Review of "Crewel" by Jennifer Albin

Crewel by Jennifer Albin

Genre: YA/Dystopian

Page Count: 368

Summary: "Incapable. Awkward. Artless. 

That’s what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen-year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret: She wants to fail. 

Gifted with the ability to weave time with matter, she’s exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen to work the looms is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to manipulate the very fabric of reality. But if controlling what people eat, where they live, and how many children they have is the price of having it all, Adelice isn’t interested.

Not that her feelings matter, because she slipped and used her hidden talent for a moment. Now she has one hour to eat her mom’s overcooked pot roast. One hour to listen to her sister’s academy gossip and laugh at her dad’s jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape.Because tonight, they’ll come for her."

(Summary from goodreads.com)

Review: When I started reading this book, I was a bit confused by how to pronounce her name. There are two ways to pronounce it A-deli-ce and Ad(e)-lice. While reading Crewel, I just assumed it was the former. As the strange name gives away, Crewel is a dystopian young adult novel full of hard to pronounce names and strange spellings. I'm never a fan of twisting classic names to make them "edgy" so I wasn't a huge fan of how the character was named.

The pace of the novel is really good and there's never enough of a lull that it gets too boring. It does take a little bit to get to the major plot twist and a lot of the things that happen are obvious. Still, the writing is interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. 

Adelice as a character is very funny and that is one of my favorite things in a narrating main character. Her sass isn't too frequent, but it's funny when it does come out; especially around Cormac. It's also fun to watch Adelice grow from a scared little girl to a strong young woman. She really goes through a lot of character development. Like many heroines, her undying loyalty can be a little irritating. 

Overall, I enjoyed the novel a great deal and would recommend it to fans of dystopian novels. 

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