Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson | Summer Quickies
Romance at a Glance is a podcast where hosts Bridget and Shani review romance novels and interview some of romance’s biggest authors diving into candid conversations about life, relationships, and sexual desires. Expect 100% honest reviews, spontaneous singing, life lessons, indecent anecdotes, and bawdy humor. Leave us a rating and review on iTunes.
Full transcript available below.
Book Review at a Glance
Heroine Rating: Kerry
Shani: 🍑🍑
Bridget: 🍑🍑
Hero Rating: Jesse
Shani: 🍆🍆
Bridget: 🍆🍆
McDreamy to Mc Steamy:
Shani: a Mc Probably a fuck boy
Bridget: I guess a McDreamy?
Classy to Nasty:
Vanilla - PG 13 fade to black
Romance at a Glance Reviews Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson
AKA the greatest potential in an excellent setting that unfortunately didn’t hit home
We absolutely love the premise of this book. Four hot biracial adopted brothers inherit a knitting shop? Um, yes, please! However, this book was not a romance. It felt more like a family drama or a women’s fiction book.
Bridget was especially sad as she was hyped AF before reading this book.
We had a hard time getting into the writing style and the pacing felt very confusing. The first third of the book was very heavy on the exposition and telling us the plot versus helping us feel invested in the action and showing us what was happening.
At one point, Bridget thought a chapter was setting up a menage between two of the brothers and Kerry, and then realized she was crazy and that was not happening even though she wished it did!
Since they introduced the four brothers and how different they were, we were expecting more set up for the “next” romances with the other brothers in future books.
Unfortunately, since this book was marketed as a romance, we will say that Jesse and Kerry in their minds said they liked and lusted after each other, but their words and actions didn’t help me feel like they had chemistry. They were both all in their heads constantly with their needs, feelings, and desires and we did not think their romance was front and center, nor was the HEA earned.
A lot of romances will plant the seeds of the “obvious” solution to the main couples and to Bridget, the obvious ending was that Kerry uses her art therapy degree and runs her sessions/classes out of the knitting shop. This never happened but she kept thinking it would.
Some major points we discussed:
Liked that they are a tribe of brothers, do we smell sequel?
Shani loved to see brown people with brown people issues in Harlem dealing and worrying about bad landlords and gentrification.
The brothers being diverse gave us some hope for some good swirl action later. We wish other characters were introduced for them.
We wanted to like this book a 5 outta 5.
This book was too dam slow. It was over halfway through the book when they kiss for the first time.
The book was front-loaded with backstory and information that we felt could have been spread out throughout the book more organically.
The foreplay was nice and then…. WHATTTT fade to black????? Give me the sex. That's why I’m here. (From Shani Natch!)
Never got the chemistry from Jesse. He seemed immature and Kerry seemed unequally yolked with him. Now Lucas...yes
The characters were very 1 dimensional for me. For example Erica the girl who liked Jesse was a stereotypical mean girl. It doesn’t read authentic. There was a great opportunity to see the dynamics of the brothers bond and we saw little of that.
This burn was too slow and the writing style for me felt choppy.
On Romance at a Glance, we discuss and review all genres of romance novels, as well as get into the nitty-gritty of real-life romance, relationships, and sex... while cracking each other up. Expect some spontaneous singing, funny anecdotes, honest reviews, and naughty language.
Quick Guide Review of the Book and Notes
Book Title: Real Men Knit
Author: Kwana Jackson
Audio Narrator: Keylor Leigh
Part of a Series: Not at the moment
Genre: Black Romance, Contemporary Romance
Cover Art:
Shani: Love the timberland boots, the colors, and easy to read title.
Bridget: LOVE LOVE LOVE this cover. I’m not always into the illustrated covers, but the colors on this spoke my language and I was in.
Synopsis: Four adopted brothers inherit their late mother’s knitting shop in Harlem. Jesse, the youngest and playboy of the group, decides that he wants to give running the shop a go. The other three brothers, Damian, Noah, and Lucas are against the idea because they don’t believe in Jesse’s work ethic or follow-through, but decide to give him a shot. Jesse enlists the help of Kerry, Mama Joy’s part-time employee and surrogate daughter for nearly a decade, to help get him up to speed and reopen the shop for business.
Kerry agrees to help but keeps one foot and her heart firmly out the door because she’s heartbroken over Mama Joy’s passing, and worried she’ll lose her heart to longtime crush Jesse.
Heroine Rating: Kerry
Shani: 🍑🍑
Bridget: 🍑🍑 I wanted to like her and for sure did at moments… like when she was taking care of herself, showing she was a grown woman, running her job/store capably, but didn’t like the way she lied about her feelings, and despite him trying to include her kept distancing herself the whole book, all the way to the end. Hard for me to root for and believe in their love when she didn’t.
Hero Rating: Jesse
Shani: 🍆🍆
Bridget: 🍆🍆 Again, I feel like the descriptor of him had me, but the actual reading of him fell so flat for me. Never feels good enough, doesn’t feel like he deserves love (which is warranted from his childhood, except that he got adopted by Mama Joy who loved him wholeheartedly and he has 3 brothers who love him). I liked that he went and made amends, but didn’t like that the reason was for the business and not because he realized what a dick he was by dating and dipping out. Didn’t like also that he wasn’t willing to put his feelings on the line and talk to her honestly, till the grand gesture.
McDreamy to Mc Steamy:
Shani: a Mc Probably a fuck boy
Bridget: I guess a McDreamy?
Classy to Nasty:
Vanilla - PG 13 fade to black
Favorite Lines in the Book:
Favorite Review:
Shani’s from Goodreads:
I paraphrased Stephanie on goodreads
I have to admit that I wanted to like this book much more than I actually liked it. The synopsis sounded cute and I liked that there was a diverse cast. I was looking forward to some fun family dynamics between the brothers, too. Unfortunately, I found everything that happened really lackluster.
I wasn’t very impressed with the writing, though it did get better as it went on. The first couple chapters were extremely heavy on the internal monologues that set up the story was a massive info dump of characters and circumstances. I would have liked to have seen things start out a little more naturally and get to know the characters in a more authentic way. After two chapters I almost decided to DNF it since I knew I couldn’t take a whole book written in this way. However, I kept reading and it got a little better.
Overall, Real Men Knit left me underwhelmed. I really wanted to like it, but poor character development and a writing style I didn’t connect with kept me from really enjoying it. There were a few funny or cute moments, but they were too few and far between to make up for the rest of the story. While the book wasn’t for me, I’m sure there will be some others than can overlook the issues I had with it and enjoy the romance.
Bridget’s from Goodreads:
Bethany rated it 2 stars
I really wanted to love this one and while there are some great things here, it ultimately fell a bit flat for me. I might try future books in the series to see how things go because the premise is a cool one. In a nutshell, this first book had too much telling rather than showing, and had a hero that I just wasn't rooting for. I thought the heroine deserved better and unfortunately the point of this sort of romance is to convince me that the couple should be together.
Worth the Read?
Shani: Sadly, no. I do wanna see more from this author. This felt like a new premise and liked the specificity of the black culture and location.
Bridget: I wish it was a resounding yes, but if you’re looking for a romance novel, this isn’t it.
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Full Podcast Transcript
Recommendations:
Welcome to Romance at a Glance, a podcast that uses romance novels to dive into candid conversations about life, relationship dynamics, and sexual desires.
As hosts Bridget and Shani review books and interview some of romance’s biggest authors, they explore the breadth of the genre, openly embracing the sex, diverse couplings, and taboo in order to create a safe space for listeners to be exposed to different lifestyles, fantasies, and to pique their naughty curiosity.
Expect 100% honest reviews, spontaneous singing, life lessons, indecent anecdotes, and bawdy humor.
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