Affairs of M/Men

This was a very sweet and cute story. I loved all the knitting stuff, and the wooing with knitted garments. It was adorable. There wasn't much of a plot, just the romance, but that was okay. I didn't find it dragging at all.

The one thing that did irritate me is that there is a significant age difference and there is absolutly no reason for it. The older guy is in his late thirties which is perfect. The other guy is in his mid-twenties, which is completely unnecessary. The story would have worked fine if he'd been even 30. The age difference isn't even acknowledged in the book. At least the younger guy wasn't still in his teens.

I just hate the romanticizing of relationships with significant age differences in this genre. Yes, those relationships can work and be healthy, but I've seen so many that aren't healthy at all, where the people aren't equal, the older person is clearly in control, the younger person doesn't have time to enjoy being young or the older person acts younger than their age. I think for a relationship to be successful, you need to be in the same place in life. Yes, that can happen when you're fifteen years apart but I think it's rare.

Okay, off my soapbox/milk crate. If you know nothing about yarn and how it's made or knitting, you'll learn a lot and as far as I know from my moderate experience it was accurate. I hadn't heard of sweeps before but it's a very cool concept.

My other problem with the book is that everything made, all the yarn and knitwear, is some combination of seafoam or turquoise and rust. Ick. The hat is described as having a little bit of rust at the crown and the "roll-up brim" as also being rush, the rest seafoam. Not only does that sounds godawful ugly, but it sounds really girly.

He was a very fast knitter. He whipped up the hat in seed stitch in one evening. I can make a hat in a couple of hours in stockinette, but as the guy says, decreasing in seed stitch is a bitch, plus the stitch itself is very time-consuming as you have to keep flipping the yarn back and forth between stitches. He must be incredibly fast to knit something like that so quickly. It's believable, I do know people who could do it, I'm just impressed.

The ending was rushed. They move in together a few days after they first kiss. I thought only lesbians did that. ;)

3.5 stars rounded up to four because of all the really cool knitting knowledge.