Review: Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Incapable. Awkward. Artless.

That’s what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret: she wants to fail.

Gifted with the ability to weave time with matter, she’s exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to embroider the very fabric of life. But if controlling what people eat, where they live and how many children they have is the price of having it all, Adelice isn’t interested.

Not that her feelings matter, because she slipped and wove a moment at testing, and they’re coming for her—tonight.

Now she has one hour to eat her mom’s overcooked pot roast. One hour to listen to her sister’s academy gossip and laugh at her Dad’s stupid jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape.

Because once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back.

There is a serious lack of fantasy dystopian books out there and that is something that really saddens me. I mean, I love dystopians as much as any other YA blogger but the old dystopian formula is starting to get old and anything that can put a spin on the genre is truly welcomed by me. This book really does put something original into the genre with the fantasy aspect and I really did enjoy this book. The world created was beautiful and magical and I loved the idea of spinning and crewelling, I really think that the world was so multi-layered and well explained and I enjoyed it.

I had a few things that bugged me a little. I really liked Adelice as a character but I do think that she was too easily described as a rebel before she even started doing anything rebellious and it seemed like Albin was trying to pour this character trait down our throat rather than show it to us. This book would have been much better without the love triangle as I really didn't like one of the boys Erik as he seemed really creepy, there was some chemistry between Jost and Adelice which I liked and though the addition of Erik may have been necessary, I would have much preferred him to like... not exist.

I really enjoyed Albin's writing and this book was actually fun to read and very entertaining so I wouldn't use those flaws above as a basis of whether to read it. I REALLY liked this book.

Overall Rating: B

Book released 16th October 2012 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ARC received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review (eBook)