Well, Brightly Woven definitely wasn't another Darkest Minds. If I hadn't known beforehand, I'd have never guessed they were by the same author. But, to be fair, this WAS Bracken's debut novel, and I wasn't exactly expecting it to be quite on the same level as DM anyway. 
 All in all, it was an enjoyable read. The story was decent and the characters were likable enough. I was SO in love with the idea of a girl-with-mysterious-destiny-meets-wizard-and-travels-world story that I think I overlooked a lot of the book's shortcomings while I was reading. The book wasn't quite what I'd hoped it would be, but it was still enjoyable. 
 I think the main issue for me were the characters and character dynamics. First off, there's Sydelle, our heroine. She's nothing remarkable, but she's nice enough. There's a magical and mysterious secret about her that even she isn't aware of....but which I didn't feel was utilized enough in the story. After she finds out what kind of powers she has, she only uses them once, which was a little underwhelming. 
 Then we have Wayland North, our wizard. A cursed wizard, even better! But he falls a little flat, too. His character seems a little inconsistent. His relationship with Sydelle seems to move along at an uneven pace. They were at odds with each other and didn't start to come around as soon as I thought they should, but then when they DID decide they were interested in each other, it was too sudden. I was hoping for a warm fuzzy book, but there weren't too much in the way of warm fuzzy moments. 
 The sudden changes of heart were a problem with other characters too, mainly the Sorceress Imperial and the Queen. And Oliver. They went from being superior and borderline villainous to being allies all too quickly. (view spoiler)[I mean, first the queen ships Sydelle off to her enemies, and the next minute they're all buddies just because Dorwan attacked them? The queen didn't even apologize! Not to mention how Hecate (what kind of name is that, anyway?) was so anxious to go to war despite the evidence that Auster hadn't been the one to poison the king...but then she drops her plans once Auster's king is dead? She was just looking for an excuse to go to war anyway, why didn't she go ahead and do it? (hide spoiler)] 
 There were also plot points that weren't utilized enough, I felt. North's curse, for one. Sydelle's aptitude with elixers. And I felt a little cheated that, with all the time that went into reading about Sydelle weave that cloak, it was never really used. Not only that, I don't think North even thanked her for it. And not much ever came of the dream Sydelle had about the threads. A second book could easily fix all that by expanding on those points, but so far I don't think there are any plans for a sequel. 
 All in all, Brightly Woven is a decent book. It's a quick, safe read. The writing isn't bad, but it's a little unpolished. It's definitely more of a borrow-from-the-library book than a need-to-own book.