Crewel by Gennifer Albin
Review:
3/5 Stars
I really wanted to like this book. I am not the biggest sci-fi/ dystopian fan because all the works on this subject seem very redundent. The plot was pretty interesting: in the furture, the world is formed by women known as spinsters, they weave an artificial world around its people. The spinsters are controled by the council, which is a government organization, and they control everyone and everything in this society. The story is about one special girl named Adelice who has a rare gift to actually see the threads of time and substance around her. Only one other person can see. She is a creweler. Mix in a love triangle and some evil vilans and a couple of sad love stories, and I was excited about the potential.
So my issue with this book is that the characters are really dry. Adelice has a weird personality where she is rebelious but without too much conviction in her cause. She will spend days pouting in her pampering room...then she gets all her nerves and talks back to one the most powerful men in this world sometimes, then tries and runs away...to nowhere. I don't quiet understand her resolve...In the beginning, her parents try to help her run away once the government comes after her because of her gift. Her dad was killed and her mothers fate is still unknown, while her younger sisters mind was erased and she now lives another life. However, I understand that it's not good to be controled by your government and what not, but Adelice's rebelious nature is a little too cartoonish..I am not sure what she is rebelling against...is it to avenge her parents? anarchy against society? AHH, it really made me confused.
The other big disaster was the love triangle...two boys got involved with Adelice. One was a vallet for the spinsters and business men, the other boy was an assistent of a high-ranked spinster. Both seemed to have a bad-boy personality and seemed to be portrayed as good looking and desirable by the rest of the girls. It was unclear, however, why either of them were so infactuated with her in the first place. It seemed to have just...happen out of no where. I guess this is how to describe those situations with out spoiling the book completely.
The vilians in this book did not strike any sort of hard hitting fear or melevolence...I didn't feel like they were particullary evil, really. Just very petty, whiny and annoying. I had to re-read so much because I just could not understand whats going on.
The ending was even more confusing..I still am trying really hard to understand the structure of the world that it being created here...I know this will be a trilogy, so I will read book 2 to see what's going on...I can probably predict what will happen because the first book was a little too predictable but I am trying to like because there is potential here...maybe Albin will grow from this debut and get better with her world building for the next book.
