Review: Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Book: Crewel
Author: Gennifer Albin
Series: Crewel World
Publication Date: October 16th, 2012
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Rating: 3 Stars

Enter a tangled world of secrets and intrigue where a girl is in charge of other’s destinies, but not her own.

Sixteen-year-old Adelice Lewys has always been special. When her parents discover her gift—the ability to weave the very fabric of reality—they train her to hide it. For good reason, they don’t want her to become a Spinster — one of the elite, beautiful, and deadly women who determine what people eat, where they live, how many children they have, and even when they die.

Thrust into the opulent Western Coventry, Adelice will be tried, tested and tempted as she navigates the deadly politics at play behind its walls.  Now caught in a web of lies and forbidden romance, she must unravel the sinister truth behind her own unspeakable power.  Her world is hanging by a thread, and Adelice, alone, can decide to save it — or destroy it.

So after I stopped mourning over the fact that I couldn't read the galley of this because MacMillan took it down, I finally got down to business when this book came out and read it. And well, it was interesting. The world is definitely as enigmatic and intriguing as the cover, and I think what this book really has going for it is the originality that's been incorporated through the world that Albin has created. But if we step back and really look at what this book stands for, we see that it's no different from any other doomy dystopian novel. There's the government that controls everything the people does, the President Snow-like commander who calls all the shots and crushes all opposition, and what I like to call "the other side of the fence," the convenient deux ex machina that chooses to make itself known at the most opportune time so there's always a place for the heroine to escape.

I honestly cannot pinpoint my feelings about this book. On one hand, it kept me flipping pages because I wanted to discover more about the world of the Creweler. I like the idea of having threads that make up people. But the world is not enough for a book. I liked Adelice. I especially admired her quick comebacks and her rebellious nature, but sometimes I wouldn't understand why she would do certain things. Also, I just didn't see why she loved Amie so much. I know they're sisters, but it seemed more like she thought of Amie as a burden than anything else. And her parents are mentioned at sparse intervals. It's another classic example of using the dead family to motivate the heroine, but in this case, Adelice never made her love for her family very clear.

Then, we have the bitchy, bitter shell of a woman who also isn't as good as the heroine. Naturally. And the two equally attractive men but of course Adelice chooses the one with the dark past. I liked Jost, though. Actually, for a while I was gunning for Erik, just because I like the whole well-groomed-but-rebellious shindig he had going before I realized he was way too one-dimensional. Then we have a whole host of characters who help Adelice but pay the price for doing so. Naturally. Also, the ending was just this big cliffhanger that involves the characters going to the "other side," which is the worst excuse for an ending ever. I'm worried about the dystopian genre. It's becoming way too predictable, which should never be the case for an end-of-the-world book. Here's to hoping that some book will break out of the mold and wow us all. 
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