Culture

Author: Michelle Holman
Publisher: HarperCollins
(2/5)

Get Knotted is the story of how Danny falls in love with her twin sister’s American partner’s brother. The twin is dead (she had breast cancer), and so is her partner, Patrick (he drowned). This leaves Danny trying to bring up her niece and nephew on a nurse’s salary, all the while thinking she is alone in the world: her father left home when she was nine, her mother died (breast cancer, again) when she was a teenager. Now, Patrick, her American brother-in-law, had failed to mention to his own family that he had kids to a Kiwi partner – and also failed to mention to his Kiwi partner anything about his family at all. He was a rather absent father at the best of times.
Unsurprisingly, at first Danny will have nothing of Patrick’s brother; she imagined the whole family to be as carefree and free-loading as he was. So, she is abusive, angry, sassy, and generally unhelpful. Fast forward through too many pages of them arguing over breakfast until they fall in love and live happily ever after. The brother is a writer, the rest of the family is terrific (it turns out that Patrick was the black sheep), and the two kids end up with families of their own. There are cousins, aunts, and uncles galore. 
Get Knotted is the worst kind of lightweight chick lit: it’s boring, repetitive, and ends predictably.