Ben Fletcher must get to grips with his more 'feminine' side following an unfortunate incident with a lollipop lady and a stolen bottle of Martini Rosso from Waitrose. All a big misunderstanding of course.
To avoid the Young Offenders unit, Ben is ordered to give something back to the community and develop his sense of social alignment. Take up a hobby and keep on the straight and narrow. The hot teacher he likes runs a knitting group so Ben, reluctantly at first, gets 'stuck in'. Not easy when your dad is a sports fan and thinks Jeremy Clarkson is God. To his surprise, Ben finds that he likes knitting and that he has a mean competitive streak. If he can just keep it all a secret from his mates...and notice that the girl of his dreams, girl-next-door Megan Hooper has a bit of a thing for him...
Review: wow I really totally loved this book. I felt like I was watching a TV show about some unlikely lads and how they all got themselves in and out of trouble. I laughed so much reading this and just generally had a jolly good time.
I think it was interesting that the whole premise behind this book is that Ben is doing things that are all requirements of his probation and yet I found myself forgetting so often that he had done something wrong and was now dealing with the consequences. I really liked Ben as a character and he really does seem like a decent stand up gentleman. There are even knitting magazines hidden under his bed where you might expect other kinds of magazines to be hiding as well. Ben's friends, as I mentioned above, are also interesting characters. They just remind me of the lads that I went to school with and one of them is even attempting to write a sort of Fifty Shades of Grey spin off novel-how hilarious is that?
This book is very very funny but there are also some decent messages for life in here too. Ben really does grow and change because of his court mandated knitting and community service. He really is a decent person to start with but gains a level of maturity throughout the novel. He also finds out what happens when a lie spirals out of control. There is a little romance in this novel, and not just between Ben's parents (who are very much as embarrassing as a teenage boy's parents should be) and I liked that there was just a smattering of that left in there. Despite the fact that there is some slightly offensive language in there and allusions to sex in some scenes, I think this would definitely be something entertaining for the younger end of the YA audience, with those disclosures in mind.
This is a very British read, despite me having read the US version and translating certain things in my head as I went along and I loved that about it. I really enjoyed getting to know Ben and his friends and also getting to know a little bit more about knitting and football (soccer). I would definitely recommend this read, it was very funny and thoroughly entertaining!
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