Sonderbooks Book Review of The Shop on Blossom Street

Reviewed May 25, 2004.
Mira Books, Ontario, Canada, 2004. 344 pages.
Available at Sembach Library (F MAC).

I knew I would love The Shop on Blossom Street as soon as I discovered that it’s a book about a group of ladies who knit together. Debbie Macomber’s letter at the front of the book tells us, “My life is filled with passions, and one of the strongest is knitting.” I feel the same way!

Lydia Hoffman is opening a yarn shop as an affirmation of life. She’s had cancer twice, and now the father who helped her through died instead, of a heart attack. She’s afraid of relationships, afraid of commitment, but she decides to open a yarn shop and really start to live.

For her first class, three women come from totally disparate walks of life. High society Jacqueline wants to knit a baby blanket for her beloved son’s expected child, even though Jacqueline despises her son’s wife. Carol sees the sign about the baby blanket as a sign that her third and final attempt at in vitro fertilization will finally work and get her and her husband the baby they so desperately want. As for Alix, she thinks maybe she can knit a baby blanket as part of the community service time she owes for getting found with her roommate’s drugs.

The story is told from the viewpoints of the four ladies, with alternating chapters, as they all go through some difficult times in their lives and in their relationships with men. Lydia’s chapters all begin with a quotation about knitting. (I’ll use my favorite as this issue of Sonderbooks’ Quotation of the Week.) This book is like a blanket—light and fluffy, but wonderfully heartwarming. Women who have had the chance to knit with others will love it, but so will people who’ve ever had good friends. I’m planning to pass it to my knitting buddy before I take it back to the library.

Reviews of other books by Debbie Macomber:
A Good Yarn
The Christmas Basket
There's Something About Christmas
Christmas Letters
Summer on Blossom Street

Reviews of other novels about knitting:
Knitting, by Anne Bartlett
Died in the Wool, by Mary Kruger

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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

*****The Shop on Blossom Street*

by Debbie Macomber