theremightbecupcakes's Reviews (2.86k)

The idea of this book is splendid—the worksheet to organize each sweater you are knitting. I am going to use it going forward. There are strong and clear instructions for how to choose yarn, how to adjust gauge and choose size and yarn for comfort, and other such tips that aren’t usually given. 
However…each pattern is knitted in speciality yarn that cannot duplicated by the reader—dyed by the author, found by the author at a wool exposition, etc. Also, the book is quite difficult to read, written in light grey on cream-colored paper. 
And the patterns are not written for a new knitter, even though the beginning of the book is geared toward a beginner. They are written conversationally: “work as up and down construction sweater, and then…”. It would be overwhelming had I never knitted before.

Onwards to the restored version.
This version: Ted Hughes added five poems and removed twelve, and changed Sylvia’s intended manuscript order as well.

The case is so incredibly convoluted, and so many details were included (it’s more than 600 pages long), that it almost wasn’t enjoyable at all.

Over halfway done, and there’s not enough information about the Tony and Susan Alamo cult, and too much explicit child abuse, and too much information about the author’s eleven-year-old’s erections. I wish that were hyperbole. Literal and repeated descriptions of his tucking it in and its popping out as he discovers girls on the compound…this is not what I signed up for.