Review: Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Title: Crewel

Author: Gennifer Albin

Series: Crewel World #1

Publisher: Faber and Faber

Publication date: 04/10/2012

Format: Paperback - 384 pages

Genre: YA - Science Fiction | Dystopian

 

 

An extraordinary girl.

Sixteen-year-old Adelice is a Spinster. She can weave time and matter. But no one knows just how talented she is.

A dangerous love.

Guild Ambassador Cormac Patton has taken a shine to her. The Guild demands loyalty…even in love. So Adelice's handsome, mysterious valet Jost poses a dangerous threat to her place at the Coventry.

A deadly secret.

Everyone at the Guild has their secrets. But Adelice is about to unravel the deadliest one of all, a sinister truth that could destroy reality as she knows it...

My thoughts:

This was definitely so much different to anything I've ever read before. I loved how original the story line was. It was so intricate in the details that sometimes I would have to read over paragraphs just to make sure I didn't miss anything important. I actually didn't know what to expect with this one so I picked it up with no initial thoughts as to how it would be - I went in with a completely blank slate since the premise of this book was so strange at first.

What I loved about Crewel the most was that I really had to use my imagination whilst reading it. There were parts of the book that were a little bit more complicated than the usual books I read so I would piece everything together using my imagination. It was definitely a good consequence of such an original story - it's like if you pick up a book with a vampire as the protagonist. As soon as you realise that he/she is a vampire, you immediately have some sort of image come to mind, whether it's something similar to Edward from the Twilight films or something similar to Dracula, you have that image there already. But with Crewel, you have no idea what is being described looks like - you simply dream it up and it's brilliant.

This was the kind of book that I always see to be divided into three parts. The beginning was great - the settings were being described and the characters introduced. The world of Spinsters is explained and the story starts to get interesting. But then the middle is where I had a problem. It slowed down to a big extent about halfway through the book. I actually got bored with all the explanations and training involved - it was definitely essential to the story, but I thought it could have used a little more excitement to keep me reading. The ending was something else entirely though. I wasn't expecting it so it came out of nowhere for me - I loved it. It took the book in a whole new direction.

I really enjoyed the characters. I thought Adelice had a fiery personality but was still calm and collected where she needed to be. I immediately took a liking her and her family so, of course, I was rooting for them a long while. As for the rest of the characters I really felt as if a lot of their personality was held back. I have a feeling things are going to be very different with the characters in the next book of the series - we'll have to wait and see.

All in all I thought this was a great read. It was one of the more original books I've read and that deserves a lot of credit. I can't wait for the next book in the series - it's a shame I have to wait so long with the sudden change in the story at the end. It was such a big cliffhanger.

My rating: 8/10

Gennifer Albin:

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