Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Title: Crewel (Crewel World #1)
Author: Gennifer Albin
Genre: Dystopian, Young Adult
Publisher: faber and faber (18th October 2012)
Blurb:

TONIGHT THEY’LL COME FOR ME

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.

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 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 . . .

Rating: *** (3 stars)
Review:

This book reminded me why, every now and then, I try a dystopian. Crewel had everything that I love in a good dystopian and nothing to knock me out of the story.

I really enjoyed following Adelice’s journey through the novel (even if I don’t know how to pronounce her name). Adelice is everything I want in a dystopian heroine: an ordinary girl with extraordinary abilities trying to find her place in the world. Family is very important to Adelice, and I loved the way that Albin wrote her family dynamic.

For me Crewel worked because not only was Adelice a realistic main character, but also because I could see how the world could come to be – and isn’t that a scary thought?! Adelice is not a political person, but politics play a large role in the book – especially in the Coventry (and the fact that it was referred to as “Coventry” really amused me).

Albin does a great job with the secondary characters. Cormac Patton is an interesting character, and I’m not totally sure what I think of him and I feel the same way about Maela. There is definitely the feeling that there is more going on with them than Albin has allowed us to know, yet. I really liked Erik and Jost, and I thought that Enora was a great strong female lead who surprised me.

If you like dystopian fiction then you should definitely give Crewel a try. If dystopian isn’t really your thing, but you want to dip your toes in the water (so to speak) then you might want to consider Crewel particularly if you like your heroines to have a bit of a backbone and be realistic about how they show it.