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 as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to embroider the very fabric of life. 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 wove a moment at testing, and they’re coming for her—tonight.
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 stupid jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape.Because once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back. (From Goodreads)
In a really cool way, Gennifer Albin managed to take the concept of time and existence and mould it into something tangible. I loved the idea of the Spinsters and the way they create their own world. It's something really beautiful, but on the flipside it's unsettling. Because these women have the power to create and they also have the power to destroy. A person can literally be erased from existence just by having a girl rip their thread out of the tapestry.
I was totally sold on reading this book when I heard Gennifer Albin read a passage from the book. It was a scene where Adelice creates a thunderstorm. I'm a sucker for rain and thunder, and the writing was so gorgeous and vivid. I just had to know what else this book contained. It is a very beautifully written book. These scenes come to life effortlessly and there are some images, like the thunderstorms, that I just wish I could have stepped into.
I also loved the gender roles that are explored in this story. The women should have all the control, but they don't. The world literally would not exist without them, yet they still have little power. It's a little hard to understand how men got control in the first place, but they did and they're very good at keeping it. They're also great at making sure relationships either don't happen or end very badly, so everyone is scared just to love somebody. It's heartbreaking, but effective. Even the most powerful women have a hard time controlling their own lives, which is so backwards.
The other really cool thing about this book was the similarities it had with The Giver. I don't mean this in a rip-off way. I mean in a great tip-of-the-hat kind of way. There's the whole - I have to tell you all about this world and you will be the only one to bear this burden - thing going on. I think that's an important part of dystopian fiction that seems to get overlooked - only a handful of people really know about the secrets that created their society - a handful at the most - the stakes are higher when there are only two people.
This was a quick and enjoyable read. I'm a little worried about where it left off. I'm not entirely sure I'm going to like where book two goes, but I'll probably still keep going because there are some things I still want to know and Gennifer is a great writer. Whether you agree with me on the ending of book one or not, I do think it's definitely worth reading because it is a pretty wonderful novel.
