Crewel (Crewel World, #1)

by Gennifer Albin

[ladygrey]

ETA REREAD:
So this book starts out slow with a lot of world building and internal monologue. But it gets better and the banter with all the guys makes up for the start. The politics, like a court with out the king and castle, are some of the best I’ve read—skillful in their subtly, satisfying in their revelation, not drawn out too thin or rushed past. They create an intricacy in the story that’s interesting and add dimension to the tertiary characters. I wish they did a bit more to propel the main character’s arc, but they inform her and are interesting so that’s enough.

I think I definitely enjoyed it more in the second read because I picked up a bit more, especially with Jost and Loricel (btw the names are kind of ridiculous).

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I'm not entirely sure about putting this on my sci-fi shelf. Granted, the library had a sci-fi sticker on it and when you get into the mythology it is more technical than mythical. But I'm not sure using the word "science" and "cellular" really makes something a sci-fi story when the majority of the narrative is fantastic rather than technical. But who am I to judge?

This was an interesting expansion on the idea of the Fates into a world populated with Spinsters who weave the fabric of reality and rip it when necessary. Sometimes the description of the weave was a little abstract, but for the most part it's pretty comprehensible.

The characters were alright. Adelice was an effective enough character to carry us through the story. But I felt like there was an odd disconnect with each of the characters at different moments; where the story is telling me they look betrayed or there's hurt in their voice but it sort of comes out of no where. I was told what they were feeling or the tone in their voice without any motivation or understanding where that emotion came from or how it fits into the conversation at hand. It kept me from really embracing the characters because they weren't quite real.

Also, since I'm at it, some of the sentences were stubby and when you have two or three of those in a row the language feels blunt. But that's all the negative things I have to say. The world is pretty extensively developed and definitely unique and pretty but also tainted.

[a:Gennifer Albin|4906436|Gennifer Albin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1324316045p2/4906436.jpg] creates a sharp male-dominated world and it's easy to see how awful and wrong it is. Women are kept in "their place" and not only have almost no rights but are forced to become an artificial version of what men would want them to be. But Albin doesn't amplify that view by portraying strong women that show how that world is more than unfair; it's tragic to diminish such interesting and dignified women.

I think the best things about this story were the premise of the world and her layered and complicated dynamic with Cormac, accented by both Jost and Erik. And despite my negative comments, those were enough to lift it from two stars to three so they worked pretty well.