Book: Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Published October 2012 by Farrar, Strauss and Gilroux, 306 pages

How I Got It: Purchased for my Nook

Genre: YA/Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopic

Find out more: Goodreads|Barnes And Noble|Amazon|Gennifer Albin

Goodreads.com Summary: What a tangled world she weaves… 

For generations, Spinsters have been called by Arras’s Manipulation Services to work the looms and determine what people eat, where they live, how many children they have, and even when they die. Gifted with the rare ability to weave time with matter, Adelice is exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in 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 once you become a Spinster, there is no turning back. Now caught in a web of lies and intrigue, Adelice must decide who to trust: her kind mentor, Enora; the handsome and mysterious valet Jost; or the charismatic Guild ambassador Cormac Patton. They each have secrets, but Adelice is about to unravel the deadliest one of all, a sinister truth that could destroy reality as she knows it.

In a powerful and original debut about a world where the Guild decides everything, one extraordinary girl dares to defy the power of men and the boundaries of love.

This is such a creative book!  I really liked it, and loved the idea of Spinsters and Crewelers and weavers.

Seriously, you have a group of people WHO CAN WEAVE TIME!  And other stuff too, but it’s the weaving of time and raw materials from earth that’s really interesting.  They’re above earth, and mine materials, and if they don’t have a Creweler, then they’ll run out of materials in about 10 years or so.

I loved the world of Arras and how it’s set up.  Jobs are very much determined by gender, and being a Spinster is the only way women have control and power.  It was interesting, but at the same time, it was the least interesting aspect of the novel.  I mean, towns are segregated according to the gender of the children- so do families have all one gender, or can they have both?  If a family has a boy and a girl, and they live in the girl portion of the neighborhood, where does the boy live?  It is an interesting world, I’ll give her that, but I found Adelice’s abilities and the technology much more interesting than how things are set-up.

I have to say, Adelice being a creweler was really obvious.  The second her mentor started explaining the role of the Creweler, I knew Adelice was going to be one.  Given she doesn’t need a loom to weave, it’s not that big of a surprise that something interesting would be in store for her.

Another obvious thing: love triangle!  It’s no surprise that there’s a love triangle, but this one has some potential to be interesting.  Mostly because they’re brothers, but also because one of them was married and has a daughter.  And Ambassador Patton?  It’s not a surprise he wanted to marry Adelice for her abilities.  All in all, the romance is pretty predictable, but it’s not as irritating as it could have been, and Albin did a pretty good job with it.

I’m still not completely sure how to review this book!  I just can’t wrap my mind around this book.  There are a lot of things I like, and I really like that it feels like a fantasy but has elements of science fiction in it.  I just…I really like it!

Final thoughts: I didn’t love it, but it is so creative, and words cannot describe how much I enjoyed this book!  I’m utterly astounded with the world Albin created, and I definitely have questions that need to be answered.  Crewel gets a 4 out of 5.  Plus, any novel that started out as something written during NaNoWriMo is just cool.