity or explicit scenes in this book. Just sheer wholesome and inspiring entertainment.

Tightening the Knot is a first class book that I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone looking for a light, but entertaining read.

I am tough to please and really do not enjoy reading if I am not GRABBED immediately. I have to really like the author and the content must be very engaging. This was fine, but I am still not done with it (not a great sign) as I think the author spends too much time with a character in ONE place (like at lunch with her friends)... just kind of began to bore me and I will eventually finish it, but I have to say, not loving it at much as some of the other chick lit I have LOVED (like the Jennifer Weiner books, Kissing Frogs in Cyberspace and Dating my vibrator).. all much more entertaining.

Tightening the Knot by Amanda Hamm is all about relationships: Meredith's relationship with her husband Greg, her sibling, her in-laws, her friends and to a lesser degree her co-workers and students. We know from the book's blurb that Greg and Meredith go to a Tightening the Knot seminar but they don't arrive there until Chapter 22. Until then, have fun getting to know Meredith and a whole cast of characters complete with their little quirks.

Meredith and Greg have been trying to have a baby for two years. When Meredith asks Greg to take a fertility test and he refuses, things start to go downhill. Meredith is at the point of signing papers to start divorce proceedings when she decides to give the marriage another chance. Being Meredith, she must be the instigator, the controlling force in the reconciliation, but she is so occupied with agonizing over Greg's reaction to anything she might say she doesn't get around to making that first move.

I remember one of those emails which went around years ago. After a date, a woman spends the rest of the night dissecting every aspect of the date and everything said. That woman surely is Meredith and being inside her mind and over-active imagination while she obsesses and agonizes is for me one of the best aspects of the story:

She spent the entire ride to work neurotically obsessing over this simple phrase. Did he realize he hadn't given her so much as a "goodbye" in the morning for quite some time? Was that why he said it? Could there be even the slightest chance that he also wanted to prove they didn't need his mother in the room to have a conversation? Then again, "Have a nice day" was hardly a conversation. It could have been a reflex. The odds of it having been a reflex actually seemed greater than the odds he had suffered over not saying anything the first time she left the house. How Meredith wished he had suffered over it. Not really suffered of course, but just agonized a little over it, like she would have."

Meredith interacts with a pregnant friend who is a reminder of what Meredith herself wants but cannot have, another friend who wants nothing more than to get married and have babies and a mother-in-law who drops enormous hints about her desire for a grandchild. Add an escapee pet, annoying students and their cantankerous parents and other personalities to the mix and you have to admire Meredith's outward appearance of cool while she inwardly deliberates ways to save her marriage.

When the right words won't come, Meredith resorts to other methods of letting Greg know she wants to heal the wound:

When he noticed her brushing her teeth, he asked, "You're going to bed now?"
She nodded.
They crawled under the covers facing opposite walls as usual. Then she moved an inch or two toward the middle and waited for him to notice.
She fell asleep waiting and woke up seriously annoyed.
A new box of cereal absorbed most of her wrath. It got a bit mangled as she opened it with significantly more vigor than was necessary, shooting Greg a few withering looks as though he might be responsible for making the box so uncooperative. He was accustomed to being more or less ignored over breakfast and the obvious hostility left him at a bit of a loss.
"Is there..." he started. "I mean, did I do something recently?"
Meredith was silent. She ate quickly and then finished getting ready for work. He tried one last quizzical look as she reached the door. She answered pointedly, "I went to bed early last night."
He looked unsure, but also hopeful. "Oh, so you're just tired?"

Meredith thinks Greg should automatically know what she wants him to do. Greg knows nothing of the sort.

Amanda Hamm manages to subtly infuse humor into even the most mundane situations: Meredith's days at school where she teaches fourth grade students, lunches with girlfriends, entertaining her in-laws over the holiday season; even Greg and Meredith's sudden foray into the mysteries of cleaning house and tidying up the yard. You won't want to miss a single word.

Some scenes made me chuckle, one of which involved Katie, a dog Greg is pet-sitting for a friend, who eats everything she can get her mouth around, including batteries:

Meredith laughed. She was only slightly concerned for the dog and already had the feeling this was going to make a good story, one that she and Greg could tell together. It was not exactly a romantic story, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it would still be something they would share. She loved making new memories, but her reverie was short. It was rudely interrupted by a horrible gagging sound. She turned quickly away. "I'm not watching; just tell me when you see batteries.""Um... yeah, there they are. Wait, no! No, no, NO! I don't believe this!"
"What?" Meredith spun around to see Katie licking the floor.
"She just ate them again."
"Ewww... again? That's so gross."
"What do we do now?"
Meredith shook her head. She didn't need to answer because it was obvious that Katie was about to give up the batteries a second time. Greg quickly put the leash on her and pulled her away as the mess hit the floor.
Meredith grabbed the leash. "Good idea. But this time I'll hold her and you deal with that." She pointed at the centerpiece of the less than delightful new memory.

And so Meredith picks up a church bulletin and sees an ad for Rejuvenate Your Marriage, a one-day marriage enrichment seminar. While she hesitates to show it to Greg and suggest they attend, Greg himself suggests it. They book into the hotel on New Year's Eve and participate in the seminar's somewhat absurd activities. Does Tightening the Knot bring Greg and Meredith back together again?

This is an entertaining read. If you like your humor a little dry, a little wry, a little droll, a little winsome with the occasional touch of pathos, you'll enjoy Tightening the Knot.

by Linda Welch, author of Along Came a Demon and The Demon Hunters.
Reviewed for The LL Book Review.

This was a very enjoyable read about marriage and the importance of communication. Definately worth the price and the time spent reading. Would recommend to anyone married or thinking of getting married.

The book seemed poorly written to my liking. It seemed like a first draft and some of the lines in it were cheesy, like "the had a banana split and split it." That's awful!