Crewel

Crewel - What do I want to tell you about Crewel? I know I want to mention how extremely original and well thought out the premise is. It certainly is one if the most creative ideas I have come across this year. But I also think, for some readers, it will be a little hard to suspend disbelief. That was me in the beginning. I eventually ended up loving this one quite a bit, but I can totally understand why some readers didn't care for this book. For the most part, the reviews I have been reading are WOW, but there are some that don't like it, and I get it.You have to somehow believe that this world that Adelice lives in is controlled by these girls that can weave the very fabric of the world they are living in. On a loom, in this...I guess it's a palace, that is cut off from the rest of the world and ran by the very corrupt government. And that only these girls have the ability and no one else. I guess they just evolved that way? They go to school in academies where they learn how to weave the fabric of life, but they supposedly already have the ability. But...how?The idea that these girls have the ability to remove/kill someone just by ripping a thread out of the loom, well it's a little hard to believe. I tried as hard as I could to just roll with it, and for the most part, I was able to. But if you really want to know where I deducted a star, it was because of this. As creative as the world-building is, it also has to make sense for it to work. And for me, it just did not. I felt like the author glazed over some descriptions that would really have helped me to understand it more. When Adelice goes to the coventry and they are teaching her things, I didn't feel like it was described for the reader very well. And there are some things later on that have to do with how the world of Arras came to be that I had issues with. Again, the explanations were very vague. I actually did love the world-building, but like i said in my status updates, I like my dystopian landscapes to have a foothold in reality, and this one just...it confused me. And most of the time, sense it did not make. Yet I kept turning pages. So it must have not been all that bad.Adelice is a well-developed character and I really did root for her. I loved how insubordinate she was and I loved how she stood up for herself. There were other characters I liked as well. My other favorite was Loricel. She was an older woman with a very important role who became a sort of mentor for Adelice. The villains were vile as they were supposed to be, but kind of one-dimensional. They were the typical villains you would find in an action move and a bit corny, I suppose, but it worked for me and they scared me enough that I was terrified for Adelice. Maybe it's not so much the antagonists that scared me, but the idea of this stifling, corrupt government. For Adelice, there was no chance of escape--nowhere to run--and for me, there was a very claustrophobic feeling running through this novel almost constantly.Now we get to the fun part. The love interests. Yes, there is a plural there. Yeah...there's a love triangle. I wish I could say that there wasn't, because it wasn't particularly well done. It wasn't bad either, it was just kind of there. The characters, Erik and Jost (that name!), aren't particularly well developed either. They were kind of flat and almost seem like they were added to the book last minute. I would have been perfectly fine if this book had not had a romance at all because the story was strong enough to carry the narrative without the added romance. Or just one love interest. That would have been better. Once again, I am not against love triangles if they serve a purpose in the story and are written with skill. This one was kind of meh and did nothing for me. But if you are going to make me choose, I choose Erik. I always root for the underdog.The story was suspenseful and the pacing was consistent. The writing was gorgeous and flowed well. I can easily recommend this book. I think the biggest problem most people will have with this one are the issues I had with the world-building. This is a dystopian novel, but because what went on would never actually happen, I consider it to be more fantasy than anything else. I guess maybe it seems that I did not like this book very much. But that is not the case. I kept the pages turning late into the night and I read this book faster than I do most. There were just little nitpicky issues I had here and there. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this one. Did you like it or did you not? Did you run into any of the same problems I had?