Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
Summary
Finn lives inside Incarceron, which is a prison that is alive and watches the inmates within. Even though escape is supposed to be impossible, Finn is trying to escape. There is also Claudia, she is the daughter of the Warden of Incareceron, and betrothed to the prince and heir to the realm. She has dreaded this union ever since the other prince and heir died in a tragic accident.
Commentary
This story had a lot of intriguing parts to it, but the individual pieces didn't fit together all that well. The story itself was pretty predictable, which definitely undermined the novelty of the story concept. There is also a dystopian element to this story although it isn't as compelling as some of the other dystopians out right now particularly because it really wasn't the main part of the story.
The personification of the prison was creepy in a good way and is perhaps one of the best aspects of the book. We get to see some parts of the prison and how a diverse culture has been built up within its walls, which I can definitely see the thought put into it, although there isn't a whole lot of depth to the different groups. I also thought the characters were somewhat shallow (not vanity more in a character development sense) because I couldn't sympathize with them much.
Incarceron is an interesting read, but the problem may be that it's trying to attack too many moving targets at once. The outcome is a book which I don't want to stop reading, but feels lacking in depth..
Star Rating: 3.0/5.0
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4 comments: Jump to Comment Form
I remember liking this book a lot, and the sequel not so much. I do like that the main character is the prison, that was different :)
"feels lacking in depth"
Yup. I don't think the author did a good job with the characters, I didn't care for them so it fell flat.
@Samita I've read that the prison is supposed to be the prison, but I didn't get that when reading the book. Sure, there's info about it and it talks every once in awhile, but Palimpsest, which has something like that, did that so much better that I can't like Incarceron that much
Such a shame the author doesn't make the most of this interesting sounding plot! I probably would've read it; but predictability and shallow characters bug me. Cheers for the review!
This one is on my wishlist! I am really curious about this book, the prison sounds like an interesting construct and I like the creepy aspect.
Greetings,
Sarah
My latest review: http://misspageturnerscityofbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/book-review-divergent-divergent-1-by.html
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