Örgü Grubu: Tecavüzcüleri İmha Timi

by Derrick Jensen, Stephanie McMillan

"Brigitte’in devrimci olmak gibi bir niyeti yoktu. Tek istediği,olağanüstü kazaklar örmekti.”

Altı kadın, sohbet edip pasta yemek ve olağanüstü kazaklar örmek için her her hafta bir araya gelmektedir. Bir gece sohbeti esnasında odadaki herkesin tecavüz kurbanı olduğu gerçeğinin farkına varırlar. Hiçbirinin saldırganı en ufak bir ceza dahi almamıştır. Artık canlarına tak etmiştir ve bu durumu değiştirmeye kara verirler. Örgü grubu, Örgü Grubu: Tecavüzcüleri İmha Timi’ne dönüşür ve intikam süreci başlar.

Genres: Fiction, Feminism, Humor, Ebooks, Gender, Knitting, Novels

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Derrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. He has published several books questioning and critiquing contemporary society and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S. in Mineral Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. He has also taught creative writing at Pelican Bay State Prison and Eastern Washington University.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

After six women in a weekly knitting circle find that they are all rape survivors and none of their attackers were ever brought to justice, the go on a rapist-killing spree. Soon, other people, both men and women, join their cause. Will the hapless police be able to stop them before their revolution goes out of control?

Sometimes, a book title will be so amazing that I simply must read the book. Too bad a lot of awesome titles are attached to books that are only average.

First off, rape is bad.

Secondly, this wasn't a bad book by any means. I can get behind the idea of a bunch of women murdering rapists with knitting needles. The humor is close to Christopher Moore in both style and intensity, from the hilarious knitters to the equally hilarious cops.

However, the humor wears a little thin by the halfway mark. Also, it's hard to feel completely comfortable laughing about a story where rapists play such a prominent role. Most of the characters are caricatures.

Still, it's a fairly entertaining little book. Three out of Five stars.

Did I mention rape is bad?

[merixien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Birlikte sohbet edip, örgü örmek için bir araya gelmiş altı kadının, bir sohbetleri sırasında her birinin de tecavüze uğramış olduğu ve asla adalete ulaşamadıklarını öğrenmeleri üzere kalkıştıkları bir devrimin anlatısı. Kitap çok hassas ve ciddi bir konu olan “tecavüz ve cinsiyetçilik” üzerine, kara mizahla harmanlanmış. Amerikan toplumundaki kadının konumu ve siyasete dair açık bir hiciv var, ancak bu durum sizi yanıltmasın. Tecavüz kültürüne ve bu öğelerin normalleştirilmesine dair yüksek notadan bir tepki içerse de diğer açıdan hem mizahın hem de çözümsüz bir ütopya konumunda kalmasından kaynaklı hafif, yaz okuması konumunda kalıyor. Zaten kitabın da böyle bir iddiası yok. Gerçekçi bir olay örgüsü yok, cinsiyetçiliğin sınıfsal ve politik kökenlerine inmiyor. Yine de tecavüzü tamamen kadının hatalarına yükleyen toplumsal bakışa bağıra bağıra karşı durmasını sevdim.

3,5/5

[MrsJoseph *grouchy* · Rating 1 out of 5]

http://bookslifewine.com/r-the-knitti...

Updated to include link to a recent article: An 11-year-old reported being raped twice, wound up with a conviction
This article is SO disturbing that I could not finish it all. The way this child was treated after being brutally raped is horrifying.


The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad is a book I picked to read during my Scribd trial but I couldn't get into it. DNF at 60%.

The plot idea and the blurb all sounded extremely interesting so I decided to read it when I started my Scribd trial. I was expecting a dark comedy - something like the movie Heathers. Sadly, The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad was more of a forced "chuckle, chuckle" than a dark comedy to me.

The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad starts with a woman on her way to a "special" dance class offered by her dance teacher (ballroom dancing). When the character arrived at the class she finds herself alone with the instructor - apparently the "special" class was an invitation to be raped. Instead of letting the instructor rape her, the character kills him with her knitting needles - and we're off!

The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad is funny, don't get me wrong, but the funny wore really thin really quickly. Rape is a big deal and it happens all the time. Some of the points being made by the book - the men all being horribly clueless about rape and the (male) police not focusing on the rapes (crimes against women) but trying to put as much manpower into solving the murders (crimes against men) - all rang true. Sadly true.

“This is Franz Maihem with ultraurgent breaking news. We are linking you live to our FBI contact Chet Stirling for an emergency announcement. Chet, go ahead.”

Chet stands at his desk for several awkward seconds, staring blankly at the camera as the audio delay ticks by. Then his voice crackles as he says, “We have received a communiqué from the so-called Ice Queen Killers, whom our agency has classified as the greatest terrorist threat facing America today. They are more dangerous than al-Qaeda, the Taliban, North Korea, or Iran. They are even more dangerous and ruthless than domestic environmentalists. They are our top priority and we pledge to eradicate them.”

Franz asks, “What does the communiqué say, Chet?”

“It says, ‘We will stop killing rapists when men stop raping.’”

Franz asks, “That’s it?”

“That’s it. The entire message.”

Franz asks, “What the heck does it mean, Chet?”

Chet responds with the uncertainty of a man standing waving his arms while he cries, “Where’s my ass?”: “Well, Franz, we’re baffled. We have no idea what this could possibly mean. It’s certainly shocking and depraved, but you know chicks, I mean women—they’re incomprehensible.”

“What do women want? That’s the age-old question, isn’t it, Chet?”

“Yes. We’ve done extensive research on this question, and experts concur that women are irrational, hysterical, and contradictory. They often say no when they mean yes. In fact, sometimes they’re saying no with their mouths at the exact moment their eyes, and often their tantalizing breasts, are saying yes. They are devious, manipulative, lying, cheating, slutty whores.”

Franz clears his throat. “The message, Chet?”

Chet regains his composure, such as it is, and says, “Cryptologists are urgently trying to decipher this message as we speak. As soon as we figure out its precise meaning, we’ll alert the public. Meanwhile, please remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity.”
-The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad, page 96

The book became even more sadly true when it talked about the lack of concern that men have dealing with rape.

I discussed some of my concerns about The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad with my husband and he initially didn't believe me when I said that crimes against women - especially rape - are under-reported and under-investigated. I told him that there are thousands of rape kits that were discovered sitting unprocessed in an improper storage facility in Detroit alone and showed him a couple of articles that made him speechless.

In Detroit:

More than 11,000 rape kits that were left in police storage, some for 20 years, are to finally be tested after a $4 million grant from the attorney-general.

The discovery of the kits gathering dust in a Detroit warehouse in 2009 has shocked prosecutors, who have pushed for the evidence to be processed and the rapists to be brought to justice.

On Wednesday Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and attorney-general Bill Schuette announced that $4 million in settlement funds will be used to examine the kits.

*Funds used to collect evidence from more than 11,000 Detroit rape kits
*DNA matched in 136 cases already, including 32 linked to serial rapists

Country (USA):

A five month CBS News Investigation of 24 cities and states has found that more than 20,000 rape kits were never sent to crime labs and an additional 6,000 rape kits from active investigations are waiting months, even years, to be tested.

Just...being 100% aware of how rape, rape jokes and rape culture is dealt with here in America...the slap-happy jokes and heavy handed sarcasm did not reach a level of comfortable for me. It just reinforced how horrible rape is dealt with here and how difficult it is for women to get justice for rape.

I may decide to try to read this again (based off of Stephanie McMillan's resume) - but it will be quite some time.



Read More:
Thousands of 'rape kits' left in police storage for up to 20 YEARS are to be tested in new hunt for attackers
Thousands of Rape Kits Wait to be Tested
An 11-year-old reported being raped twice, wound up with a conviction

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was the title which grabbed me first. One of Dan's finest suggestions. How could anyone fail to want to take a look?

It is funny and weird and thought provoking and unsettling all knitted together with very few stitches being dropped.

It is funny because the humour is on the laugh out loud level.

Very early on n the book I knew I was going to enjoy the silliness of it all. The first 'victim' of the squad is a lecherous and arrogant dance master who tricks the founding mother of the squad, Brigitte, to a private dance lesson. He makes her waft and dance her way around with scarves so as to loosen up her dance technique. When this fails he comes in close and begins to grind against her.....all part of 'unleashing your butterfly' he says..............her wonderful response
'Well, I can feel your caterpillar and I don't like it'.

It is weird because of the basic premise of a small group of raped and molested women taking up their knitting needles as weapons, quite literally, in the fight against their molesters and indeed others they hear of and encounter.

It is thought provoking and unsettling all rolled into one because of the subject matter not rape so much as its eradication. Initially it reads as a humorous and funny black comedy.....imagine Mary Poppins or Nanny McPhee partnering up with Dirty Harry or starring in a remake of 'Death Wish' but then the authors pull the rug out from under a too easy running on of mindless violence and revenge and the knock on effect of murder and misunderstanding begins to affect healthy and life giving relationships.

The black and white easy picture of revenge and justice gets more blurred, rather like when, at the age of 8 or 9, I reached the stage where I realized there surely had to be more to this knitting lark then making VERY long scarves for my teddy bears. Revenge is all well and good but where does it lead.

Jensen and McMillan quite clearly abhor the vicious evil of rape, who doesn't, but they invite their readers into a challenging reflection it seems to me on the nature of violence and tit for tat brutality.

The very last sentence of the book strikes, in the context of the whole, a sinister and unsettling note. Interestingly it made me think of 'Animal Farm' where the pigs and humans had become so similar no difference could be seen:-

'For now we've put our knitting needles back on the shelf. But we remember where they are, just in case'

This book is funny, you cheer on the women in their campaign but by the end there is definitely a sinister undercurrent of cruelty and tyranny in which the victims have smilingly become the oppressors and whose churning out of their utopic trills would put North Korea's propaganda gurus to shame.

[Ayla-Monic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not everyone will "get" this book. It's not fantastically written - my inner editor cringed pretty often, to be perfectly honest. But, if that is what stops you from finishing or liking this book, you are sorely missing the point. This book is not about knitting. It's about knitters who are radical feminists.

This book is a treatise against passively standing back while the patriarchy controls our lives and men and women alike police and abuse other women.

This is a book about empowerment and recognizing that sometimes talking doesn't work, and the only way to create change is to make change. This book shows that both men and women can be feminists, and that both men and women can be misogynists.

This book is basically feminist tumblr on steroids.

I loved it. Don't read it expecting a literary masterpiece - that's not what it is nor what it's meant to be. It's over the top satire meant to point out how absolutely ridiculous the patriarchy is, while recognizing how real it is.

[dianne b. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a good snarkfest is just what’s needed.
Yeah, yeah - of course I’m opposed to capital punishment. But sometimes certain someones sort of beg to be metaphorically murdered? Like the smug Donald Rumsfeld saying “Yes, a lot of people will die…” when he created war out of lies in Iraq, (as he’s thinking “But no one important…”)? Jimmy Savile? Pol Pot? Whoever decided to blaspheme T. S. Eliot by making Cats a movie?

Anyway - occasionally, a book about women enacting righteous revenge, using tools associated with knitting, the most benign of activities, slaughtering the men who raped them and had, until then, gotten away with it, seems one of those times. A downright homespun story of warm, buttery biscuits and blood. Lovely melodic music playing in the background, not low, minor chords. It was very silly and quite well written in the short hilarious ways of these things. A little more absurd than what really goes on, but just a little. Women’s ideas ignored in meetings until a man repeats the same idea and he then gets the credit for it, men believing that rape isn’t real, women’s truth not being believed and instead blaming her, gaslighting her, judging her past.
Just a typical Thursday.

A government pundit Chet, speaking with the news anchor, Franz:
“Chet speaks with the certainty of the perpetually clueless.
“Well, Franz, they’re just like every normal rational serial killer in every way, but for one bizarre, freaky exception.”
… "It’s frankly horrifying.” “Tell us, Chet.”
‘All the victims are men.’”

Later these same fine bulwarks of the press:
Franz asks, “What does the communiqué say, Chet?” “It says, ‘We will stop killing rapists when men stop raping.’” Franz asks, “That’s it?”
“That’s it. The entire message.”
Franz asks, “What the heck does it mean, Chet?”
Chet responds with the uncertainty of a man standing waving his arms while he cries,
‘Well, Franz, we’re baffled. We have no idea what this could possibly mean.’”

From an animal rights organization opposed to the Knitting Circle because:
“This is a disaster for our animal companions and friends. If men aren’t allowed to rape women, we know what this means for the pigs, cows, sheep, bunnies, and chickens of the world. We cannot stand by and allow this horrible outrage to be perpetrated on these helpless creatures.”

Perhaps my favorite interview was from the manager and CEO of “The Circle of Compassionate Gentleness”

“Why do they presume the present isn’t good enough simply because they are being sexually assaulted? …

“.…since I’m not really a stop rape kind of guy, and since I don’t want to feel bad about not being a stop rape kind of guy, it’s important to me that no one else try to stop rape, or it will make me feel inferior, like I should actually be doing something instead of sitting on my beautifully gentle buttocks..”

His great understanding derives from many theories that he doesn’t -

"…understand but that nonetheless show me how me sitting here and delighting in the sensation of the heat emanating into my buttocks from this electrically heated ergonomic meditation pillow will help suffering people everywhere....
So when I hear of some atrocity somewhere, I know the best thing I can do is make myself more happy and comfortable, because I know the happier and more comfortable I am, the happier everyone, including the victims of those atrocities, will be. It’s scientific!”

We have alternative facts, ma'am, pay attention.

[Candis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lightening-fast, almost stream-of-consciousness read, this piece of satire rides a politic and holds little back. Fun, silly, yet completely clear on its ultimate aim, this was really pretty satisfying all around. The no-bullshit, take-no-prisoners approach to rape and our rape culture (as well as the media and other institutions that work to perpetuate and maintain it) featuring interesting women of all ages and in a range of relationships was a refreshing change from my reading norm. Not once did I need to exercise any willful suspension of disbelief, and I turned the last page wanting more. Thumbs up!

[Krystelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eh. Meh.

Satire can be cloying, like a piece of cake that just goes a bit too over the top with the ganache, and I found this book to be very much that way. I get it, I know these things happen, I know that they get handled like this, but I just don't think it carried over that well as it was simply too much piling on. There's no need to push it to this extreme, and I just wanted the humor to calm itself down a bit more. It misses all subtlety- and this is completely lacking the real touch that was needed for this book.

[Bilge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brigitte'in devrimci olmak gibi bir niyeti yoktu. Tek istediği olağanüstü kazaklar örmekti.

Yıl 202x, ve o nesilin çocukları tecavüzün anlamını bile bilmiyor. Öyle bir dünyada yaşıyorlar ki tecavüz artık o dünyada var olan bir kavram olmaktan bile çoktan çıkmış. Peki bu nasıl olmuş olabilir? 202x tarihinden bir kaç yıl önce yalnızca örgü hobilerini devam ettirmek isteyen bir grup kadın arkadaş yaşadıkları tecavüz ve tacizlerin yaygınlığından illallah edip kendiliğinden gelişecek bir örgütlenmeye ön ayak oldular. Tecavüzcüleri imha timi tam da böyle başladı gerçekten….

Yazarlar bu fantastik romanı yazarken kadınların nasıl görmezden gelindiğini, özellikle de tecavüzlere karşı nasıl yalnız bırakıldığını satirik bir dille eleştiriyor. Bazı diyaloglarda gerçekten de bunları böyle yaşıyoruz diye durup düşünmeden edemedim. Ve her ne kadar hikayedeki şekliyle mümkün değilse de tecavüzcüleri gerçekten de toplumda barındırmamak için bazı önlemler alınması gerekiyor.

[Auntie Raye-Raye · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rape-revenge novel that somehow manages to be cute, funny, and feminist. That was very unexpected.

[Rosalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reviewed this book in the latest (September 2013) issue of the literary journal Stirring. Here's the link.

Years ago I attended a women writers conference where a woman in our fiction-writing workshop read aloud to us from a novel she had started. As I recall, the plot involved members of a book group, all women and all survivors of domestic violence, who agreed to a revenge pact. Each one, they decided, would kill a man who had abused someone else, a man with whom she had no connection.

It was a hot, sunny day, I was a bit drowsy from lunch, I was being read aloud to. Violent men were about to meet their doom in deeply satisfying ways. What stands out in my memory is how soothing the experience was.

I don’t know whether the writer ever finished her novel, but of course it leapt to mind as I read The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad, a satire by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan. The title handily telegraphs the novel’s plot: as members of a knitting group start confiding in each other, they find out that they’re all survivors of rape, and the rapists in question (high school counselors, relatives, clergymen, ex-husbands) have never even been arrested, let alone prosecuted. The women avenge each other by killing those rapists. With their knitting needles.

There are various subplots: A female police officer is sympathetic to the knitters. The fourteen-year-old daughter of one of the knitters discovers what her mother is up to, and argues with her about the ethics of using violence to stop violence. A group of fundamentalist Christian men form a new organization, MAWAR (Men Against Women Against Rape). Best of all are the unctuous TV newsman Franz Maihem and his go-to expert, FBI agent Chet Stirling, who function as a clueless Greek chorus throughout the book as they report on the unexplained knitting-needle murders: first they insist that the murderer is an alienated young white male; then, when the knitters send a communiqué to the FBI (“We will stop killing rapists when men stop raping”), proclaim the message incomprehensible: “We’re baffled. We have no idea what this could possibly mean.”

Avenging rape as a motive for murder is found is some mysteries and mystery-thrillers (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc.), but non-genre fiction doesn’t seem to go in much for plots that revolve around women killing men--and in the case of Knitting Circle, it’s lots of women, killing lots of men. I can imagine this novel making some readers uncomfortable. No doubt others will dismiss it as “political,” a novel with an agenda, although that complaint has always puzzled me. It’s also a political choice, I would argue, to create characters who are perfectly comfortable with the status quo.

The style as well as the subject matter won’t be to everyone’s taste. Don’t expect the attributes of a “straight” literary novel, the unspoken standard of literary fiction with its conventions of deep investment in characterization, meticulous attention to visual detail, and careful verisimilitude. In Knitting Circle, we’re in the realm of parody, not realism, as the authors demonstrate from the opening pages, when a mob is “celebrating the city’s victory in the National Chess Championship. . . . After an evening of rioting, setting small yet well-designed fires in dumpsters, and overturning police cars, the nerds howl with grape soda–induced laughter as they reenact their most impressive chess moves.”

On first read, the humor occasionally struck me as too lightweight, almost sophomoric (each time the police chief appears, for example, he’s reading a different “expert on crime”: Sherlock Holmes, Encyclopedia Brown, Hercule Poirot), but as I considered it more, I realized that Jensen and McMillan were making specific stylistic choices. The police chief is cartoonish precisely because the novel draws on a wide range of pop-cultural forms: Vonnegut and other satiric novelists are clearly an influence, but so are cartoons, TV sit-coms, Saturday Night Live skits, film spoofs like the Naked Gun series, and mockumentaries like Christopher Guest’s Best in Show or A Mighty Wind. The book’s cover blurb describes it beautifully as “Monty Python meets the SCUM Manifesto.”

Although some readers might smirk more often than laugh, there are plenty of spot-on, chortle-out-loud scenes and wonderfully deadpan whimsy. At a typical knitting circle meeting, “after a few preliminaries and pleasantries, the women get down to the businesses at hand: knitting and stopping rape.” The touchy-feely Red Moon Sacred Gyn Mill Tea House serves “wheat-free, dairy-free, sugar-free gingerbread wimmin and gyrl cookies.” Glenn Beck makes an appearance, at his chalkboard, redrawing a pair of crossed knitting needles so that they form a swastika (he also denies that rape is even possible, bless his little heart). Sentences that at first seem to meander end up packing a punch: the female police officer, Sandy Dougher, is “as beautiful as the Mona Lisa. As beautiful as the sweeping boughs of a western red cedar. . . . As beautiful as a sharp kick to a rapist’s testicles.”

And over and over again, like that kick to the rapist’s testicles, the hard truths of male violence against women are sprinkled amid the silliness. Characters discuss the abysmally low percentage of rapists who are ever incarcerated. Right after the description of the chess nerd riot, a character travels to an unfamiliar part of the city at night and “adopts the walk that all women from an early age learn to use in scary places: rapid, firm, and purposeful. . . . Appear confident. Show no fear.” Here is part of the argument between fourteen-year-old Marilyn and her knitting circle mom, Gina:

“You can’t just take the law into your own hands.”
. . . “I couldn’t possibly do a worse job wielding the law than they [police and the courts] do.” . . .
. . . “You’re asking for social chaos.”
“Marilyn, social chaos is when 25 percent of all women are raped and another 19 percent have to fend off rapes, and nothing is done about it.”

When the police hold a meeting on how to stop the knitting-needle killings, Officer Dougher raises the eminently sensible question: “What if we do our jobs and stop rapists?” She is met by silence. Her police colleagues provide no answer to her question, ever.

And sometimes the hard-hitting facts and the goofy humor coincide. When the hapless FBI agent finally concedes that the knitting-needle killers are women, Franz Maihem asks him how he reached his conclusion:

“Well, Franz, they’re just like every normal rational serial killer in every way, but for one bizarre, freaky exception.”
“What is that, Chet?”
“It’s almost unheard of in the long, illustrious history and tradition of serial killing. It’s frankly horrifying.”
“Tell us, Chet.”
“All the victims are men.”

There are other trenchant observations along the way: on religion, on diet plans, on capitalism, on the ubiquity of television. One of my favorite commentaries is by knitting circle member Brigitte on male-female relationships:

“First he comes to a [knitting circle] meeting, next he’s telling me what to wear and to make him a sandwich. Gradually it escalates. . . . Brigitte gets lost and it becomes all about ‘we.’ ‘We hated that movie.’ ‘We plan to buy a house in the suburbs.’ ‘We decided that Brigitte’s soul was superfluous so we sold it.’ . . . Fuck that.”

The authors put some amusingly blasphemous, if improbably self-aware, dialogue into the mouth of a MAWAR member: “Where in the Ten Holy Fucking Commandments does it ever say, ‘Thou Shalt Not Rape’? Huh? The answer is, it doesn’t. In fact, the whole fuckin’ Bible is filled with rapes that fulfill God’s merciful will.” New Agers come in for skewering too, in the form of a self-help guru arguing that rapists should be met with compassion: “Since I’m not really a stop rape kind of guy, and since I don’t want to feel bad about not being a stop rape kind of guy, it’s important to me that no one else try to stop rape, or it will make me feel inferior, like I should actually be doing something.”

What’s interesting to me as a feminist is how soothing the novel is. This is partly because it’s structured like a happily-ever-after bedtime story: the novel opens with the now-grown Marilyn explaining to her students how the knitters and their allies put a permanent end to rape. But there are also interesting parallels to the “cozy” subgenre of mystery novels. Think of Miss Marple in her quaint village, puttering around in her garden as she solves a murder or two. In the typical cozy, the victims are unsympathetic people whom we don’t see while they’re still alive. We have no access to their perspective and don’t have to expend emotional energy feeling sorry that they’re dead. We can forget that a terrible crime has propelled this lighthearted romp. Similarly, Knitting Circle is propelled by a double layer of violent acts: the original rapes, and the subsequent murders of the rapists. And yet we end up with an oddly comforting story where, after “the rage and frustration and sorrow of thousands of years of taking it and taking it and taking it,” there is “the joy of finally fighting back.”

Unlike most spoofs, The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad raises unsettling questions: What do unprosecuted rapists deserve? When is retributive violence, or vigilante justice, called for? Should I feel such glee at these deaths? As if these weren’t disturbing enough, there is a subtle parting shot, located on the back cover, right above the price, where the book’s category is listed as “Fiction/Relationships.” The perfect finishing touch for this strange combination of hilarity and righteous anger.

[Melody · Rating 1 out of 5]

so, the rape culture is over the top, and this is an attempt at over-the-top satire, but it's really poorly written. even if i'm on board with quite a few of the political rants, there's no story stringing them together. i couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to appreciate an unapologetic "fuck you!" to rapists. there is no such thing as a cheese factory that makes a different cheese every week, for starters. gaperon and roquefort are made in FRANCE. blah blah, the attempt to make fun of mindfulness meditation and nonviolence was pretty disappointing. not to mention the likelihood that we'll have enough death in the coming clusterfuck and don't need pile up corpses to revolt. or perhaps i am just naive. anyway, annoying rather than funny.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

sometimes you just need to be very literal

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

If half stars were a thing on good reads, I'd give it a half star. I almost liked it. I admit that I'm probably being influenced by what I know of the author and his work with Deep Green Resistance. Deep Green Resistance is an organization I wish I could get behind 100% but their policies that exclude transgender people keep me from being a supporter. No sign of transphobia in this particular book but DGR is also fond of using the words "slavery" and "enslavement" to talk about income inequality and capitalism, which I find to be problematic and counterproductive towards creating a social justice movement that is inclusive. There's a bit of that language used in the book. It's a shame that all of the above things plus writing that was sort of meh had to happen here. The satire was quite well done. I think someone well versed in the concept of rape culture would have a greater appreciation of the satire than average person.

[Samrat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good concept, awful execution. If you're already a feminist, you know this stuff and probably won't be tickled pink by the boring walking stereotypes and broad humor. If you're not, it all seems so over the top that the startling frequency of rape and awful responses to victims and defense of rapists might seem like part of the satire. I wanted a clever dark comedy to find gleeful pleasure in literary revenge. This is not that.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

I couldn't recommend this book more!! It is so hilarious and hopeful. I giggled the whole way thru. Loved it!

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun book. I loved it. I also am an editor and usually cringe at less-than-perfect writing, but I just enjoyed this one and its entertaining premise.

[Tricia Reuss · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad” is about a knitting group in America discovering that they’ve all been raped in their pasts, that the people who commit this weren’t held accountable, and that it’s time someone fights back to change the narrative.

For the “what if” commentary on US culture and treatment on women, it is scarily accurate and sad. The book drives home the point that women are invisible unless inherently beautiful. It shows how women are undervalued and underestimated, while also showing a lack of belief in their worth as human beings. It shows how many men believe they are entitled to women’s bodies, and it even shows how men will try to make the narrative about themselves. The further I read, the sadder I became. For that, I think the book makes a strong point - if women were in charge, everyone would be held accountable for the violence they’ve commit against other people. Nobody would be invisible, and the world would look a whole lot different than it does today.

There are exactly 3 examples of healthy relationships in the story: Brigitte and Nick, Gina and Lawrence, and Suzie and Sam.
• Brigitte and Nick - this is very clearly a “friends with benefits” relationship where both partners highly respect each other. There is more emphasis on their friendship together than any desire for more. They support each other in what they do, while also doing their best to not be domineering, controlling, or taking the joy out of their relationship together.
• Gina and Lawrence - they are the only married couple in the book. They have a strong, healthy respect for each other, and love each other for who they are. When Lawrence finds out that Gina is a member of the Knitting Circle, he is immediately understanding of why she joined it and doesn’t try to prevent her from doing her part to stop rapists.
• Suzie and Sam - they are seriously dating, and for the latter half of the book, they have very good discussions about consent (without saying the word). This shows that with any relationship or partner, communication is key, and should always be maintained.

As for the writing style, I am very much not used to it. To me, it felt extremely choppy. Some parts were extremely irrelevant in my opinion, but I know that without those, the book would have been shorter and in some ways that maybe I didn’t catch, it was intended to further along this commentary on rape culture. It was not my favorite style of writing, but this topic is so important to discuss. It is sadly taboo, and more common than we realize. For that, I applaud the authors.

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some places insightful or funny, in other places overly niche or dragging out a joke too long. A decent bit of heavy-handed satire that is just begging for some editing to make it even better. It connects together all the social issues that are interesting to me but it's kind of preaching to the choir, unless you already agree then this will just whoosh over your head I suspect. Satire is best when it reveals truth but this sort of snide nod-and-wink is a good tonic for people like me who can be sick of arguing with people. My favourite thing was how the men in every chapter just ignored anything said or done by any woman. That was written almost subtly in some parts, but overall there is nothing subtle about this book- and to be fair I think it knows what it is and is being ridiculous on purpose.

My other favourite thing was the proposal in the last chapter. I won't say who the interested parties are but let's just say it is without exception my favourite proposal scene of all time and pretty damn romantic. This book also subtly manages to say #notallmen without labouring the point or mansplaining. And it includes an excellent use of Hegel and Wittgenstein. I still like philosophy but geez this was good!

The flaws are forgiven because this got a chuckle out of me and then another one. Reading about cheese so much is gross though, I wish authors would desist.

[Elliot · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reminded me of a child who does something and it's met with laughter from adults. The child continues to repeat this, the adults growing more and more annoyed each time. This book certainly started out promising. It has a great title and a strong setup for this absurd world. When I began reading, I described it as "social justice chick lit."

Unfortunately, things took a turn.

The book became so unpolished and rushed as it went on. The dark humor and the satire went from subtle to basically explaining why something should be funny (give your readers some credit!) and just went so over the top. There were times it was expert at weaving in ideas and criticisms, but eventually, it became too much. This book felt like it was a bunch of exercises from an undergraduate creative writing class, strung together by students who just found out about socialism and the patriarchy.

I really wanted to like this. This was something different and had its moments of fun, but ultimately, not for me.

[D.A. Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the premise of this book- a group of knitting friends who discover they have all been raped at one time or another and all the rapists have got off scot free, so they decide to take justice into their well exercised hands. With a little help from their knitting needles...
The book is crazy funny but also cuts close to reality (as all good humour must). There's a female cop who is, of course, never listened to. There are groups of men who don't believe in rape because the Bible...and enough governmental acronyms to choke several horses, even if they were BCHs (bigClysedale horses). Tongue firmly in cheek, it blasts the gormless and violent men of the world- makes them ridiculous.
The final triumph is a duel, but I must say no more...
It's a light read, sometimes over the top, but my golly it is worth the time!

[Pat aka Tygyr · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, I found parts of this very funny. But I have a weird sense of humor. There is a knitting circle. One of the women is knitting on the bus on her way to meet her dance instructor for a special class. When she got there he and she were the only 2 there. He makes it clear he will have her whether she consents or not. During the struggle, with her knitting bag in reach, she was able to grab a knitting needle and stabbed him dead. She gets home and worries. At her next circle meeting she tells them what happened. At first there is shock and then confessions of several women's own rapes. The circle has a new mission. Kill the rapists. And with the deaths, their circle becomes very popular. The police suspect them, but have no proof. There are some serious parts. But this book was so different from my normal books I just really liked it.

[Beckie Treble · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this on my best friends bookshelf one day thinking, "why does she have a book about knitting?" I'm the knitter so I was intrigued.

This book was brilliant. I want to carry bamboo knitting needles around with me for the rest of my life.

I didn't understand a lot of the references that were made but for me it didn't detract from the book itself.

The men in this book were so completely clueless it was funny.

A great vigilante story on a problem that is hugely under reported and hard to get a conviction on.

I mean it's the only crime where the victim gets blamed and gets treated like the criminal. It's not on and is apparently just as worse as the act itself.

Rape is something no one should ever go through and this book gets me thinking that stopping rape for good by killing the rapists is a good thing. It makes you think.

If someone says stop then stop!

[Beverly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved the title of this book which is why I originally purchased it for Kindle. I thought it would be about killing rapists...which I was OK with if it had been handled in a lighthearted manner...is there such a thing for rape? So I thought it would be comic and entertaining but noooooo. It was comic alright, in a very dark way, but I did not find it in the least entertaining. There was way too much bad language, crude exchanges and blasphemy. You can certainly tell that the author is intelligent because the basic writing was good but it was certainly not my cup of tea.

[Hannah Wattangeri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't laughed so much in ages. This book takes a satirical look at a group of mostly middle-aged women who decide to do something about rape and misogyny - and almost everything else connected to imperialist, capitalist society. It is not a book of literal genius - but it does depict the reality of our patriarchal world and what our knitting needles might achieve. It's difficult to describe how a serious topic such as a rape can be tackled in such a light-hearted way but the authors manage to both seriously condemn rape and misogyny whilst making me laugh.

[claud.]

dnfed @ page 112. i get this was supposed to be satirical and humorous, but reading it just became exhausting. i understand there was a specific style the authors were going for but i would've preferred if this was either a graphic novel, a comedy movie/series on netflix, or written in a serious manner. also there were just way too many characters and i really didn't care about reading from each of their POVs. i cared about the female characters' POVs but i just did not care enough to read from the men's.

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really my style. The premise was interesting but the kind of dark humor throughout was taken to the extreme. I think it fit the story and the writing style, but I was unable to see the humor in everything since our currently political climate makes this scenario feel possible. The misogynist treatment throughout also got under my skin. Again, it works for this story and is used by the author to drive his point home, but it was a bit too much for me.

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/satire

This last lovely little work of satire uses the educated, over-the-top silliness I associate with the Harvard Lampoon to raise a serious point: can we even imagine a society without rape? The book had me from the first page, when a young man a generation from now is confused by the whole concept of forcing himself on a woman. “But if I did something like that, the girl wouldn’t want to be my friend.”

Exactly.

[Amanda Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

It WAS funny and apt, which you would expect from a satirical novel. Repeated use of profanity (just for the sake of using it) and a few extremely gross sexual jokes thrown in half way through really put me off. For that reason it losses a star and I feel like I really can't recommend the book to people I know either in knitting circles or book clubs.

[Bec · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book instead of knitting today and it didn't disappoint.

Was this the most well-written book I've ever read? No.
Was this the best book I've read? No.
However, this book warmed my feminist -anarchist-atheist -knitter 's heart in a way that no book ever has. It has also made me consider carrying my knitting around with me more often.