Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson

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Title: Real Men Knit
Author: Kwana Jackson
Published by: Berkley
Release Date: May 19, 2020
Format: eARC
Pages: 336
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Diversity Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 New Release Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Quarantine Edition
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

When their foster-turned-adoptive mother suddenly dies, four brothers struggle to keep open the doors of her beloved Harlem knitting shop.

Jesse Strong is known for two things: his devotion to his adoptive mom, Mama Joy, and his reputation for breaking hearts. When Mama Joy unexpectedly passes away, he and his brothers have different plans for what to do with Strong Knits, their neighborhood knitting store. Jesse wants to keep the store open. His brothers want to tie off loose ends and close shop....

Part-time shop employee Kerry Fuller has kept her crush on Jesse a secret. When she overhears his impassioned plea to his brothers to keep the knitting shop open, she volunteers to help. Unlike Jesse, Kerry knows the “knitty-gritty” of the business, and together they make plans to reinvent Strong Knits for a new generation.

But the more time they spend together, the stronger the chemistry builds between them. Kerry, knowing Jesse’s history, doesn’t believe their relationship can last longer than she can knit one, purl two. But Jesse is determined to prove to her that he can be the man for her forever and always. After all, real men knit.

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

3 stars — I was so excited for this book.  1) Guy knitters??  Yes please!  My hubby is a sexy male knitter, so I’m all over that.  2) Look at that cover!  3) #ownvoices book with main characters of colour??  WOOP!

But…well…I kinda had to push myself to finish this book, and if it hadn’t been a NetGalley ARC, I probably would have DNF’d it.  It was just kind of boring.  The beginning especially was a LOT of time in the characters head, with basically nothing going on, but continually going over the emotions that they were feeling with the loss of Mama Joy.  So much so it sort of lost the emotional impact for me.  The ARC was clearly before a final editing pass, so I had to contest with quite a few wrong word choices, and some sentences that didn’t make sense in context (perhaps a previous paragraph was removed?).  So I can’t say for certain what would have made it through to the final copy…but it was probably more distracting because I wasn’t that invested in the characters.

Jesse and Kerry had some good moments, but in general they were kind of flat.  Their love story was also RIDDLED with lack of communication and misunderstandings, and while I’ll handle a bit of that, it was basically their entire romance.  And as a romance?  This book was meh.  It took forever before they started making any moves in that direction, and then they were both focused on what they thought they knew about the other, and about keeping the relationship physical only.  Needless to say, I just wasn’t sucked in.  While the steamy scenes weren’t explicit, there were some good moments.

What I loved most was the story surrounding how the Strong Knits store had become such an important part of the community, and wanting to continue that tradition.  I loved the side story with Errol, and the subtle ways they tackled some toxic masculinity.  I also mostly enjoyed the journey of Jesse discovering his passion…but only mostly because he never really figured that out for himself, and at the end it felt like he still felt he was worthless.  Which was a bummer.

I learned more things through reading this book, by having to google things….I love that.  And now I want a chopped cheese.

As far as other secondary characters, I expected to love the brothers more than I did.  Damian was awful…and while I know there’s a backstory, I just don’t care.  Lucas’s behavior was confusing.  Noah was the star IMO, seriously adorable.  Kerry’s friend Val was fun and spunky, but missing a bit of depth.

So yeah.  I feel like with some editing and tightening up on pacing, this story would bring more.  I still probably wouldn’t have loved it, but it would have prevented me wanting to DNF at least.  Ah well.